Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

16 May 2008

The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter, dir. Jean-Paul Oullette (1993)

NIKKI says:
Pony-Woman is back! Only she's slightly grosser because the beautiful woman inside her is now outside of her and she's just a raging demon.

Again, I found myself liking this one. Again, it's got much to do with the characters, who return (complete with original actors) to sort out,once and for all, this problem with the "unnamable" creature.

Here, Carter finds a way to free Alyda Winthrop from the clutches of the creature, thus offering her a chance to spend her last days as a regular person. This means, for her, running about nude until age catches up and she shrivels to a skeleton. It means, for Carter, that he can harness the evil and rescue mankind.

There is much running and chasing, and lots of scenes with Howard looking confused. But it's not so bad. I liked Lovecraft Week, even with The Curse. Makes me want to read the stories a bit more, and seek out some other adaptations.

2.5/5

STEVE says:
This was an unsuccessful sequel to a not-so-successful-in-the-first-place Lovecraft adaptation, but at least the first one bore some resemblance to the story that inspired it. Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter has the unenviable task of not only measuring up to the original film, but also being an adaptation of another story altogether, one that has nothing to do with The Unnamable.

The story is meant to pick up where the last one left off, with Tanya being helped into the back of a police cruiser, Damon being loaded into an ambulance, and Carter trying to get the police to believe his mad story of The Unnamable. Nevermind that that's not how the first one ended at all. The Unnamable ended with Damon, Carter and Tanya practically skipping back to town, Necronomicon snuggled tightly under Carter's arm. Here, Tanya is nearly catatonic - and never seen again after the opening sequence - and Howard (which is now the character's surname, as the movie insists he is Eliot Damon Howard instead of Howard Damon, as in the first film) having been mauled by the Unnamable beast in the house. This is a plot device, apparently, to get Howard to the hospital where he's visited by a ghost in a very Lovecraft-cum-Dickens twist.

Silliness abounds for the next hour and a half plus, and John Rhys-Davies and David Warner pick up their paychecks. It wasn't as bad as The Curse, but - to borrow a line from Huey Lewis & The News' much overlooked third track on their breakout album Sports - Bad is Bad.