Each Friday we will be bringing you weekend-viewing movie picks available for streaming on Netflix! From the popular to the obscure, we will browse Netflix’s Streaming library so you don’t have to, and bring you what we consider to be “Must Watch” selections!
The Whisperer in Darkness
Directed by Sean Branney
Starring Matt Foyer and Barry Lynch
The Whisperer in Darkness is everything you would expect from a movie produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. This movie is a fairly faithful adaptation from the short story, which can be both a benefit and an occasional hindrance. The small sections of new, original material help to pad out what would have been a short, unsatisfying film.
Like so many Lovecraft stories, Whisperer is narrated by our hero, Albert Wilmarth, college professor and milquetoast nerd. Wilmarth has been receiving unbelievable accounts of strange creatures harassing a farmer and his family in backwoods Vermont. The farmer’s son crashes Wilmarth’s party and gives him equally questionable photographs. Being a shy widower with nothing better to do, Wilmarth decides to visit the farmer, but the farmer receives him with suspicious reservations and hints of things to come.
Wilmarth soon discovers that large, mechanical crustaceans from outer space are removing people’s brains and keeping them alive in jars full of magic brain Gatorade! The cosmic crabs also want to open a door between our world and theirs. Wilmarth is scared of bodily harm and physical activity, but he must un-bunch his panties in order to save a young girl from her violently pessimistic father and put the kibosh on the space crab séance.
For all of the places this film could have stumbled, it more often than not stays on its feet. The creative team behind this film knew what makes Lovecraft fun and they did a nice job of interpreting his extravagantly baroque, obtuse style. I actually liked the addition of a biplane dogfight with the sea creatures from the stars.
Had H.P. Lovecraft been extroverted enough to work in Hollywood instead of dying in frustrated poverty, he would have written this film.
This week’s Friday ‘Flix Pick was submitted by Nick Burke. Be sure to check him out over at Paper Wasp!