Lurking Fear

Full Moon Entertainment

Beyond Home Entertainment

R4 DVD

This film has a history that goes back to its initial release on VHS in 1994 and you could expect it to look a little dated by now. It doesn’t. Due to the good storyline (and, I suspect, to the minimal use of special effects) it is still a well-made horror movie. It is supposedly based on a 1923 story by legendary horror writer H P Lovecraft although opinions vary on how loosely the story has been translated.

The little town of Leffert’s Corners is almost deserted now. The town is beset by ghouls that live in a tunnel complex beneath the cemetery and the town. Any unsuspecting new arrival is likely to become their prey, but now a group of people has converged on the town and a confrontation is going to leave many of them dead. There is the local girl with the crates of explosives. She intends to reclaim the town by blowing up the tunnel complex and to this end she has wired up the cemetery with tripwires and booby traps. She is being helped, reluctantly, by the local alcoholic doctor. A young ex-criminal, John Martense, just out of prison, has come to the town to recover money buried in the cemetery by his late father. The money is hidden in a corpse buried years ago. Members of his father’s criminal gang are also in town. They, naturally, are after the money as well. A young pregnant girl is taking refuge in the church because she feels the ghouls will take her baby. They have already killed her sister.

The town’s original ghoul is an ancestor of John Martense. He is on rather delicate terms with the local priest. They seem to tolerate each other, although the priest’s constant whining prayers to the Lord to take him instead of the townspeople left me wishing the Martense ghoul would do just that.

The group is trapped in the church when the ghouls attack. Although they have some chance of defending themselves while they stay in the building, the leader of the criminal gang still wants the money and forces John Martense out into the cemetery to dig up the body and recover “his” money. The balance of power changes in the besieged church as one by one the group is picked off by the ghouls. It will take a certain amount of heroism or suicidal stupidity to eliminate them now and with the survivors bickering with each other this seems unlikely to happen.

The story is well constructed and as mentioned doesn’t rely too much on special effects. The ghouls’ makeup is brilliant. The film is mercifully free of most of the clichés like the “zombies chase the heroes through the graveyard”. Those clichés that exist may well have been the scenes that other filmmakers copied later.

The feeling of horror is built up carefully as the group simply cannot unite to fight the common menace. Their deaths are largely a result of this failure to cooperate and there were times when I wished I could bang their heads together to knock some sense into them. There are no sympathetic characters in the film. Most are just out to get what they can of the money. It is this that gives the ghouls their edge at first.

The quality of the transfer to DVD is a little soft, but otherwise OK. Considering its age, this is a great film of its genre and it is still a good watch.

(VHS cover shown, DVD art not finalized at time of review)

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