Review: Cthulhu Mansion (1992)

Directed by: Juan Piquer Simón
Starring: Frank Finlay, Brad Fisher, Melanie Shatner
Written by: Juan Piquer Simón
Music by: Tim Souster
Country: Spain
Available on: Blu-ray (Vinegar Syndrome)
IMDb

Against all odds and reason, I find myself a pretty big fan of Juan Piquer Simón’s work in the horror genre. Pieces (1982) is an absolute classic of trashy midnight cinema; Slugs (1988) is a campy, gory, gooey party; and The Rift (1990) is a perfectly fine underwater action/body horror flick with just enough tinges of that Simón weirdness. So, I had some pretty high hopes for additional bloody bizarreness when Vinegar Syndrome announced they were releasing his 1992 movie, Cthulhu Mansion, about a group of young punk criminals who hide out in a magician’s spooky mansion until the heat from a drug deal gone awry dissipates. The magician’s tricks, of course, have a pretty arcane and diabolical source, as everyone soon discovers. Somewhat to my dismay, I discovered that Cthulhu Mansion is actually pretty well made by the director’s standards. There aren’t nearly as many questionable character choices as films past and most of the acting — outside of Brad Fisher, who’s doing his best beer-belly Bill Paxton impression — is solid, or at least not hysterically awful. It’s nice to see Simón regular Frank Braña pop up in a mute role, though; his dense eyebrows and frigid eyes are like a comforting shawl. Though H.P. Lovecraft’s best-known creation is right there in the movie’s title, there is very little here to actually tie the events to the author or his beloved mythos. There is a distinct lack of indescribable eldritch beings from the seas/cosmos and portals to dimensions of madness. There is some otherworldly spookiness in the form of a writhing mists; veil-draped ghosts; hairy long-fingered demon hands that live in the refrigerator; a gloopy, pustuled demon, and some sort of not-easily-identifiable squirmy monster that arises from a crack in the earth to snag a few seconds of screen time. But the gore and ludicrous tangents that defined the director’s other work are scant here, and that’s unfortunate. Still, for a horror flick made when the tides were turning away from creature effects, Cthulhu Mansion is a pleasant enough jaunt that never gets too close to boredom, and, while it’s not a high point, it’s no blemish on Simón’s resume.

Overall rating: 6 out of 10