Edward De LaPoer in Necronomicon

Long before before Stephen King, there was H.P. Lovecraft. Only Edgar Allan Poe and C.L. Moore have matched Lovecraft in the arcane art of horror

and the bizarre. Lovecraft's tales were so baroquely, intricately, mind-numbingly horrific that few attempts to render them on screen have succeeded. Most have been pale and pathetic compared to the original. How do you translate psychological horror, terror beyond words, onto the screen? Scary monsters are not enough. [But they help.] This version of one of Lovecraft's best tales, The Necronomicon succeeds better than most, in some large part due to the excellent acting as well as, let's be honest here, the Really Scary Monsters. Oh yes. Very scary. You have no idea...

In Part I ("The Drowning") of a set of three stories set within a story, Bruce Payne plays Edward De LaPoer, the last of the De LaPoer line, who has returned from Sweden not only to claim title to the crumbling remains of the family estate but also to escape his own haunted

memories. The estate, once a hotel, has been vacant for 60 years and is full of ugly memories and, as we will see, other ugly things too. As Edward is shown the deteriorating hotel by Ms. Gallmore, the attorney handling the De LaPoer estate, he sees a portrait of a beautiful woman with haunting blue eyes and asks who she is. Ms. Gallmore informs Edward that the woman is his aunt, Emma De LaPoer, who died quite young, quite tragically, and under mysterious circumstances.

…While standing on the balcony overlooking the sea, Edward is also told of the mysterious death of his uncle, Jethro De LaPoer. Did he slip and fall from this balcony or did he jump? As Edward stares despondently into the sea, with waves crashing onto the rocks, his mind travels to his own haunting tragedy. He thinks back to a happy, carefree time when he and his beautiful wife Clara were out for a drive, wind blowing through their hair, laughing, enjoying life and enjoying being together. Wrapped up in the moment, Edward failed to pay attention to his driving, ran off the road, and crashed into the sea. His beloved Clara did not survive. Edward is so eaten up by guilt that he is barely surviving himself.

No wonder that when Edward discovers an arcane secret buried within this creaky old house, he succumbs to the dark side

As the attorney departs, she gives Edward a letter, sealed for 60 years, written by his late uncle Jethro. It tells of Jethro’s tragedy—how his wife Emma and his son were lost at sea in a capsized boat. Stricken

with grief, just as Edward now is, Jethro is visited by a mysterious stranger, a hideous sea creature covered in dripping slime and seaweed. This should have been a clue but no, the plot requires that people not catch on, remember? The stranger gives Jethro a book entitled “The Book of the Dead,” which gives instructions on performing a ritual to awaken the dead. Oh yes, indeed, the ceremony gives life to the dead but at an unspeakably horrible cost. Jethro's wife and son return as hideously grotesque sea monsters themselves. The last message Jethro leaves in his letter before taking his own life by jumping over that balcony is “my beloved guards the book.”

So overwrought with grief and guilt is Edward that he cannot see the real message of the letter. Leave that which is dead dead. Do not fool with the darker powers for they are stronger than you… But then, if everyone were sensible, Lovecraft would have no story, would he? Edward discovers the book --indeed guarded by the beloved wife Emma —for it is behind her portrait. Needless to say, at this point, he reads the book and he too performs the ritual. Do we need to say what happens next? You won’t be surprised.

Edward raises Clara from the dead, only to discover that the same horrible fate has befallen her. Alas, people take a while to learn

their lessons in these morality tales. No longer the beautiful wife he loved so tenderly, she has become a loathsome, repellent and thoroughly terrifying sea creature, with dripping slime and tentacles that project from her eyes. At this point, Edward is having very serious misgivings. Her tentacles wrap themselves around Edward's neck in an attempt to drag him back with her to the watery grave from whence she came. Edward definitely changes his mind at this juncture. Very seriously changes it.

Now here’s where Lovecraft outdoes King, in our opinion. Clara, now a demonic creature who has taken the form of gigantic octopus with razor sharp teeth, stinging tentacles that cause instantaneous death, and a horrid cyclops eye in the middle of its putridly oozing head, comes after Edward bigtime. Edward bravely fights for his very existence, fighting off the creature, swinging from the massive chandelier with sword in hand, and finally spearing the hellish creature in its eye. But in destroying this demon, Edward also dispels the demons that have haunted him. He is at last redeemed, a bittersweet ending not always characteristic of Lovecraft, whose endings were often far more creepy and disturbing.

If we have not been quite as flip in describing this story as we have in our telling of Warlo

ck III and Passenger 57, it is partly out of respect for Lovecraft, partly out of respect for the serious psychological message this tale explores. Life goes only forward, there is no turning back. Let the past slip away, go on with your life. That’s a message worth hearing a few more times for all of us.

Bruce does exquisite justice to the many facets of this tale, portraying its many emotions —grief, guilt, longing, desperation, horror, and, finally, courage and determination, with compelling conviction. Few actors can convey such a range of emotions so well. It’s one of

Bruce’s strengths. A story that could easily have slipped into a silly caricature, Lovecraft’s storytelling talents notwithstanding, was saved by Bruce’s skills as an actor.

Trust us, the fact that we have told you the whole story will not prevent you from enjoying this film if you have not already seen it. The storyline itself is fairly predictable. What makes this film worthwhile is the skill of Bruce’s acting, the message of the story, and, well, the grotesquely terrifying monsters are kind of fun too.

           Sorry but my toothbrush was                        Gee, I'm having trouble with
           lost at sea                                                   my contact lens today

This is no fish story, you can find more
Necronomicon and Edward De Lapoer below: