REVIEW: The Unnamable (Jean-Peal Oullette, 1988)

Let's get this out of the way.  The Unnamable is not a good movie, not in any sense of the word "good."  Or the word "movie."  The film thieves H. P. Lovecraft's short story title while writing a completely different narrative, and its narrative is one of the dullest to come out of the eighties.  College kids dare themselves to spend a night in a haunted house.  A monster eats most of them.  Cue credits.  The characters are not interesting, the ending makes no sense.  Misjudged doesn't quite cover it, especially when tree branches chafe a monster to death in the climax.

Look at this rubber spider.  Look at it.

Yet.

Yet, it's not awful.  Why?  Because...I don't know.  Give me a second.

Okay.  Found my notes.

Because Randolph Carter's an interesting character.  Mark Kinsey Stephenson plays the man as disinterested and clinical, intrigued only when discussing matters of history, and yet he's the one character who's endearing.  His stubborn lack of affection is a unique character trait, more enjoyable to watch than the puppy dog eyes of hero Howard (Charles Klausmeyer) or the idiot jocks who think that, you know what, tonight is a great night to break into the spooky old mansion on the edge of campus.

Why do that when they could read musty old books?

Because the monster design is kinda cool.  There was no way to adapt Lovecraft's extradimensional sludge-entity, so the creative team went in a different direction, crafting a pallid, hoofed she-demon who leers and stalks with grace.  Most creature design in B-pictures fails to impress.  This impresses.  Granted, the unnamable beast spends too much time striking poses and tossing around heroes - ever notice how death foreplay increases in direct proportion to how important the victim is?  Personal hero Tom Servo once observed that monsters could get a lot more done if they didn't "revel after each small victory."

I could kill you, but I'll play with you until the film runs out of time.

Because it's stylish at times.  The overall style of the picture works reasonably well.  A lot of deep shadows, plenty of browns and blues inside the Gothic manse.  One impressive scene features a couple having sex, and the girl, while slamming a door to the rhythm of lovemaking, dislodges a head from the doorway.  It rolls down and lands next to her right as she's about to...well, let's be honest, this genre isn't exactly noted for its good taste.  Even then, ever notice how hypocritical slashers are?  Whatever empowerment a heroine gains is undone by the fact that she must never enjoy sex.

Stop it!

That's about it, though, and I'm left to wonder why we keep seeing people run through hallways, trying to escape, when there are enormous windows in every single room.

Films like this frustrate me a lot more than something unapologetically shoddy, like the recently reviewed Lurking Fear.  That film's outsized craptitude makes it both dismissible and good for some chuckles.  There was rarely a sense that anyone took the material seriously.  The Unnamable is just good enough to clarify how much it sucks.  One final note.  The title makes sense in the original story, when the creature is shifting in and out of our dimension.  Here, why not call the movie Attack of the Albino Goat-Vixen?

RATING: C-