Azathoth (Evil Tape) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ This Italian short from Nightmare Video is surprisingly effective. The special effects in the second half are outstanding both in their execution and in what (I believe) they were attempting to portray. That it was shot in 1990 is especially surprising since it's basic premise will sound quite familiar to fans of Ringu, the recent Japanese horror phenomenon. Our main character is given a copy of an audio tape by a member of a metal band. Once he listens to it bad stuff starts happening. I mean bleeding from your ears bad. In a nice bit of pop culture referencing,
our hereo's pain is intercut with footage of Disney's Scrooge McDuck
battling a giant octopus from an episode of Duck Tales. But that's
all you'll see of Cthulhu in this film; the folks at Nightmare Video
decide to go for gold and bring us Azathoth itself. With the few suggestive
glimpses we are given a wonderfully nasty image is easily constructed.
While the short film does veer into Hellraiser territory a
little bit, it certainly doesn't detract from the film's effectiveness. Crawling Chaos Pictures H.P. Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep Propping Up the Mythos |
review © Christian Matzke 2003
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