Friday, July 1, 2016

Dark Heritage (1989)

Dark Heritage (1989) dir. David McCormick,  Cornerstone Films/Sterling Pictures





As the 80's wore on, Lovecraft's works had managed to earn a tidy niche in the horror market. "The Lurking Fear" was one of his longer stories, but there had no attempt to adapt it to the screen....until 1989. The story of strange horrors lurking in the Catskills had plenty of Lovecraft's New England horror and strange beings crawling into our world.
Northern Louisiana has been plagued by a series of grisly deaths. The police are writing all of them off as simple wolf attacks. Dozens and dozens of wolves, working across the state. Reporter Clint
Harrison (Mark LaCour) wants to cover the story, but his editor Mr. Daniels (Eddie Moore) squashes that. No, what the public needs to know is what is going on at the Dansen House, so Harrison is to spend the night there.

Yes, the Dansen House is quite the hotbed of activity, being the site of a series of murders some 150 years ago that were never solved. Giving Harrison a camera and two redshirts from the printing department, Daniels sees them after telling Harrison he was crazy to take such assignment and nothing good can come from going there.

Aside from the camera, the trio is also armed to the teeth. Apparently newspapers had armories back in the 80's.

The Dansen House, which hasn't been lived in for about 100 years, looks pretty darn good. The grounds are also in good shape. The grass is tall, but considering there should be a century of growth it almost looks like someone is still living there. But that would just be silly.

Harrison is woken up in the middle of the night by something lurking at the window. His companions are also gone and the camera is destroyed. When Harrison reports back to Mr. Daniels, his boss seems more concerned that Harrison didn't spend the entire night. Also, he thinks he may have murdered the other two guys.

Rewarded with three weeks pay, Harrison decides that the so-called wolf attacks and the shenanigans at the Dansen House are connected. Rounding up two more volunteers, Harrison heads back to the mansion . Discovering a series of tunnels under the house, they also discover that the Dansen House wasn't as empty as previously thought. The owners don't mind though, as they love having guests for dinner...


Not the worst thing I've seen, but the nearly amateur cast coupled with being shot on video does make the film pale pretty darn hard when compared to the Lovecraft films that came before.



 













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