gavin6942 The town of Leffert's Corners has been plagued by unearthly beings for decades, and now there is only a few people left, including the local priest and a woman traumatized by the death of her sister. But when John Martense turns up to claim his illicit family fortune, with bad guys in pursuit, the last stand had become a lot more complicated.Let me say that this film has a great cast, and pretty good creature effects. One gets the impression that had this not been a Full Moon film, it might have actually been alright.In their book Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft, Andrew Migliore and John Strysik write: "As with many Full Moon films, Lurking Fear's trailer is better than the feature it promotes. That's unfortunate because Joyner had a wonderful professional cast who, with a cleaned-up script and a hands-on producer, could have made the film a standout among (Lovecraft) adaptations." Yep, exactly. Instead, it's boring and poorly put together, and looks even cheaper than it probably is. (And, knowing Full Moon, probably half the crew was working for free.)Michael Doyle is a bit more kind, saying the film "preserves Lovecraft's themes of madness, inbreeding and hereditary degeneration", but is quick to assert that the film "does nothing particularly remarkable with them." He asks the question we all must ask: in the hands of Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli, could this have been another Lovecraft gem rather than the disposable mess that it is?

Paul Andrews Lurking Fear starts as small time crook John Martense (Blake Adams) is released from prison after serving five years, he heads straight for a funeral parlour run by Knaggs (Vincent Schiavelli) whom is in possession of one half of a map that reveals the location of a buried body stuffed full of money & John has the other half. Together the two pieces reveal that John's father buried the body in a cemetery in his home town of Lefferts Corner, armed with the information he needs John heads off to find the town although the casino boss who John's father stole the money from in the first place is in hot pursuit. Once at Lefferts Corner things take an unexpected turn when a group of locals inside the Church are planning to rid the town of underground creatures who like eating the local population, John becomes involved as to get the money & save his own life he has to do battle with the creatures too...Written & directed by C. Courtney Joyner based on the short story of the same name by H.P. Lovecraft it seems that Lurking Fear is one of three filmed adaptations including Dark Heritage (1989) & the Rutger Hauer flick Bleeders & while Lurking Fear retains Lovecraft's original title unlike the other two it's perhaps the least faithful of the three & has no real connection to the short story other than feature a guy called Martense & underground creatures. Lurking Fear is almost a great film, every aspect is almost great but not quite, the character's are good & while I appreciate that there are no teenagers here & the cast are proper adults some feel like they are making the numbers up, while the story is good it never quite reaches the heights you hope for with the crime aspect not going anywhere (no-one gets the money) & there's no reasoning behind the underground creatures like where they came from or why they stay underground & there are little subplots like the religious angle where the Priest's faith is tested but again nothing is done with it. The set-up is good with various character's trapped fighting off flesh eating creatures outside but again you just hope for a bit more, the attack scenes are few & far between, there's never more than or two creatures on screen at once & aspects of the plot don't make much sense like why hasn't anyone stood up to these creatures before or why didn't anyone call the army or police & didn't anyone ever notice all the people going missing from that town? At a little over 70 minutes Lurking Fear is short, it's brisk & moves along at a good pace but you just can't help but feel a little disappointed at the end since this could have been great, I still enjoyed it & thought it was good but it should have been better.Lurking Fear has a good atmosphere about it, the dark night, the thunder storm, the dark underground tunnels full of creatures & a traditional Church as a setting but there's not much gore & while the make-up on the creatures are good we never see more than a couple. The ending also features some impressive & pretty big explosions. This was executive produced by Charles Band who was going to make it under his Empire Pictures company with Stuart Gordon directing (who is a bit of a H.P. Lovecraft expert now having already directed Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986), Castle Freak (1995) & Dagon (2001) which are based on stories by him) before it went belly up & Full Moon Entertainment produced it.Made on a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 this has good production values, good effects, a decent cast & it actually feels like a horror film. Although set in the US this was filmed in Romania. The acting is pretty good with Ashley Laurence & genre favourite Jeffrey Combs the most familiar faces here.Lurking Fear is a film that is almost great, as it is it's still good but you can't help but feel a little bit more time & money Lurking Fear could have been a classic. I liked it & would recommend it especially to horror fans & those who like dark Gothic stories.

Cemetarygirl I watched this and enjoyed it. I am a Lovecraft fan and found that this was a reasonable rendition of Lovecraft's work. I thought the monsters where good and clearly defined, and not, as in a lot of cheap flicks, hidden from view to save on the cost of making an effort. When the family, re-emerged I was surprised and would have liked that bit to be a little longer. This piece (due to budget-I guess) was an ensemble piece and could even work on the stage if anyone wished to do a live version. Novelty theatre, now that would be good. I enjoyed the heroine, although the script suffered in this area for predictability. (Get out the how to book, on "How to" have a woman against man battle of wits and "Easy one liners for anyone" ) Even a book on "Your turn to have the weapon." But all in all a reasonable time was had by me. I would also like to further mention the wonderful Coombs' whose part could have been an inch or two bigger. A man who always manages to make me smile at his antics and cool one liners. So don't expect an Oscar or two but enjoy the ride and revel in the undead or dead or whoever they are.

Rabensblut I am big fan of horror films, I saw tons of them, some of them were good some were bad. One of my friends advised me to see this one pointing that it is H.P.Lovecraft based horror film.1. I know quite all the stories of the Master himself, but this had nothing to do with none of them. Maybe the plot reminded me of shadow over Innsmouth, where the boy finds out, that he is a part of this strange community and one day he is going to be like them. So please do not take it as HPL. If U want to see some HPL just take Dagon, that is real HPL influenced film.2.The acting was not for Oscar nomination, but what do You want for a low budget flick. Jeffrey Combs is excellent, but anyway also the others did a good job. I saw that this film was made in Romania, I recognized this Pintea guy from Vlad Nemoritorul (Dracula - The Impaler) film, playing the undertaker with the scratched face.3. The explosions - not every company has the money to do a great explosion. According to this, they did quite good job.4. The ghouls - Very well made. I have to say they looked very good and realistic. Nice work.5. The Gore - Not every film has to be as Lucio Fulci, but anyway here it was quite optimal. The only gore scene was that one with the heart. Or maybe I had a shorter version of the film so the gore scenes were cut out. Mine has 1:29.