Main cast: Sian Altman (Celine Leighton), Louis James (Rich), Sarah Alexandra Marks (April), Judy Tcherniak (Edda), George Nettleton (Nick), and Richard Harfst (Peter Leighton)
Director: Matthew BC
H.P. Lovecraft’s Monster Portal is brought to the poor, unsuspecting world by the same folks that served up the recently reviewed Croc! (2022) and so many others: producer Scott Jeffrey and his rotating cast members and screenwriters, all working together to come up with indie horror flicks that are cheaply made but still a few tiers above a Troma movie.
However, for the most part the films from 114 Feature Films are dreadfully earnest and even serious, just like this one, and that’s where all the problems stem from.
First, the plot, yes?
Peter Leighton has cancer, and instead of succumbing to it, he opts to be a willing sacrifice to some Elder God in an attempt to cross over to a parallel dimension where Cthulhu and friends throw a fun party.
Anyway, he’s now dead, and his home is passed on to his estranged daughter Celia. Celia and her boyfriend Rich, along with Rich’s good friend Nick and Nick’s girlfriend April make a visit to check out the place, and the presence of dead rabbits all over the ground doesn’t seem to make these people think, even for a second, that maybe it’s best to just stay the night at a comfy hotel.
The person playing Edda over-enunciates every word each time she speaks that it’s no shocker, I’m sure, that this weirdo is a bad guy. In fact, everyone is a bad guy aside from the four main characters, so it’s not like this one is full of suspense.
This is a problem because this movie is just a bit over 80 minutes, and yet, nothing really happens until the one hour mark.
That’s right, in the classic “Please just think of this movie as slow burn, because we burned all our budget on renting the property, catering, and more!” maneuver used by so many low-budget horror films, this one chooses to focus interminably on the main foursome.
This won’t be so bad if they weren’t also so freaking boring and forgettable. Celine’s only personality is moping orphan, Rich is the one-dimensional nice boyfriend, Nick is the resident jerk, and I’m not sure what April is supposed to be or do here. Maybe Sarah Alexandra Marks had been paid a lump sum to appear in a certain number of movies, so she’s contractually obligated to show up here even if her character had nothing of use to the overall story.
So, one hour of them moping, doing mundane things, indulging in tedious prattle, and walking around the big house. I supposed one good thing about this part is that the folks behind the movie don’t resort to cheap jump scares, but unfortunately, they resort to absolutely nothing else that is of even a passing interest.
The last 20 minutes are okay, I guess, although the woo-woo stuff that happens feel straight-up by the book Baby’s First Lovecraft stuff, right down to the “cliffhanger” ending.
Still, those last 20 minutes feel like pure gold compared to the interminable bore that is everything leading up to that point!
This one could have been a passable, if somewhat predictable, cosmic horror film if it had just been a short film focusing on those last 20 minutes.
As it is, though, I’m not sure if most people would have the patience to endure the tedious first hour to reach those last 20 minutes, and even if they did, they may still end up feeling underwhelmed anyway.
