Director/Screenplay – Chad Ferrin, Based on the Writings of H.P. Lovecraft, Producers – Chad Ferrin & Robert Miano, Photography/Title Animation – Jeff Billings, Music – Richard Band, Visual Effects – Jeff Billings & Joe Castro, Stop-Motion Animation/Special Effects – Jeff Leroy, Makeup Effects – Joe Castro, Production Design – Bob Sankey. Production Company – Crappy World Films/Laurelwood Pictures.
Cast
Robert Miano (Russel Marsh), Benjamin Philip (Gideon Gordon), Timothy Muskatell (Randolph Carter), Cyril O’Reilly (Cabby ‘Buck’ Hooper), Brandon Kirk (Reeves), Elli Rahn (Crawford Tillinghast), Jerry Irons (Legrasse), Scott Vogel (Dan Gordon), Rico E. Anderson (Nyarlathotep), Jon Budinoff (Nadine), Kurt Bonzell (Philip Morita), Roger Garcia (Finlay), Kelli Maroney (Ambrose Zadok), Sylvia Spross (Amelia Marsh)
Plot
Dan Gordon and his son Gideon are on a camping trip along the Arroyo Seco River when Gideon fishes a man out of the water. The man introduces himself as Russel Marsh and makes the incredible claim that he was born in 1865. He been kept alive because he was possessed by an Old One after being lost at sea in 1930. Russell warns they must leave only for the Old Ones appear out of the water and kill Dan. As Gideon watches, Russell kills the Old One and then takes various body parts from it. Russell makes him drive as they set out on a quest for him to find Crawford Tillinghast so that he can use his Resonator to travel back in time to 1930 and prevent events from happening. However, they are pursued the whole way by Old Ones that have possessed human form.
H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an author writing in the 1920s and 30s who created a fascinating body of work that broods with a sense of cosmic horror. His stories centre around scientists uncovering forbidden knowledge, elder gods slumbering and awaiting to be released, ancient prehistoric races emerging and the like. There have been numerous adaptations of Lovecraft on film – see Lovecraftian Films and bottom of the page for a more detailed listing. The 2000s/2010s brought a number of creative offerings from enthusiasts and fans. In the 2020s, these have started to be made on cheaper budgets or where Lovecraft has been used a brand name often plastered above the title of a work that has little or no connection to his works.
Minnesota-based director Chad Ferrin has maintained a modest career down the low-budget independent end of the market since the start of the 2000s. Ferrin first appeared with the psycho film Unspeakable (2000) and then went onto The Ghouls (2003), Easter Bunny Kill! Kill! (2006), Someone’s Knocking at the Door (2009) about demonic rapists, the Death Row horror The Chair (2016), Parasites (2016) about killer homeless people, the gonzo comedy Exorcism at 60,000 Feet (2020), Night Caller (2021) with a phone psychic against a serial killer and its sequel Scalper (2023), and the True Crime Pig Killer (2022).
Ferrin had previously ventured into Lovecraft with H.P. Lovecraft’s The Deep Ones (2020) and subsequent to this with Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep (2024). The Deep Ones was very loosely based on Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1936), whereas The Old Ones appears to be a mash-up of Lovecraft themes and characters. Various Lovecraft characters turn up – there is Randolph Carter who appears in The Statement of Randolph Carter (1920) and several other Lovecraft stories, reference to ghasts and an appearance from Nyarlathotep, an Elder God in several Lovecraft stories. Crawford Tillinghast from From Beyond (1934) turns up at the end but we now learn that his Resonator is also a time machine.
Rico E. Anderson as Nyarlathotep with stomach portal
Much of what happens throughout H.P. Lovecraft’s The Old Ones seems to involve not much more than Robert Miano saying a bunch of Lovecraftian terms and explanations at Benjamin Philip – the necessity to do this or go and see this person, while tearing up bodies and keeping heads and bones as souvenirs. There are times things just get silly. One of these is the stop off at a diner that involves people sitting in an SUV saying things in a hoarse voice while placing their hands on the heads of others and then Robert Miano singing and somehow taking control of the minds of the two diner staff, ending with a very lame fight in the parking lot. Amidst this, Jon Budinoff for no apparent reason plays the waitress as a bearded man in a dress and turquoise eyeliner.
Chad Ferrin makes his films on a low-budget. This results in some at times rubbery looking creature effects. Not to mention The Old Ones opens on some very crappy low-fi animation that does not bode well for the rest of the proceedings ie. when you put some of the worst stuff at the start of the film, most people are going to make their mind up about what is to follow right there and then. There is however one completely demented scene where Rico E. Anderson opens up his robes to reveal his stomach is an organic maw and tells Robert Miano and Benjamin Philip that it is a portal they have to crawl through to get to their destination.
