On VHS:
Stage magician Frank Finlay wants to become a real magickian. In the stacks of an antique bookshop he finds what appears to be a pamphlet or an old grimoire with the covers torn off. It is never identified as the Necronomicon, even though it is full of arcane-looking sigils and diagrams, and has the word Cthulhu printed on the front page in a big, bold, scary-looking typeface. This book is apparently his introduction to real magick, which he practices poorly, since he inadvertently sets his wife on fire during a working in the opening sequence of the film. Finlay reads incantations from the book in his impressively sonorous voice, but they are snatches of quasi-Qaballistic ritual in pidgin Latin and Hebrew, not R'lyehian. The film is also infested with ineptly used Satanic and other magickal imagery.
In the course of the film, the magician/magickian and his daughter are car jacked by a gang of obnoxious young thugs who force him to take them back to his sinister mansion where they all predictably get killed in predictably ugly and\or silly ways. Finlay's acting talent is totally squandered on this grade Z barf-bag special.
In the opening credits, J.P. Simon (Boy, that name sounds familiar!) declares that this film is "inspired by the writings of H. P. Lovecraft." Honestly, I can't see how it was inspired by anything, much less Lovecraft. This is one of the most uninspired horror movies I've ever seen. The plot has nothing whatsoever to do with the Mythos and use of the word "Cthulhu" in the title is undoubtedly a cheap shot at selling the movie by exploiting Lovecraft's name.
On VHS:
1998 © John Wisdom Gonce III. All rights reserved.