''Lurking Fear'' is a 1994

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

, loosely based on the

H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...

short story " The Lurking Fear". It was produced by

Charles Band Charles Robert Band (born December 27, 1951) is an American film producer and director, known for his work on horror comedy movies. Career Band entered film production in the 1970s with Charles Band Productions. Dissatisfied with distributo ...

Full Moon Entertainment Full Moon Features is an American independent motion picture production and distribution company headed by B-movie veteran Charles Band. It is known for the direct-to-video series '' Puppet Master'', '' Trancers'', and ''Subspecies'', as well as ...

and written and directed by C. Courtney Joyner. It’s an international co-production between the United States and Romania.

Plot

Ex-con John Martense ( Blake Adams) returns to his childhood home of Lefferts Corner after serving time for a crime he didn't commit. Martense visits family friend Knaggs (

Vincent Schiavelli Vincent Andrew Schiavelli (; November 11, 1948 – December 26, 2005) was an American character actor noted for his work on stage, screen, and television. Described as an "instantly recognizable sad-faced actor", he was diagnosed with Marfan sy ...

), a mortician who has been holding half of a map for him. The map leads to a graveyard where Martense's father hid the money from his last heist. Arriving at an abandoned church, Martense is confronted by Cathryn (

Ashley Laurence Ashley Laurence is an American actress and visual artist. She made her film debut in 1987 as the lead character, Kirsty (Hellraiser), Kirsty Cotton, in Clive Barker's horror film ''Hellraiser'' (1987), a role she later reprised in ''Hellbound: He ...

), a young woman seeking revenge for the murder of her sister, and town doctor Dr. Haggis (

Jeffrey Combs Jeffrey Alan Combs (born September 9, 1954) is an American actor. He is best known for starring as Herbert West in the ''Re-Animator'' film series (1985–2003) and portraying multiple characters in the ''Star Trek'' universe, most notably the ...

). This group is quickly joined by a trio of criminals who are looking to find the money John's father stole from them. What everyone is not aware of are the humanoid creatures lurking underneath the holy grounds.

Production

''Lurking Fear'' was shot in Romania.

Release

''Lurking Fear'' was released in July 1994. Director C. Courtney Joyner reflected on the release later, stating that "I was very hard on myself and upset after the film was completed and released." and that he was "surprised by how extraordinarily generous the reviews were. We ended up getting a very lucrative cable sale out of the Full Moon catalogue after the film was primarily out." Lurking Fear was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

by Wizard on Oct 23, 2012.

Critical reaction

The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' awarded the film a negative 1 out of 4 stars, criticizing the film's execution, and the one-note performances by the film's actors. Film critic

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

awarded the film 1 1/2 out of 4 stars calling the film "seedy", and "more derived from

Key Largo Key Largo () is an island in the upper Florida Keys archipelago and is the largest section of the keys, at long. It is one of the northernmost of the Florida Keys in Monroe County, and the northernmost of the keys connected by U.S. Highway ...

than H.P. Lovecraft's story". 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 ovecraftadaptations."

References

Sources

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lurking Fear, The (film) Films based on works by H. P. Lovecraft 1994 films 1994 horror films 1990s English-language films Films based on short fiction Films scored by Jimmy Manzie American Christmas horror films 1990s American films 1990s Christmas horror films Romanian horror films Films shot in Romania English-language Christmas horror films American monster movies 1990s monster movies 1994 science fiction films English-language science fiction horror films