dutchchocolatecake Good props, good scenery, good make up job on the ghouls, and adequate music. The female characters had minds of their own, which is a plus, except for the pregnant woman who had to do little else but sit around and scream hysterically. Jeffrey Combs is always a treat. However, casting Jeffrey Combs doesn't make a film good. Dunwich Horror, 2009 did not have to happen if they had learned from the mistakes of this movie. I'm like any other Lovecraft fan - I'll take what I can get and am willing to look past a lot to widen my collection. But dang, this film sucks. It didn't have to, either, because it could have been salvageable had they tweaked the plot a little, rounding out the main characters and scrapping the film noir grave robbing subplot nobody cared about anyway.There's too much going on and not enough context to put it all in. The action scenes were unbelievable and contrived to the point of being comedic. Maybe they should have taken a cue from the Evil Dead franchise and hammed it up for the laughs. No, this is a film that took itself way too seriously. Lots of posturing and gun waving machismo to make anyone with half a brain want to rip that stupid plastic gun out of their hands just to get to the next scene.None of the characters were written well enough to care about, so when they were picked off I just blinked and glanced at the clock. That's a shame, too, because the actors themselves weren't the problem. Their script just wasn't worth two sifts out a litter box.But this is what happens when movie makers try to do more with a film than what they actually can. This movie did not need any time fillers, nor did it need a garbled plot to gain/keep interest. What it needed was an improved story-line with well written characters. They never did explain how the Martin family got to be the way they were, and why they would meet an ugly death. That would have been far more interesting than the other nonessential subplots they put into this movie.Just as a side note: If you don't know how to choreograph and splice together believable action scenes; scrap them all together and work in a couple of good chase scenes instead. I think that was the main problem with this movie - too many badly executed action scenes and not enough ambiance. This didn't feel like a horror movie at all.

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.

andreygrachev In my opinion this film is really good filming of HP Lovecraft I really like most of the film. It includes a lot of effects and the underground creatures look really great here. SO, people who enjoyed Rreanimator will see cool Jeffrey Combs here. He plays a doctor and plays great.This Full Moon film is rather cool. The story includes some bandits seeking for money , a group of people fighting against terrific monsters who live under the ground of a church with priest who tries to help them.They want to destroy the world of immortal monsters who eat humans and live under one cemetery. They brought dynamite and are preparing to explode the church and cemetery when money-seeking bastards come and the mess starts.Great , although it is still far beyond Lovecraft's original style.www.myspace.com/neizvestnostlab

Backlash007 ~Spoiler~ When I first watched Lurking Fear, I agreed with the other Lovecraft purists and thought it was terrible. The second time around, I'm not looking at it as a H. P. Lovecraft story and just as a horror flick. It's still not that good. It had potential to be a fairly involving, claustrophobic flick. That's all ruined in the way too cheesy explosion and mud-wrestling near the end. I was able to take it seriously until that took place. Up until then, it's a good B movie with a few creative moments and some nice creature effects. Imagine an entire clan of Castle Freaks running around under the cemetery and that's what you've got here. The acting is a higher caliber than I'm used to seeing in Full Moon movies as well. There are a number of familiar horror faces in Lurking Fear. Hellraiser's Ashley Laurence, From Beyond's Jeffrey Combs, and even Vincent Schiavelli are all featured in this flick and add a lot to it. Now, if only the production values would have been a little higher and a few scenes had been cut, this could have been a worthwhile genre effort.