Right, well I stumbled upon the 1992 movie "Cthulhu Mansion" (aka "La mansión de los Cthulhu") here in 2021. I had never heard about the movie before, but being a huge Lovecraft fan, of course I was instantly and immediately drawn to the movie and rushed to give it a watch.
And let me just say, perfectly clear, that this movie has nothing, and I mean that literally, nothing to do with Lovecraft or the Cthulhu mythos. Sure, it uses the name Cthulhu in the movie; it is seen on a book and over the gate leading to the house. But that is where the connection ends.
The storyline is not even remotely Lovecraftian in spirit, essence or atmosphere. This was, in all its simplicity, a mere average early 1990s horror movie, though it felt more like a late 1980s one, to be bluntly honest.
In fact the storyline was actually not all that bad, if you look at the movie with eyes that are not blinded with the hopes of it being a Lovecraftian movie. It was an archetypical horror movie from the early 1990s, for better or worse. So you know what you are getting yourself into here, if you are familiar with the horror genre from that period of time.
The acting in the movie was adequate, though you should not be expecting any grand Shakespearian performances. And taking the movie's limited script and storyline into consideration, I think the actors and actresses actually managed to fare well enough.
But for a horror movie, then "Cthulhu Mansion" was just too bland, bordering on being boring actually. Nothing scary was to be seen anywhere throughout the course of the entire movie. Or perhaps I am just jaded from a life-time exposure to the horror genre.
Visually then "Cthulhu Mansion" was actually adequate. There were some nice enough special effects in the movie, taking the age of the movie into consideration.
If you are looking for a proper Lovecraftian movie, then "Cthulhu Mansion" is not the movie you should sit down to watch.
My rating of "Cthulhu Mansion" settles on a mere three out of ten stars. Mostly because it was not a Lovecraftian movie, but also because the movie's storyline was just too scrambled, erratic and was lacking a proper red thread.
