Call Girl Of Cthulhu

Crafty Love

Call Girl Of Cthulhu
USA 2014
Directed by Chris LaMartina
Midnight Crew Studios

Warning: Some details of specific
scenes in a spoilerish manner.

Ha! This is a fun movie. It’s one of those “this was okayish” recommendations I saw strolling through in a conversation by two of my followers on Twitter so, since the title of the movie, Call Girl Of Cthulhu, was obviously referencing H. P. Lovecraft’s Eldritch creations I thought I’d give it a go... even though I’d already seen another comedy horror inspired by his writings, The Last Lovecraft (reviewed here) only a couple of years before.

This one follows a similar plot to that one, actually, with a group of Cthulhu worshipping cultists (pretty much tentacle heads) who are after something which they need to summon ‘the Ancient Ones’ and bring about the end of the world, with a group of reluctant heroes headed up by main protagonist Carter (played by David Phillip Carollo) trying to stop them and simultaneously figure out what the heck is going on. Carter is a virginal artist who’s obsessed with pornography and who accidentally stumbles on a call girl called Riley (played brilliantly by Melissa LaMartina), who happens to have (although she doesn’t realise the significance of it), a specific Cthulhuian birthmark on her backside. Carter goes on his first proper date with her, despite the misgivings of his flat mate Erica (played by Nicolette le Faye). A group of people determined to stop the cult get Carter to make a copy of a stolen book used to open a portal (I can only assume it’s supposed to be a version of Lovecraft’s infamous Necronomicon) but don’t know that he knows the same call girl who they have also been looking for, to try and stop the incoming apocalypse. That’s the plot and I won’t go into that any further...

But it’s a really fun film for sure. It’s one of those films where some of the humour comes from the main protagonist’s innocence in the face of suddenly being thrust into the entertainingly sleazy underbelly of commercially exploited sexuality but, also, the film entertains with its completely over the top levels of proportionately inappropriate goriness. And it really doesn’t hold back on either of those elements either. The gorinesss is truly outstanding in both its quantity and inventiveness but there’s also loads of nudity, which is something I’d expected the film’s producers to shy away from.

Some of the special effects (which all looked practical to me, as opposed to CGI... but I may be wrong) are pretty good while others look really cheap, do-it-yourself ‘amateur hour’ and, although I’ve no doubt this is partially due to budgetary reasons, I have to say that I suspect that some of this stuff was left the way it was to help aid the humour of the movie... it does have a certain Heath Robinson kind of appeal to the effects.

As you would expect, there are a fair few Lovecraftian joke references scattered throughout such as Rick ‘The Dick’ Pickman who, due to some plot developments, grows a monster cock with teeth which threaten to kill his victims... and a nice moment where we see the that Carter (not Randolph Carter but, of course, that’s who he’s named after) has saved a special H. P. Lovecraft ‘Deep Ones’ branded condom for that someone special who comes into his life.

And there are lots of gory sex jokes too, such as a man being given a golden shower by the title character after she’s been ‘Cthulhu’d up’ only to have his face melting off from the experience... or a nice moment where the porn model on Carter’s computer suddenly reveals her breasts to be twin snapping monsters that come out of his screen and try to eat him.

The actors in this are all great too, especially the three leads I’ve already mentioned who have certainly realised that they need to give a certain tongue in cheek style, heightened performance to make some of this ridiculous but, it has to be said, hugely entertaining material work. I’ve read that people think this movie has some bad acting in it but.... no, I think it’s very much a deliberate, stylistic choice being made here and I think some people may be trying to take this material too seriously... which is something the cast and crew definitely are not. They are all having a lot of fun with it, I suspect and that comes out in the performances and just made the film all the more enjoyable.

So yeah, a shortish review for Call Girl Of Cthulhu but, only because I can’t find much of anything bad to say about it and I thought most of the artistic decisions in the presentation were spot on, truth be told. If you like Lovecraftian tentacle horror with a fair amount of nudity and absolute buckets of fake blood then you should find yourself having a good time with this movie. A good ice breaker for an all nighter screening too, I would think.