Necronomicon (2023)

August 22, 2024 4:05 PM

IMDB: From the mind of HP Lovecraft comes the story of The Necronomicon, a book made from human flesh that can bring the dead back to life. Created by the evil magician Aleister Crowley while visiting the depths of Hell and depravity. Streaming free with ads on Tubi (in Canada, at least), this is one of the weirdest / worst things I've seen in a while.

Trawling for an entirely different movie (I was hoping to see Evil Dead Rise, just having watched Alien: Romulus), this popped up. A 2023 movie called Necronomicon? WIth... Michael Madsen? Tom Sizemore? Whaaaaa?

I can't recommend it. It's super bad. But it's balls-to-the wall bizarre as well, with a 20 minute opening act that consists almost entirely of a computer animated car chase that looks like a Saint's Row cut scene, with a tepid, looping voiceover and cutaways to a man that looks like Al Jorgenson sans tattoos and piercings sitting inertly in front of a green screen of the CGI mayhem. Is this Michael Madsen, so degraded he's unrecognizable to me? Perhaps. It transitions into zero-budget live-action with sub-porn acting, still with tons of CGI and collage/montage stuff.

It's like a kind of anthology thing, but more because it's like the filmmaker can't hold a coherent thought than via intention. There's a comic book writer and sometimes we're inside his (very, very bad) script? That his publisher thinks will make "millions of dollars". Lurching cuts from bizarrely filmed interiors to characterless drone footage of New Orleans. Somebody I think is Tom Sizemore appears for about two minutes in deep shadow, kind of whisper-muttering some exposition.

Madsen and Sizemore are very clearly credited in the film, but don't appear at all in the IMDB entry for this, which is interesting.

There's just so much... it just... there's the world's worst lovemaking scene, which smash cuts to an image of the Four Points by Sheraton, which is then obscured by a flying bird, then cuts away to... the mind boggles. A Choice is made every 3.5 seconds here, and while most of the choices are hella wrong, there's something to be said for the sheer volume of stuff being thrown at the wall, especially given that absolutely none of it sticks.

I couldn't tear my eyes off it; like the Kids in the Hall sketch where people are compelled to get others to taste the putrid soup, I feel driven to share this here. This is a very distinct flavour of cosmic horror. Ia! Ia!

posted by Shepherd (10 comments total)

Sold!
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 5:50 PM on August 22 [5 favorites]

Yeah, just finished it. And it's just as you say.

Madsen is the police detective, and he's phoning it in just like Sizemore. Then you have a former Doctor Who playing the bookseller and Bai Ling doing her batshit craziness as per usual.

The video game footage at the beginning and end was beyond pointless, and the film would have been improved if they cut it entirely (including the pudgy Johnny Depp-looking shmuck mumbling his lines in the car).

Absolutely horrible. Thanks, Shepherd! :)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:07 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

Wow, this trailer is awful. Like, AWFUL. It sounds like the writer/director/producer wrote his own crappy copy and read it aloud in his Most Serious Voice. It's 90 seconds of bizarre narration about how AWESOME the movie is, while showing barely anything from the movie, other than a few very underlit scenes. It's just terrible marketing.

And then I read the reviews on Letterboxd, and found this interesting bit of info: This is mostly stock footage from the director's previous film Conjuring: The Book of the Dead (which itself is footage from 2006's The Raven Part 2 which has been recut and re-released as The Devil’s Disciple, Back2Hell, When the Devil Rides Out, and Blade Hunter). The only new footage is a horrible actor giving a monologue while modded car footage from one of the GTA games plays. The worst most lazy film i've ever seen. Richard Driscoll is not a filmmaker. He's a scam artist, He's garbage and his "films" belong in a fucking garbage can.

So, that probably explains why Sizemore and Madsen aren't in IMDb. This reminds me of that guy that writes a zillion short songs to game Spotify and make a living by nickel and diming royalties.
posted by mrphancy at 8:57 PM on August 22 [6 favorites]

Yes, thanks -- I'm glad you watched this and told us about it. I trawl Tubi incessantly, got similarly intrigued by the description of this... thing... a couple of months ago, and have watched the insane "trailer" three times already without actually daring to begin the movie itself. Hypnotically, indescribably awful. Now that I know others have returned from this journey with their sanity intact, I might actually give it a watch.
posted by demonic winged headgear at 9:48 PM on August 22

Tumbled into a dumb little rabbit hole; the writer/director/producer, Richard Driscoll seems to have been a legit actor, and spent two years on EastEnders. He still acts in his movies under the name Steven Craine. At some point he started making this rubbish and was incarcerated for tax fraud involving his movie Eldorado, a grindhouse Blues Brothers ripoff marketed as a Tarantino ripoff.

HOWEVER

This article says shitty Richard Driscoll is different from the EastEnders Richard Driscoll, hence the former's use of the Craine stage name, but their CVs are mixed on IMDb and Wikipedia and both Driscolls induce face blindness in me, so who bloody knows.

REGARDLESS

Driscoll keeps churning out shit like Necronomicon & HEAT deux LA takedown & Adventures of Mickey SHERLOCK Mouse & Winnie the Pooh from his Cornwall dream factory DRagonFlix, which seems like it's trying really hard to get sued by Disney and uses a making of video of The Mandalorian in their Services section as well as a lot of still-watermarked stock footage and images.

This shit pisses me off in a way that cynical dreck from The Asylum or Roger Corman or garbage made by enthusiastic idiots doesn't, but I can't put my finger on why. I bet Driscoll has a huge boner for AI.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:46 AM on August 23 [5 favorites]

I get the feeling that a movie about Driscoll's sleazy shenanigans would be far more interesting than any of the movies he makes. I wonder how he gets so many legit actors to sign on. I mean, admittedly they've all seen better days, but Tom Sizemore, Michael Madsen, Bai Ling, Lysette Anthony, Robin Askwith and Sylvester McCoy have all been in plenty of stuff you've heard of. That could be the cast for a real movie!

Man, I bet the guy from Eastenders haaaaaates him.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:44 PM on August 23

Sizemore went through some pretty heavy drug abuse in the aughts, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that Driscoll recycled some footage from an earlier shoot, a la Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:12 PM on August 23

I wonder how he gets so many legit actors to sign on.

If it's anything like the oeuvre of Canadian failson/big band crooner/probable rapist/brewer/restaurateur/talk show host who bought the air time for their show/energy drink maker/food magnate/associate of Barry Sherman, one of Canada's richest men whose murder remains unsolved/auteur Frank D'Angelo, it involves bags filled with cash. Of course, that raises the question of where the cash comes from...
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:19 AM on August 24 [1 favorite]

You still haven't watched 'The Last Lovecraft'.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 1:59 PM on August 24

Omg that trailer!

"Now appearing on all GOOD streaming platforms..."
posted by grog at 3:22 PM on August 26