MOVIE REVIEW : ‘THE CURSE’: TRADING SLIME FOR GORE

Writer H. P. Lovecraft’s fascination with yuck and decay--with the loathsome and unnamable, with unspeakably foul and filthy beings lurking beyond the gates of consciousness--makes for icy-fingered terror as you read his stories. But not as you watch “The Curse” (citywide), based on Lovecraft’s “The Color Out of Space.”

As the film makers deluge us with everything in their Love-craftian bag--maggot-infested calves, huge exploding pustules, vegetables bursting with slime and drooling maniacs collapsing in puddles of their own goop--they sink irretrievably into unspeakable moviemaking.

Sure, there’s a plot reason for all this: A mysterious meteorite has crashed near Nathan Crane’s farm and quickly degenerated into slime, which then seeped into the earth and poisoned the water supply, causing all this unimaginable awfulness.

There’s even a metaphoric justification: As everything rots and collapses, stern old Nathan (Claude Akins), a religious fanatic, keeps insisting that nothing is wrong; tries to close the doors on it, so the neighbors won’t see. When his wife (Kathleen Jordan Gregory) starts drooling brown glop and trying to stab everybody, Nathan shoves her in her room and later locks her in a cellar--a quick symbol for family quarrels and hypocrisy.

But does that mean we have to spend time watching all this? Watching crazy Mrs. Crane sew her hand up in a sock, drool, fester and bite people?

In “Re-Animator” and “From Beyond,” Stuart Gordon made Lovecraft stories work on modern terms by playing up their absurdity and obsessiveness, making them consciously funny. Here, writer David Chaskin and director David Keith seem to be playing fairly straight--which makes the material even more absurd.

Keith, a fine actor making his directorial debut, never demonstrates much visual flair, tension or humor--nothing that might punch up the story and make it more bearable. His actors are good, especially Akins and Malcolm Danare, as the sadistic older son, Cyrus. But, without Gordon’s grisly tongue-in-cheek, nausea replaces gore as the main kick of “The Curse” (rated R for violence and sex)--a film seemingly made with neither love nor craft. As Shakespeare would have said: A House on both your Curses!

‘THE CURSE’

A Trans World Entertainment release and production. Producer Ovisio G. Assonitis. Director David Keith. Script David Chaskin. Camera Robert D. Forges. Editor Claudio Kutry. Music John Debney. With Wil Wheaton, Claude Akins, Malcolm Danare, John Schneider.

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

MPAA rating: R (Younger than 17 requires an accompanying parent or adult guardian).