1988’s The Unnamable takes place in the type of small, superstitious town that H.P. Lovecraft made famous in his stories.  (The Unnamable is loosely based on Lovecraft’s work.)

The students at Miskatonic University are fascinated by the stories that surround the old Winthrop place, a mansion where, 100 years ago, Joshua Winthrop’s wife supposedly gave birth to a hideous monster that proceeded to kill Joshua and all of his servants.  It is said that the mansion is still haunted, perhaps by the ghost of Joshua or maybe by the monster itself!  The students regularly dare each other to stay at the old Winthrop Place.  Joel (Mark Parra) accepts the dare and vanishes, worrying his friends Howard Damon (Charles Klausmeyer) and Randolph Carter (Mark Kinsey Stephenson).  While Howard is a skeptic about the supernatural, Carter is a dedicated student and he’s obsessed with what might be found within the Winthrop house.

Meanwhile, two frat boys (Eben Ham and Blane Wheatley) convince Wendy (Laura Albert) and Tanya (Alexandra Durrell) to come hang out with them for the night in the Winthrop House.  The frat boys claim that it’s an annual initiation that all new students go through.  For the most part, the frat boys just want to get laid.  One of them even drapes a sweater over his shoulders.  Since when has anyone wearing a sweater that way turned out to be a good guy?

Of course, it turns out that Winthrop House is haunted and soon, heads are rolling (literally) and blood is being spilled.  While the frat boys and the girls fight for their lives, Howard and Carter break into the mansion to see if they can find their missing friend Joel.  Of course, Carter is immediately distracted by the mansion’s collection of ancient texts and hidden tunnels.  Howard, on the other hand, just wants to save Wendy’s life and prove that he’s as good as any sweater-draping frat boy.

The Unnamable is fairly low-budget affair, one that mixes the slasher genre with Lovecraft’s chilly horror.  It works surprisingly well.  The house is a wonderfully atmospheric location.  The monster, when it finally makes its appearance, is frightening and very Lovecraftian.  In fact, the monster feels as if could have wandered over from Stuart Gordon’s Castle Freak.  (The Unnamable probably would never have been made if not for the success of Gordon’s Re-Animator.)  The gore is plentiful and, at times, disturbingly convincing.  The main thing that makes The Unnamable work as well as it does is that the cast is surprisingly game and they attack their stereotypical roles with a likable enthusiasm.  Nobody coasts on the fact that the film is just a “horror movie” or just as “slasher flick.”  The characters may not have much depth but the cast still does a good job of bringing them to life (and death).  I especially liked the performance of Mark Kinsey Stephenson as Randolph Carter.  Randolph Carter, of course, is a name that should be familiar to most Lovecraft readers and Stephenson is a delight as he ignore the chaos around him so that he can check out the mansion’s library.  While the film definitely takes some liberties with Lovecraft, Stephenson is still the ideal Carter.

The Unnamable was an enjoyably macabre surprise.