Evil Clergyman (1987 short)

Brown Jenkin attacks in "Evil Clergyman (1987 short)"...

Summary

A woman is troubled by dreams of an evil clergyman and his rat-faced familiar. From a "lost", unreleased 1988 anthology called Pulse Pounders, this segment, intended as a kind of sequel to Re-Animator (1985 film), starring much of the same cast, in a loose adaptation of the dream fragment recorded by H.P. Lovecraft, combined with elements of his story "Dreams in the Witch House".

Details

• Release Date: (produced in 1987 but not released until 2012)
• Country/Language: US, English
• Genres/Technical: Horror, Fantasy, short
• Runtime: ~30 min
• Starring: Barbara Crampton, Jeffrey Combs, David Warner, David Gale, Una Brandon-Jones
• Director: Charles Band
• Writer: H.P. Lovecraft (story), Dennis Paoli (screenplay)
• Producer/Production Co: Empire Pictures, Full Moon Pictures
• View Trailer: (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: (not rated) (can be expected to contain Violence, Profanity, Adult Content, and/or brief Nudity)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• SSs__ (Two and a half Tentacles: loosely Lovecraftian)

This seems to be a loose adaptation of both "The Evil Clergyman (fiction)" and "Dreams in the Witch House (fiction)".

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• Alex DiVincenzo at Horror News dotnet, (link) - "...A must-watch for any Re-Animator fan. It doesn’t quite live up to Re-Animator (nor its other spiritual follow-ups, From Beyond and Castle Freak, but it’s still an entertaining slice of ’80s cinema. The wonderful atmosphere simply cannot be replicated."
• CultureCrypt, (link) - "75/100... It’s a goofy little story made even goofier by how seriously it is staged, which is why what wouldn’t have worked in 1988 comes across as delightfully demented with 21st-century eyes. Brown Jenkin has zero useful purpose in the movie. But the sight of David Gale spouting obscenities through gnashed rodent teeth while flopping around in a... rat suit is a crowd-pleasing showstopper that quite literally has to be seen to be believed."

Synopsis

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A loose adaptation of the dream fragment recorded by H.P. Lovecraft; in this version, a woman is troubled by dreams of an evil clergyman and his rat-faced familiar.

Notes

Comments, Trivia, Dedication

• This short film is actually the third segment from the unreleased 1988 anthology film, Pulse Pounders. The other two segments are sequels to the films Trancers (1984 film) and Dungeonmaster (1984 film).

Associated Mythos Elements

• TO DO
• films:
  • Re-Animator (1985 franchise)
  • From Beyond (1986 film)
  • "Evil Clergyman (1987 short)"
  • Castle Freak (1995 film)
  • H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon (1993 film)
  • Dagon (2001 film)
  • Dreams in the Witch House (2005 short)
  • The Unnamable (1988 franchise) (similar in tone, but from other creators)
• fiction: this short film is a sort of mash-up between "The Evil Clergyman (fiction)" and "Dreams in the Witch House (fiction)"
• race: Rat-Thing