The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter

(1993) ***

If anything, the decision to make a sequel to The Unnamable (reviewed here) five years later makes about as much sense as making another Hollow Man flick. But to my surprise, this movie charmed my socks off. Maybe just one sock, but still...

As if anyone watched the first movie, the second movie starts up immediately afterwards: some Miskatonic students got savaged in an old house, then the monster was dragged underground by some magic tree roots. Our hero Randolph Carter survived the ordeal, and in the thirst for further knowledge seeks to investigate the underground tunnels beneath the cemetary flanking the old house. Carter is once again played by total unknown Mark Kinsey Stephenson, who earlier I described unkindly as a tweed-garbed chicken-man.


Not a completely inaccurate description, mind you. In the first movie, Randolph Carter was pretty much a fifth wheel to the plot, ultimately enabling the monster's capture but spending the movie hanging out in the parlor while his classmates were getting ripped apart upstairs. His quirky folklore geekiness, while kind of appealing, was at odds with his seeming popularity on campus; the girls gave him more attention than his more normal-looking pals.

All that silliness is dispensed with in the sequel in favor of some much better silliness. Carter goes to consult with Miskatonic's Chancellor about rooting around to prove Arkham's old legends true. The Chancellor, played by David Warner doing a one-scene cameo, bypasses the expected "aw, that's a bunch a hooey" talk and instead says the weird stuff in Arkham shouldn't be messed with. I thought that was a cool answer.

And if David Warner doesn't flip your pancakes, maybe a little John Rhys-Davies will do it (aka Gimli the dwarf, or Sallah from Raiders of the Lost Ark). He's the professor Carter coaxes into crawling around under a graveyard in the pursuit of knowledge, which in this case takes the form of a nasty monster still trapped by tree roots but very much alive. Time for some pseudo-science!

The beast came to being 300 years before when legendary warlock Joshua Winthrop summoned it and merged it with the body and soul of his daughter. Reasoning that an injection of insulin might cause the two beings to separate (????), Professor Gimli whips out a syringe he brought along and sticks the ensnared Unnamable with it. He stands back and says "There! Now the two should separate!" "Is that a good idea?" says Carter. Rather pricelessly, Sallah replies "Uh, actually...no."

Or is it? Because suddenly the monster's gone and a naked woman is in its place. It's Alyda Winthrop, just as she was 300 years ago, except naked. Not just naked, but anti-clothing. Multiple attempts to cover her are roundly rejected, culminating in a laughable scene in which a friend of Carter's is trying to get her into a nightgown and Alyda is scratching at her like a big cat.

Don't get too excited about the naked, though. Alyda has the longest, most coverin'-up hairdo you ever saw.


Here's where I risk getting into the JPX/Whirlygirl debate because we soon find we have to ask ourselves if a mysterious hot-bodied beauty is worth getting your heart ripped out. The Unnamable monster, pissed at being left behind, emerges from the ground and heads after Alyda, killing whatever cops and college students get in its way. Where else can this end but here?

Yes!

Silly as this movie is, when they got to the library I realized they might be on to something. Lovecraft never described this library that I know of, but having an exploit of Randolph Carter's to climax in the rare book room of the Miskatonic Library is a perfect choice.

Now, nothing really works in this movie. The monster is pretty lame, the sets cheap, the plot thin. When Carter's friend realizes where he is and heads to the library with the cops, he says "They're in the stacks! People get lost in there in the daytime!" Had H. P. ever described the stacks at Old Misky, I'm sure they would've been huge, dark and ancient just like that line implies. Here's what we actually get:


But still, there's just something about this movie, and I think I know what it is. Johnny Sweatpants starts his review of Equinox with the words "This brave little $6,500 budget student movie..." I think that "brave" is the key word in the movies we reward with the tag "bad enough to be good." Despite this movie's many shortcomings, it's got a sincerity that shines. I loved the stiff, East Coast attitude of our players, who go out adventuring at night wearing tweed jackets and ties. When Carter's friend reminds him that it was he who released the monster, Carter simply wrinkles his forehead and says "yes, I did." No excuses, no guilt, just a determined attitude to take the next step. "What made you do it, Carter?" "Same thing every time: curiousity."

Randolph Carter is a recurring character in Lovecraft's stories, really a "thinly disguised alter ego" of the author himself (from Randolph Carter's Wikipedia page). Like many of Lovecraft's characters, it's difficult to make him work on screen without extrapolating and adding some stuff of your own. Goofyness aside, The Unnamable II actually hits quite close to the mark, and I found myself wishing for a series of movies with real budgets that followed Carter's adventures. If they do it bravely, they might do it well.