When you’re meeting a Lovecraftian monster, you might as well pack big heat, if only to build up to the greatest let-down possible.
The Last Case of August T. Harrison (2015) is definitely an amateur hour effort. Yet, this retelling of an H. P. Lovecraft story didn’t drive us away, because despite the uneven acting, odd cinematography, and outre story, the basic humanity of the eponymous character, a retired police detective who is asked to take on a private case by his son, carries the story.
Harrison’s son, an artist named Jason, relays a request from another artist, Eleanora, for Harrison to find some film, actual film. The content of the film is not clear, but the woman specifies it as important and irreproducible, filmed during a research project into an odd corner of physics, led by a local professor of same, Professor Hobb. She also specifies that a young man, Drake, was last known to have it.
Harrison’s searching is fruitless, until he picks up on a final clue that leads him to an obscure academic conference room, where he finds Drake. He’s covered in tattoos that he claims conceals him from Eleanora, whom he labels a witch.
And then the monsters come, and Drake ends up dead.
Harrison leaves in a hurry, but he has the film. But the next day, the film has disappeared, and Harrison is left with nothing but an angry Eleanora, a now-missing son Jason, and a mess of monsters that are always just out of sight, as if they’re in another dimension.
Which reminds him of his wife, so mysteriously in a near-coma: not speaking, just staring. What is she seeing?
And what is Harrison not seeing?
This isn’t noir, this is horror, and it isn’t going to end well for those involved. Harrison’s devotion to those he cares about makes the film plausible, despite the bad audio and sometimes cheesy effects, but there are limits. There are plot holes, such as the missing film, which is never explained. They’re annoying.
But most importantly is it almost comes across as a slice of life, of lives ending in what may be the worst possible ways. Don’t go into this expecting to be amazed, but it does have its own brand of creepiness playing throughout.
