H.P. Lovecraft is one of the more important authors in the history of horror fiction, yet there have been relatively few attempts made to film his works with anything resembling a “big budget.”Still, there have been a few times where Lovecraftian ideas or themes have been incorporated into original movies; “Hellboy” is one of the more obvious examples. Another example, perhaps less well known, is the 1991 HBO TV-movie “Cast a Deadly Spell.” This is not based on a Lovecraft story, but instead is sort of an “homage” to Lovecraft. The main character, Harry Phillip Lovecraft (played by Fred Ward), is a private eye in 1948 Los Angeles… a Los Angeles where magic is an every day, commonly used tool. “Cast” is, in a word, damned entertaining, in much the same way that “Deep Rising” was. And it’s a friggen’ crime that HBO has never released this on DVD or Blu Ray.
“How long is that in dog years?” still gets me laughing a quarter century later.