The Unnamable

A college bet and overnight stay concurrently in a notorious house near a college campus place various collegians in a world of harm as the savage and primal creature inside is ready to unleash the beast on anyone she sees.

*** / *****

From my memorably fond VHS days, The Unnamable, from 1988; this is the first time I have watched it since I was a kid! While I prefer the second film just because it has Maria Ford (at least I'm honest), the first film has its moments that I enjoyed. First and foremost, I enjoyed the idea of a female creature in a creature feature for a change. While she's UGLY, I love the wings, the horns, those claws, all the dangling while "fur", and even some breasts. Ferocious, with some real serious shrieking, this monster seems to do one thing and that's kill. Scholarly Randolph Carter (library is his favorite place, and he has a particular interest in folklore and history of the macabre) and his buddy, Howard Damon (Charles Klausmeyer) are in a conversation with skeptic science-major, Joel (Mark Parra) over the history of a house and the monster that is held "within its walls". Joel wagers that this whole tale is fiction, while Carter considers a possibility that "old wives' tales" are rooted in a certain fact.

When Joel goes into the house, never making it out alive, Howard wants to try and see if he's okay, while Carter believes he's playing a practical joke, just waiting for them to enter the house so he can prank them. Meanwhile two university jocks offer two sophomore hotties a chance to gain acceptance into a sorority if they will join them at a certain house...yep, that house where characters of the film all collectively wind up, soon to be targeted by the white she-beast inside. Laura Albert (a busy film industry stuntwoman) is the babe who bares her boobs and runs around in terror in just panties and barely-buttoned guy's dress shirt while Alexandra Durrell is the nice foreign chick smitten with Howard. Poor Blane Wheatley and Eben Ham are the jocks who suffer gruesome deaths at the claws of the she-beast (Blane gets his throat torn open and Eben receives a floor head bashing).

I think besides the creature herself, the star of the film is the special gore effects. You have a throat ripped open gushing lots of blood and a crushed face dropped to the floor resulting in brain matter splattering on the floor! The severed head prop (with a slashed face) is a bit of a giggle, though, as is the upside down body the head belonged to dripping blood in a bowl. The effects (and Herschell Gordon Lewis lingering camera shot on the gushing or spattering blood) are given a grand presentation, while the characters are chop suey. I think Howard and Carter are intentionally far more established than the others, and therefore we kind of expect they have a better chance in making it out of this film alive. Alexandra, because she is sweet and virginal (and has the cutes with Howard), also seems destined to get a pass in being she-beast mulch.


This is pure nostalgia VHS goodness I pleasantly recall with delight from the early 90s. I was happy to see this today, but for me The Unnamable is Summer Friday fun instead of Lazy Spring Sunday fun. If you are looking for a good HP Lovecraft homage, this has the college named Miskatonic University, has a Necronomicon that Carter reads from while looking to trace the history of the house and its resident, and a character has the last name is Craft, but that's pretty much it. If you love your "old dark house" movies, with the cob webs, rickety doors, occasional rat and spider, dust, and musty walls/doors, this has that for the horror fan, also..