Howard Lovecraft & The Undersea Kingdom (2017)

(On Cable TV, June 2020) We must complete the gestures we begin, and that explains why I ended up watching the second-in-a-trilogy Howard Lovecraft & The Undersea Kingdom even after seeing the first and third one. No, I’m not claiming that the third film suddenly makes more sense now that I’ve seen the second—they’re largely independent stories, even if they do build upon each other to some extent. The continuing kid’s adventures of a young H. P. Lovecraft and his pet sidekick Cthulhu (named “Spot”) both head underwater for more of the same. It’s as low-budget as these animated films go—the rough 1990s-grade animation barely gets the point across, although the voice actors have familiar names. Undersea Kingdom is probably the weakest film of the trilogy, as it does not have the “I can’t believe I’m watching this” freshness factor of the first film nor the more interesting plot and conclusion of the third one. I wonder once again, in between the gothic eye makeup, Lovecraftian jargon and uninvolving results, who this is made for—at best, I’m guessing somewhere between ironic appreciation by aging readers who want to pass the magic of Lovecraft (that old racist purple-prose hack) to their kids… or, most likely, financial backers working on marketing potential and dirt-cheap production costs. Either way, there isn’t much here beyond the novelty factor, and viewers would be better served by the first or third volume. If at all.