CALL GIRL OF CTHULHU (2014)

Studio:       Pop Cinema
Director:    Chris LaMartina
Writer:       Jimmy George, Chris LaMartina
Producer:  Jimmy George, Chris LaMartina
Stars:     David Phillip Carollo, Melissa O’Brien, Nicolette le Faye, Dave Gamble, Helenmary Ball, Sabrina Taylor-Smith, Alex Mendez, George Stover, Leanna Chamish, Stephanie Anders, Ruby Larocca, Scarlett Storm

Review Score:

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Summary:

A virginal artist falls in love with a call girl pursued by a murderous cult to bear the child of ancient god Cthulhu.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Detective Rita LaGrassi interviews mentally tormented artist Carter Wilcox about horrific events involving human sacrifices and alien gods at The Church of Starry Wisdom. Carter begins by recalling his first shy encounter with call girl Riley Whatley of the Tempest Mountain escort agency when she is hired by Carter’s older neighbor Walter Delapore. Meanwhile, Rick ‘The Dick’ Pickman carries on a sexual relationship with Carter’s musician roommate Erica Zann.

At the Rotterdam Motel, a hooker visits cult leader Sebastian Suydum. When the hooker turns out to not have the Cthulhu-shaped birthmark above her right buttock as depicted on a woman drawn in the Necronomicon, Sebastian has two masked henchmen slaughter her.

Outside, Professor Edna Curwen waits for Sebastian and his men to leave before entering the motel room and stealing the Necronomicon. Sebastian’s henchmen decapitate a pair of Edna’s lookouts, but Edna escapes with the book on a motorcycle driven by her partner Squid.

Carter hires Riley to model for a painting. The two of them gradually develop a romance and begin dating.

Tempest Mountain pimp Ashton Eibon delivers hookers Cherry Pie, Honey Melons, and Jerusalem Artichoke to The Church of Starry Wisdom for a supposed bachelor party. The group ends up assaulted by Sebastian and his cultists. The hookers are transformed into creatures that torture Ashton until he reveals the whereabouts of Riley, whose distinguishing birthmark matches the description of the woman from the Necronomicon.

Having seen one of his illustrations in the Arkham Post newspaper, Edna hires Carter to redraw the images from the Necronomicon in order to create a second copy of the book. Although Carter does not fully understand, Edna warns that the virginal artist must complete the job before the lunar eclipse the next day in order to prevent Cthulhu from rising.

When Edna and Squid return to pick up the copied tome, they see Carter’s painting of Riley and realize that she is the woman prophesized by the Necronomicon. Edna warns Carter again and gives him an incantation to recite when it comes time to close the gate.

While stripping at the Shining Trapeze nightclub, Riley is taken captive by Sebastian’s cult. Edna tries intervening, but she is also taken prisoner and Sebastian recovers both copies of the Necronomicon. Working as the club’s DJ, Rick is attacked and infected with a creature that bonds with his mutated penis. With Riley and Edna restrained, Sebastian recites a spell that summons Cthulhu to impregnate Riley.

The following day, Riley begins mutating into a Cthulhu-like creature. Riley attacks her former johns, including Walter, and infects them with mutations, as well. After discovering that she is pregnant, Riley avoids Carter’s persistent phone calls by telling him that they are no longer right for each other. Sebastian explains that Riley’s metamorphosis is meant to transform her into a vessel capable of bearing Cthulhu’s child.

Carter and Erica share a romantic moment when Erica gives Carter a CD of unnamable music and he gives her a painting to use as an album cover. Carter suddenly remembers Edna’s end of the world prophecy and becomes immediately concerned about Riley.

While Carter has an encounter with his transformed neighbor Walter, a mutated Rick pays Erica a visit. When Rick attacks, Erica slices off his creature-penis and kills him.

Squid infiltrates The Church of Starry Wisdom and recovers both copies of the Necronomicon. She then finds Carter to ask him which version of the book is the original. They rejoin Erica as Sebastian and his henchmen arrive at Carter’s apartment. Carter accidentally plays a recording of Erica’s music and the sounds cause the henchmen’s heads to explode. Sebastian kidnaps Erica and recovers the books.

Squid takes Carter back to the church to find the Necronomicon. Carter finds Edna with her tongue cut out just as a masked henchman attacks. The henchman kills Edna and Carter kills the henchman, but Carter is surrounded by more cultists and taken prisoner. Held captive alongside his roommate, Carter finally loses his virginity when he and Erica have sex.

Squid combats creatures and cultists while Sebastian prepares for Cthulhu’s arrival by delivering the child birthed by a fully transformed Riley. Squid rescues Carter and Erica and the three of them battle the cult as the summoning portal opens.

Sebastian kills Squid during the ensuing fight. Carter plays Erica’s CD over the building’s loudspeakers to make the cultists’ heads explode. As Sebastian is willingly consumed by Cthulhu’s tentacles, Erica kills Riley’s squid-headed baby. While Erica stabs at Riley’s mutated body, Carter recites the incantation that closes the portal.

After Erica professes her love for Carter in the aftermath, Riley unexpectedly kills Erica by thrusting a tentacle through the girl’s head. However, the music begins playing again and Riley explodes.

Having heard his story, Detective LaGrassi declares Carter’s seemingly wild testimony worthless. Carter is reluctantly sedated and carted away to a mental ward. LaGrassi tries leaving with the Necronomicon only to be attacked by a group of cultists.

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Review:

There’s little wonder why hopeless virgin Carter Wilcox is so sexually frustrated.  When he doesn’t have his hand down his pants while camgirl Missy Katonixx verbally humiliates him, the nervous shyguy is constantly forced to hear his musician roommate Erica Zann carnally cavorting with insatiable manwhore Rick ‘The Dick’ Pickman.

Ensconced in pornography and the incessant sounds of his neighbors’ orgasms, Carter is still an optimistic romantic at heart.  That’s why he perpetually keeps a Deep Ones condom in his pocket’s On Deck circle, waiting for a green light from that special someone to finally tear into the foil wrapper.

Carter just might have that chance, too.  When the struggling artist spies sultry call girl Riley Whatley, it’s infatuation at first sight.  Riley becomes Carter’s muse, model, and potential mistress in nearly one fell swoop.  Trouble is, Riley is also the woman foretold by the Necronomicon to bear Cthulhu’s child.  And the cult of The Church of Starry Wisdom is about to make sure that unholy prophecy comes true, no matter how many hookers end up mutated or mutilated along the way.

Not since Lawrence Watt-Evans’ prose short “Pickman’s Modem” has there been a punnier play on words of an H.P. Lovecraft work.  With a title like “Call Girl of Cthulhu,” the notion cannot be discounted that this could be a case where a title comes first, and a story rushes up to morph a one-off joke into a full feature film.

Whether the shambler or the egg came first in this instance, the movie’s not-so-serious take on Elder Gods fiction is nonetheless literate in its inspirational sources.  “Call Girl of Cthulhu” is rife with enough references to be a virtual Easter egg hunt for plentiful Lovecraftian in-jokes.  Most come in the form of character names like a doctor named West or a detective named Legrassi.  Though a name like Ashton Eibon suggests that filmmaker Chris LaMartina and creative collaborator Jimmy George have more than a mere surface familiarity with the Lovecraft Circle and their Cthulhu Mythos.

Read the story summary above and you’d be forgiven for presuming the movie to be a USA Up All Night sex comedy with a Charles Band bent for indie horror and a Lloyd Kaufman style for slime-covered raunch.  Indeed, “Call Girl of Cthulhu” has an aesthetic that plays like the worst of Full Moon mashed with the best of Troma, or vice versa, what with its giallo-colored lighting and low-budget look.  Surprisingly however, “Call Girl of Cthulhu” is not as over-the-top campy as it sounds, and even manages to lay puerile humor on thick without being obnoxiously condescending.

Part of the movie’s ability to remain happily lowbrow while avoiding outright insulting childishness is due to actors like David Phillip Carollo as Carter playing their parts with sincerity.  There is an earnest heart beating somewhere, albeit softly, underneath gratuitous T&A and monsterized muppets that balances the excessively gory goop and bodily fluids spurting from mutated appendages.  The people behind the camera clearly had fun making the film.  Whether the people in front of movie screens and monitors will do the same while watching it depends on a disposition for dick jokes and syrup-soaked visual gags.

Don’t let the apologetic paragraph above lead you into believing “Call Girl of Cthulhu” is subtly sophisticated, though.  This is a movie featuring death by dildo through the throat, acidic urine melting facial flesh on a call girl client expecting a golden shower, boobs turning into snarling slug creatures, and penises mutating into similarly vicious alien beasts.  Such a strange brew is an acquired taste palatable only for those who measure expectations according to content, checkbook, and an often-juvenile brand of humor that won’t hit every funny bone.

With its crowdfunded roots and labor of love limitations, “Call Girl of Cthulhu” is not the most professionally-produced horror-comedy anyone is likely to see.  But it is something that can be a snickering good time for Lovecraft fans who won’t find sacrilege in seeing the grandmaster’s literary oeuvre repurposed for salaciously sex-oriented horror hijinks.

Review Score:  65

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