Cape Cod Cthulhu — Cape Cod Cthulhu( Blu Ray)
Cape Cod Cthulhu is somewhat of a bizarro mix of slasher & dread-filled cosmic horror, with light & lo-fi CGI touches of weather-focused disaster, giant monster action, and postmodern satire. This film is helmed by Mark Polonia, one of the most prolific figures in US low-budget horror/ sci-fi. This was his seventh and final film of 2025. Here from SRS Cinema is a Blu-ray release of the picture, taking in as always, with a Polonia release, a most interesting & informative commentary.
Cape Cod Cthulhu slides in at one hour and seventeen minutes, and it’s fair to say it’s somewhat of a piecemeal affair. Over its runtime, we move back and forth between sets of characters/ features.
After a few minutes of introduction from Craig Muckler (Microwave Massacre) and AI cosmic horror credits. We open at HP Lovecraft’s grave- where a bearded & baseball-hatted man is clearly planning some mischief with a shovel. He’s swigging glass bottles full of something & throwing them down- a tall, suited and hatted figure appears- this is none other than the ghost of HP made flesh, and he’s played by long-term Polonia collaborator Jeff Kirkendall. We then move to a seaside location, where Mark Polonia- playing himself is parked up chatting to someone about making a sequel to 1986’s haunted house/ horror creature mash-up Spookies, before a young woman steps into his vehicle with a pitch
As the film unfolds, we get introduced to a trio of twentysomething women who are holidaying in off-season Cape Cod/ rehearsing Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. There is a male podcaster who is interested in the area's history, and how it links into Mr Lovecraft and Mr Poe- he also interviews a woman who claims that Cthulhu/ end of the world is coming. We get weather reports from a masked clown. There are moments of beach and water set dread- where we see distant CGI/ AI Cthulhu, with spoken word samples of both Poe’s and Lovecraft's work. And later on, in probably the most bizarre/head-scratching part of the film, both horror writing legends don gloves to have a boxing match.
The balancing of the different elements/ tones is done well enough, with the stalking elements featuring brief moments of gore, blended with the moments of foreboding/ cosmic dread.
I’d say you’ll have to have seen at least a few Polonia films to pick up on the post-modern/satirising moments in Cape Cod Cthulhu. All in all, I found it another consistent film from Mark and co, and it’s great to see him doing something fairly wacky/ different.
As we’d come to expect on a Polonia release, we have a commentary track from Mark- and as always, this is most down-to-earth, informative and entertaining. He starts off talking about the Craig Muckler introduction, and how it was originally a lot more scathing towards the film. He talks about shooting at HP’s grave- apparently it was the day after his birthday- so there were a lot of people there- on the grave was left money and a single apple. We find out the film was shot in just four days- this was his first visit to Cape Cod, and he can see why it was a infulnce on HP writing. We find out the lore regarding Poe & HP visiting Cape Cod to research something was all true, and he touches on how each passed away. He talks about not be able to sleep during the shoot, as it was so windy at night, with the shutters constantly banging. Later on, he talks about how each of the female student characters had their own vibe. He discusses how the film is a rather genre-fluid affair- mixing elements of different types of horror, fantasy, humour, etc. He points out & discusses the rap video that suddenly appears at one point, going on to list some of his favourite music videos from the 80’s. Filming under the pier, and much more. So another well worth a play track from Mark.
Cape Cod Cthulhu is a rather bizarro entry in Mark Polonia’s constantly growing filmography. If you enjoy free-flowing/dream-like movies, which drift through a fair few genres, in that very particular Polonia way- then give this a go.