The box touts it as "from the imagination of H. P. Lovecraft". The only thing about this movie that has anything to do with Lovecraft is the name Cthulhu. Just the name. Cthulhu doesn't make any kind of appearance in the film. It's only in the title because the mansion where it takes place is called Cthulhu Mansion, and it's the title of an evil book. Let me make this very clear to you. There is no Cthulhu in Cthulhu Mansion.
We were hoping Trent would watch it with us. Oh well.
So, there's this old magician who started experimenting with real magic (as opposed to mere illusions), and it resulted in his wife burning alive. He learned the trick from a book called Cthulhu. There's a bunch of pointless flashbacks of him (Chandu) doing his magic tricks. After his wife dies, his daughter, Lisa, takes her place, since she looks exactly like her mother. Now they're working at a carnival.
Then there's the bumbling band of ne'er-do-wells. The main one, Hawk (who looks like a cross between Patrick Swayze and Jefferson from Married, With Children), is on a carnival ride making a cocaine deal with some guy. Instead of paying, he does what every drug buyer does. He stabs the dealer and throws him on the electric tracks. Hawk meets up with his friends, shows off the bag of coke, and they decide to hotwire a car. Hawk's girlfriend, Eva (played by William Shatner's daughter), has a brother, Chris, and he claims he can hotwire a car. A security guard catches him and shoots him in the leg. Hawk beats up the security guard and tells his buddies to just leave Chris behind. Eva, who looks like she's trying to be Demi Moore in Ghost says they have to get him to the hospital. They run off and hide, eventually coercing Chandu into letting them escape in his car. (Security is checking all cars leaving the carnival.) They all get away and end up at Chandu's mansion, aptly called Cthulhu Mansion, finally putting an end to the Lost Boys impression the movie started with. But don't worry. You'll get to see plenty of other movies show up in this farcical fiasco of a fright film.
So, Hawk makes Chandu (or Chandude, as he calls him) fix up Chris's wound. The bumbling band of bad boys and bitchy brunettes decides to stay for the night. Suddenly, and without warning, there's a power outage. Lisa and Billy (the other guy in the gang) go downstairs to replace the fuse. Billy's curious about everything down there, and he decides to open a forbidden door. Lisa closes it, and they replace the fuse. Meanwhile, everyone else is in the family room (or living room), and a film projector keeps magically turning on, showing films of Chandu doing magic tricks. This happens a bunch of times and is pointless.
They put Chris up in a guest room and lock him and Lisa inside so she can watch over him, even though she doesn't want to, and they tie up Chandu in his study. There's anbther character who's mute, and he gets beaten up. Meanwhile, there's a guy in a car watching everything. They make sure you notice this guy. A lot. Everyone splits up and goes to bed. Hawk and Eva go to one room for some lovin, and Billy takes his girlfriend, Candy, to another room. Billy doesn't know this, but Candy is also banging Hawk behind Billy's back. Even if Billy did know it, though, there's really not much he coud do. Anyway, they do the nasty and go to sleep. Chandu also gets a visit from his dead wife from beyond the grave, warning him that the evil is loose and coming for him.
Candy decides she's hungry, so she does down to the kitchen and looks around in the fridge. There's not much there, but she finds something. She doesn't notice the pair of giant wooden puppet hands coming out of the fridge and reaching for her. Suddenly the fridge slams shut, and she opens it again. The fridge coses on her, and she gets devoured. Then Billy wakes up to go find her. Of course he doesn't, and he starts to worry. Now, put yourself in this situation. You're in a creepy mansion with a creepy magician, and suddenly your girlfriend just disappears. You can't find her anywhere. What do you do? Call the police? No, that's just a bad idea. Look around for her? That gets old pretty fast. Wake the others and tell them? No, that's too much work. I know! Take a shower! Hey, it worked in Psycho. And that's exactly what he does. He turns the shower on, and instead or water, it's blood, and he drowns. She shower drains, and he's gone.
Remember Chris and Lisa? Well, Chris is looking bad. Somehow his bullet wound got infected and made him look like a low-budget version of Linda Blair in The Excorcist. He even pukes up stuff. It's lame. Lisa is kinda freaked out about all this, but she and Chris talk about how Hawk really hates him, and he should find some real friends or something.
What happens now? Well, the guy who was watching in the car decides it's time to make his move. He sneaks inside and looks around for Hawk. Eventually, he steals the cocaine, finds Hawk and Eva in bed, and he points the gun at Hawk's head. Eva jumps up and shoots the guy a bunch of times, and he dies. Hawk and Eva get up and go look around for the others or something. The bag of cocaine mysteriously (with the help of fishing wire) leaves the dead guy's pocket and tosses itself into the fireplace.
Eva goes to see her brother who looks fine now, Lisa goes to untie her dad, and Hawk goes looking for the cocaine. He gets a call from Candy (who's dead), saying she sold the coke, and to pick her up somewhere. He drives away and Candy and Billy appear in the backseat of the car, looking dead. Hawk screams like a woman and runs away. For some reason, everyone who died in the movie has become a zombie, not unlike Night of the Living Dead. Eva, meanwhile, is watching ove her brother, when the window behind he opens, and a bunch of vines wrap around her, just like in Evil Dead. When they go away, she's gone. Hawk gets back, and Lisa, Chandu, and Chris are trying to escape. Hawk goes off to the basement where a bunch of knives fly at him, and he dies, thankfully. Chandu tells Lisa that he's responsible for the evil, and she needs to leave before he harms her. Lisa and Chris leave, and the mansion blows up. The end.
This movie was about as peinful to recollect as it was to watch. It's not good. Not good at all. Really. It's like I'd just watched horrible versions of The Exorcist, The Evil Dead, The Lost Boys, and every single haunted house and zombie movie ever made. It's ridiculous. Not a good movie by any means.