Echoes of the Eldritch Frontier

Critic Reviews

Ah, 'Echoes of the Eldritch Frontier,' a film with ambitions as vast as the desolate plains it portrays and as convoluted as the loopy incantations it insinuates. As if dredging the murkiest depths of a Lovecraftian fever dream and slapping it onto a Spaghetti Western, Billy Wildebeest insists on force-feeding us his grandiose vision of a 'fantasy Wild West,' where the tumbleweeds harbor not just thorns, but tentacles. Jams Stewpot, as the protagonist Dr. Santiago Vasquez, stumbles through his performance with the awkward grace of a coyote on a unicycle, seemingly uncertain if he's crafting science or summoning demons within the bounds of Wildebeest's ever-shifting narrative sands. Dominic Cooperoni's shape-shifting antics as a coyote are as much a highlight as they are a reminder that perhaps some stories are better off not shape-shifting into every genre possible. Mickey Ribeye squints through the role of the archetypal gunslinger, but his broody exterior barely conceals the script's incapacity to decide whether it's firing blanks or existential dread. 'Echoes of the Eldritch Frontier' tries to lasso the moon but ends up merely wrangling shadows, with moments of brilliance that pierce the overcast skies like accidental stars. In the end, the film is much like the forbidden knowledge it parades—potentially mind-altering but leaving us with the headache of deciphering whether it was profound or merely pretentious.