A scene from the film Cthulhu, directed by Daniel Gildark. The film is part of the 2007 R.I. International Film Festival.

The nearly impossible-to-pronounce Cthulhu, which will be screened at 10 p.m. tomorrow at the Columbus Theater’s Cinematheque as part of the Rhode Island International Film Festival, is a strange hybrid that’s loosely based on “works by H.P. Lovecraft,” the Providence writer who dealt with creepy doings.

It’s part Twilight Zone, part gay romance, part thriller. It’s an uneasy mix that’s well acted and beautifully photographed along the Oregon coast and often truly scary. But it also has some outrageous stretches and others that are surprisingly dull as one waits for something interesting to happen.

Director Daniel Gildark has his best moments when he’s ratcheting up the suspense. Russell Marsh (Jason Cottle), a gay college professor, long-estranged from his family, returns home for his mother’s funeral and soon finds himself embroiled in a family curse that seems to involve about half the residents of his small hometown. There’s the creepy abandoned boathouse, where names of missing townspeople are scratched in chalk on the floor boards, and what looks like a funeral procession making its way up the dock while Russell holds his breath inside. There are strange cries from an upstairs room that’s empty. There’s a mysterious book that holds bizarre secrets and a deep, dark tunnel whose frightening sights are glimpsed only briefly in a camera’s flash. There are nightmares that involve Russell’s father, a self-styled man of the cloth, at least if the cloth is a blue jumpsuit.

But the ominous mood in Cthulhu (pronounced ku-TOO-loo), where things that are out of sight often threaten to burst onto the screen, is too often interrupted by things that don’t quite fit, such as Tori Spelling’s outrageous performance as Susan, a woman who wants gay Russell to father her child. Susan’s wheelchair-bound husband even offers Russell $50,000 for the job. But Russell would rather save his attentions for Mike (Scott Green), an old schoolboy friend who is now divorced and seems interested in exploring a closer relationship with Russell. Cthulhu, an awkward mix of House of Dark Shadows and Days of Our Lives, seems geared more to a limited gay audience than something ready for wide national release.

Throughout the jumble of its subplots, the film’s eerie moments build and build and build. But they end up in a resolution that’s somehow less than expected and rather silly. Oh, it’s a big and bold payoff, all right. Yet it’s oddly derivative of other horror tales and, in analysis, rather ridiculous.

mjanuson@projo.com