Just out of prison after a three year stint, wrongly-convicted John Martense (Blake Bailey, HEAD OF THE FAMILY) learns about his "inheritance" - a cache of stolen money buried in the cemetery of the remote town Lefferts Corners - from his father's partner-in-crime-turned-mortician Skelton Knaggs (Vincent Schiavelli, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH). John does not realize is that the money's "rightful owner" gangster Bennett (Jon Finch, FRENZY) - along with his Judo-kicking gun moll Ms. Marlowe (Alison Mackie, SLIVER) and hulking enforcer Pierce (Joseph Leavengood, BASKET CASE II) - is also after the loot, and the four wander into a war zone. Over the past twenty years, the denizens of Lefferts Corners have fallen prey to carnivorous beings lurking in the tunnels beneath the town. The few remaining - including ballistics expert Cathryn (HELLRAISER's Ashley Laurence, strangely billed as "Ashley Lauren") who lost her sister, drunken Dr. Haggis (RE-ANIMATOR's Jeffrey Combs), martyr-hopeful Father Poole (Paul Mantee, DAY OF THE ANIMALS), and a few fearful locals - have rigged the graveyard with explosives and plan to mount a final battle against the creatures in the church on Christmas Day. The race for riches soon becomes a fight for survival, and John may be the last to discover his dark connection to the town.

Originally announced as a Stuart Gordon film for Charles Band's Empire Pictures - DAGON was also announced as an Empire production but Gordon did not helm that until 2001 for Brian Yuzna (SOCIETY) - LURKING FEAR was eventually mounted for Band's Full Moon with a script by director C. Courtney Joyner (who first collaborated with Band on the script for PRISON and would also pen PUPPET MASTER III and DR. MORDRID and direct TRANCERS III for Full Moon). Set in America but shot in Romania with very Eastern European locations - apart from some second unit in Los Angeles - albeit handsomely by Full Moon regular Adolfo Bartoli (Stuart Gordon's THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM), the film disappoints with its run-of-the-mill crime plot and the feel that it has been either pruned down or underexploited with the actors - particularly Laurence, Combs, Mackie, and Finch - conveying unexplored depths while Bailey's hero is not given much time to take in his family legacy. A more faithful, but budget- and performance-challenged adaptation can be found in Louisiana-lensed DARK HERITAGE (1989), while the source story also inspired the Canadian BLEEDERS/HEMOGLOBIN (1997).