Year: 1970
Director: Daniel Haller
Screenplay: Curtis Hanson, Henry Rosenbaum and Ronald Silkosky, based on the short story The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft
Starring: Sandra Dee, Dean Stockwell, Ed Begley, Lloyd Bochner, Donna Baccala, Joanne Moore Jordan, Sam Jaffe
Running Time: 90 minutes
Genre: Horror
At the Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, student Nancy Wagner (Dee) becomes fascinated with the strange Wilbur Whateley (Stockwell) who is desperate to get his hands on the University's copy of a very rare and valuable book knows as the Necronomicon. Nancy accepts Wilbur's invitation to spend some time at his mansion in the nearby small town of Dunwich. At the mansion, Nancy is disturbed by Wilbur's grandfather (Jaffe). It turns out that the Whateley's have a very bad reputation in the town. Wilbur is obsessed with using the Necronomicon to bring back the "Old Ones" who used to rule the earth, and plans to sacrifice Nancy in an occult ritual.
American writer H. P. Lovecraft has been hugely influential in the fields of horror and science fiction. In particular his brand of cosmic horror known as the "Cthulhu Mythos" which postulates that long ago, Earth was ruled by monstrous creatures known as the "Old Ones" who, due to their evil ways, were banished to another dimension by the yet more powerful "Elder Gods". The immortal Old Ones still exist and are eternally desperate to get back and reclaim their dominion over Earth. They can be summoned by various rituals and incantations, which have thoughtfully been written down in various ancient grimoires, most famously the Necronomicon. While Lovecraft has certainly been influential his work has proved challenging to filmmakers. His conception of creatures that can drive to madness any human unfortunate enough to so much as look at them is difficult to render on film, even with CGI. Lovecraft is also controversial due to his blatant racism and misogyny. There have been successful Lovecraft adaptations, however, such as Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986) and Color Out of Space (2019). This film, from the stable of B-movie maestro Roger Corman, is enjoyable enough, but not one of the best. Incidentally, Roger Corman previously directed one of the first Lovecraft adaptations, The Haunted Palace, which was officially part of Corman's series of eight films based on Edgar Allan Poe, but the plot is actually from the Lovecraft story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Loosely based on the 1928 short story by Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror does a decent enough job of putting Lovecraft onto the screen. Although Sandra Dee never really seems particularly frightened by the goings-on around her; Dean Stockwell gives an intense, quiet performances as the wicked warlock, and is really the film's highlight. Veteran actor Ed Begley, in one of his final roles, seems slightly embarrassed in his role as the heroic professor who races to save the day. Talia Shire (here credited as Talia Coppola), who would go on to appear in The Godfather and Rocky series, appears in a small role as a nurse. The film is full of bizarre psychedelic effects, which are lively if unintentionally funny, and frequent dream sequences, which just really seem shoehorned in to get some nudity into the film. The film is watchable enough, and there is enough going on that it never really gets boring, however it is likely to disappoint Lovecraft fans and is probably not enough to convert non-fans.
Dean Stockwell in The Dunwich Horror
