The Scare Salon

Adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft stories tend to be kinda hit or miss; admittedly, his particular brand of cosmic horror is difficult to render effectively on screen, and for that reason, the best “Lovecraftian” films tend to be ones that don’t necessarily adapt an existing story, but simply work within the mythos the peculiar author created. Examples would include The Thing, The Mist, The Void, The Endless, and In the Mouth of Madness, none of which were directly based on his stories, but all of which had a similar kind of vibe to them that suggested his larger themes.

That said, there have been some decent films made from Lovecraft’s actual tales, although the better adaptations tend to be loose ones (such as Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon, The Haunted Palace, and The Color Out of Space). Such was also the case with American International Pictures’ 1970 crack at Lovecraft’s 1929 novella, The Dunwich Horror, which I had somehow managed to never see before now.
Reviews of the film, both contemporary and recent, seem to lean heavily toward the negative, which kind of mystifies me to be honest, because I dug it quite a bit. While the movie does deviate somewhat from the source material, it’s close enough for sticklers, I reckon, and I found it a pretty entertaining flick in its own right.

Produced by Roger Corman and directed by Daniel Haller (who designed sets for a couple of Corman’s Poe films and also helmed another Lovecraft adaptation in 1965, Die Monster Die!, which was based on the aforementioned “Colour Out of Space”), the movie stars Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley and Sandra Dee as his potential victim. Sandra Dee, it should be noted, was quite happy to appear in a horror movie, as the squeaky clean image she’d become known for during her lapsed contract with Universal was beginning to wear on her. The Dunwich Horror was her first “adult” film role, after years of being known as a child and teen actor.

At the beginning of the movie, we’re treated to a really cool animated credit sequence, then we see a bit of a flashback scene of a woman giving birth. Those familiar with the original story will undoubtedly recognize this event as the birth of Wilbur Whateley and his “twin” brother.

We then jump ahead a bit to the character of Dr. Henry Armitage (played by Ed Begley in his final film role), who has been giving a series of lectures about local history and the occult at Miskatonic University in Arkham. It’s here that we’re introduced to both The Necronomicon, which Dr. Armitage is returning to the library, and Armitage’s student Nancy Wagner (Sandra Dee), who was not a character in the original tale but is a nice addition here.

Not long after the book is returned, a mysterious but intriguing young man comes in to have a look at it. The librarians insist it’s almost closing time and they can’t just show this priceless book to any old rando who wanders in, but eventually he’s able to talk them into it, particularly after Nancy seems to take a shine to him.

It turns out that this dude is Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell, in a role that was initially going to be played by Peter Fonda), and he seems as fascinating a fellow as a girl could ever want. This is, incidentally, a pretty big departure from the source material, in which Wilbur was described as something akin to a stinky, charmless goat-man, but I didn’t mind the change, as it made the character of Wilbur seem more dangerous, as he looked normal—handsome even—and could therefore “blend in,” all the easier to do his nefarious deeds.

Anyway, Wilbur spends entirely too long studying The Necronomicon and gets kicked out the library by Dr. Armitage, who has heard of the Whateleys and doesn’t have anything good to say about them. Wilbur, however, is able to ingratiate himself with Nancy after “mistakenly” missing his bus back home. She gives him a ride back to his creepy old mansion in Dunwich and is persuaded to stay for a cup of tea, which obviously Wilbur drugs. He also futzes with her car so she can’t leave, but the stuff he put in her drink apparently makes her more compliant, because by the next day, she seems perfectly willing to stay with Wilbur indefinitely. The drug also gives her bizarre dreams in which she’s being chased and overwhelmed by a large group of naked rejects from Burning Man.

Even though Wilbur implied that he lived at the house alone, Nancy is startled to find that Old Whateley, Wilbur’s grandfather (Sam Jaffe), lives there as well, and he’s pretty cantankerous. He even attempts to get rid of Dr. Armitage and Nancy’s friend Elizabeth (Donna Baccala) when they come out to the house to check on where Nancy toddled off to. But Wilbur’s magic appears to be strong, for Nancy insists she’s staying there of her own volition and has 100 percent NOT been roofied into this shit.

Elizabeth is super suspicious, though, and after talking to a local physician, Dr. Cory (Lloyd Bochner) and his nurse (who is played by Talia Shire, though she’s credited as Talia Coppola here), she decides to go back to the Whateley place and warn Nancy that she’s in danger. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, though, she opens the wrong locked door in the house and gets devoured by some thing comprised of quick flashes of color and waving tentacles, which then busts out of its prison and starts going on a rampage.

Dr. Armitage discovers that Wilbur’s mother Lavinia (Joanna Moore Jordan) has been confined to an asylum since the birth of her twins, and also finds out that even though Wilbur’s twin was supposedly stillborn, the other creature Lavinia spawned is still very much alive, and now presumably on the loose.

So Wilbur’s whole plan is to bring his “father,” the Old One Yog-Sothoth, into the world via Nancy’s drugged-up womb. This was apparently what Lavinia’s purpose was, but Wilbur figured it didn’t quite work out back then because Lavinia had been an unwilling incubator. Wilbur is convinced that he’s going to get it right this time, because he’s magically made Nancy totally compliant with his wishes.

At some point prior to the main festivities, Old Whateley dies “accidentally” after protesting Wilbur’s plans, and the townsfolk get mighty peeved when Wilbur waltzes into the local cemetery in the middle of the day and attempts to bury the old geezer in the family plot. Lavinia also dies in the asylum subsequently, muttering in some strange language as she goes; her death is also accompanied by the unsettling screeching of birds.

Shortly afterward, Wilbur’s “twin” causes all kinds of destruction in Dunwich and kills a bunch of the locals. I actually really liked the way the film portrayed the monster; in the original story, the thing is invisible, and it sort of is in the movie too, though its passage can be tracked by the movement of wind and various colorful posterization effects. I would hate to think that anyone who watched the movie and wasn’t familiar with the source story thought that Roger Corman was just cheaping out by making the monster invisible, because that’s true to the original tale, and I think they did a decent job with the portrayal.

The Whateley house actually burns down soon after, and Wilbur has Nancy lying all sexy and willing on an outdoor altar up on Sentinel Hill known as the Devil’s Hopyard. It’s implied that he rapes her (though it’s all done through suggestion; Sandra Dee was also pretty adamant that she wasn’t doing any nude scenes), and it would seem that Yog-Sothoth is about to come through.

But at the last minute, Dr. Armitage arrives and uses some counter-spells to ostensibly send the Old One back to whatever dimension spawned him. We get a brief glimpse of Wilbur’s monstrous twin (the one who took after his father), which actually looks pretty cool, before it vanishes. Wilbur also gets struck by lightning, catches fire, and falls off the nearby cliff into the sea.

So, all’s well that ends well, right? Eh, not so much. Because as a groggy Nancy is being helped down the hill, an overlay image demonstrates that she’s already got a big-ass fetus sprouting inside of her. What unspeakable horror will emerge from her previously virgin loins, you’re left to ponder?

As I said, I thought this was a really solid adaptation of the Lovecraft story; sure, they made a lot of changes, such as drastically changing Wilbur’s appearance, adding the character of Nancy and the whole “bringing Yog-Sothoth forth through a virgin womb” angle, and altering the original plot point of the monstrous twin growing larger and larger until it took up the entire Whateley farmhouse. Wilbur also gets killed much earlier in the source tale: maimed by a guard dog, of all things. But honestly, I thought the changes only served to make the story more cinematic, and thus were largely successful.

I also really enjoyed Dean Stockwell’s performance as Wilbur; he came across as so beguiling at first, even though you knew he was up to some sinister business. Sandra Dee was good too, channeling her previous innocent persona into her wide-eyed, hapless character; admittedly, she wasn’t real proactive and had to have her bacon saved by others, but in her defense, Wilbur was using drugs and/or magic on her to force her to cheerfully do his bidding.

I don’t think this is the best Lovecraft adaptation out there, but it is a damn good one, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in seeing a fairly accurate representation of the story, or at least one that captures the spirit of the material, if not the exact letter.

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.