While the works of American horror author H.P. Lovecraft
enjoyed a wealth of text to screen adaptations throughout the 1980s and 1990s with
such fare as Re-Animator, From Beyond, The Resurrected and
Necronomicon, the labyrinthine science-fiction creature fantasy writer’s
journey to the big picture didn’t arise until the 1960s with producer-director
Roger Corman and the emergence of American International Pictures.Though produced on considerably low budgets
and sold as drive-in exploitation, Corman and crew’s efforts in recent years
are regarded as some of the better, more authentic adaptations of H.P.
Lovecraft committed to film.
Starting in 1963 with Roger Corman’s The Haunted Palace starring
Vincent Price which was billed as an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation but in actuality
stemmed from Lovecraft, Corman and AIP took on the thought-to-be unfilmable
task of realizing Lovecraft’s creatures on film and peering into other
dimensions with Daniel Haller’s 1965 Color Out of Space adaptation Die,
Monster, Die!Having tackled
Lovecraft more or less twice, producer Corman and director Haller put their
heads together in what became an adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story of the
same name, the 1970 occult horror piece The Dunwich Horror. Mysterious young occultist Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell
from Quantum Leap) drifts through the town of Dunwich to the Miskatonic
University in search of one of the only existing copies of the Necronomicon, a
bible for the dark underworlds of black magic.Starstruck by the young man’s debonair appearances, graduate student
Nancy Wagner (Sandra Dee) comes under his wing and as his sort of mistress he
takes her to his mansion where he intends to use her in a ritual to unlock “The
Old Ones” from another dimension.All
the while, there’s a hidden room with a locked latch on its door housing
something unimaginable and indescribable at the top of the stairwell in the mansion
which threatens the existence of all who reside in Dunwich.
Helmed by Corman art-director turned filmmaker Daniel Haller
and adapted for the screen by L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson
in his first film credit, Henry Rosenbaum and Ronald Slkosky, The Dunwich
Horror is one of the first honest attempts at bringing the tentacled
multi-headed creatures from another dimension to the silver screen.Psychedelic and hyperkinetic at times, the
film is characterized by being one of Sandra Dee’s first adult film roles as
she was eager to shed her child actress roots.Co-starring Ed Begley and legendary Old Hollywood icon Sam Jaffe of both
The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, this low-budget occult gem is a
terrific example of channeling the unadaptable imagery of Lovecraft on limited
resources.Startlingly visual with more
than a few stroboscopic freakouts whenever we catch a glimpse of whatever lies
behind that dreaded locked door, think of it as Lovecraft with just a few hints
of the Woodstock concert replete with subliminal flashes to an occult
ritualistic orgy. Shot beautifully on 35mm by Richard C. Glouner of Columbo
and V television fame, the look and feel of The Dunwich Horror is
at once classy and occasionally experimental.Using a number of photographic techniques to blur the sides of the frame
during dream sequences or cutting to rainbow colored stroboscopic flashing
indicative of whenever the titular Dunwich Horror is unleashed, this is
the kind of film now that would feature warning labels at the ticket booth
about those with photosensitive epilepsy.The soundtrack by legendarily overqualified musician Les Baxter, whose
music has been featured in everything from Wild at Heart to Ford v
Ferrari, is a mostly serviceable orchestral horror score. Dean Stockwell does what Ernest Borgnine tried and failed to
do successfully in The Devil’s Rain by taking the patent absurdities
associated with Satanic rituals and making them believable.While Stockwell’s finest hour onscreen may
still be those few minutes he had on David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, the actor
manages to make this strange occult dandy bird handsome with some measure of
sex appeal.Sandra Dee could well have gone
awry as she’s ordinarily involved in screwball comedies but her she pulls the
serious role off admirable and even has a few semi-nude scenes which were
previously cut to avoid an R rating only to be reinstated years later.Old Hollywood historians will raise their
eyebrows at the sight of Sam Jaffe who offers more onscreen than a glorified
cameo.Lastly, there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it
early screen appearance by eventual Rocky and The Godfather starlet
Talia Shire.
Though released to mixed reviews with some praising the film’s
technical merits while writing off the overall thing as mediocre in general, The
Dunwich Horror became a box office success, garnering $1 million against
its microbudget and years later being canonized as one of the quintessential Lovecraft
screen adaptations. While Dean Stockwell
himself years later expressed some measure of dissatisfaction with the final
product, feeling it to be a standard horror entry unbecoming of Lovecraft’s
writing, The Dunwich Horror helped put the actor on the map and ushered
in Sandra Dee’s transition to serious acting.
Yes some elements of it now are a bit hokey, particularly a wide-shot of
the monster than looks curiously like a Toho Kaiju, but nevertheless The
Dunwich Horror is a solid instance of Roger Corman produced AIP Lovecraftian
horror disciples of the author will be tickled pink by.
