sourdaddyjones Not the best H. P. Lovecraft adaptation but also not the worst, The Dunwich Horror stars Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap) as Wilbur Whatley, Sandra Dee (Gidget) as Nancy Wagner, and Ed Begley (12 Angry Men) as Dr. Armitage. Wilbur Whatley is trying to bring the Old Ones through to this dimension and he can only do that with the help of Nancy Wagner (as she is a virgin!) Now let's be honest here. Lovecraft never had a love interest in the story The Dunwich Horror, but hey, this is a 1970 Roger Corman AIP picture! If with all of these story book flaws, I still love this movie. It helps that I am a Sandra Dee film (just ask my wife!)If you haven't given this HPL film a shot, it's better than some but not as good as others. One of these days someone is going to come along a make a H.P. Lovecraft film that everyone is going to be blown away by. Of course of Mr. Lovecraft was alive today he'd probably detest it, I mean, he didn't like Franenstein when he saw it in 1931! Frankenstein! That is just crazy.

gavin6942 Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell) pops over to the Arkham Miskatonic University to borrow the legendary Necronomicon and Sandra Dee. But little does anyone know, Whateley is not quite human...Peter Fonda was apparently considered for the role of Wilbur. I wish that would have happened! I mean, Stockwell does a great job and has an incredible mustache (and Mike Mayo calls his performance "appropriately hammy"), but Fonda is one creepy dude! There is much to be marveled at here, even just in the making. The script was co-written by future Academy Award winning director Curtis Hanson. This is also Ed Begley's final film.Most importantly, the film is one of the earliest adaptations of Lovecraft's work (the fourth film) and one of the first to attempt exploring the Cthulhu mythos in cinema. American International Pictures really cornered this market early on, first with "The Haunted Palace" and then "Die Monster Die" before this one...

tomgillespie2002 The Necronomican (a mythical book said to be a tool to open a gateway to an alternate universe) becomes the prized exhibit of Dr Armitage (Ed Begley) at the local library, and gets interest from the eccentric, and locally feared Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell), who was born of a deformed mother who is now held in an institution. An encounter at the library leads him to Nancy (Sandra Dee), a pretty young blond girl; he seduces her and takes her back to his mansion - a local 'old dark house' shrouded in local fear and loathing to the population of the fictional town of Dunwich, Massachusetts. Nancy becomes embroiled in a necro- nightmare, where she has visions of strange ritualistic, tribal torture and sacrifice, and Wilbur manipulates her to become a vehicle to open the gateway open to let the "old ones" through to our world.Based on the short story, published in 1929, by H. P. Lovecraft, the story is grounded in two of his most famous creations. One being the Necronomicon (a creation that has been used several times in popular culture - including Sam Raimi's Evil Dead Trilogy (1981 - 1992)), and the tentacled beasts of the other world, epitomised by Cthulhu (yeah, no one knows how exactly it is pronounced). Whilst much of his writings have now been adapted into films (most famously Re-Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986)), his adjective-heavy prose is regarded less than the work of that other American horror writer, Edgar Allen Poe; perhaps symptomatic of his anti-Semitic attitudes in life.Like the films pop art stylings of the Sandy Dvore title sequence, with it's bold colours and silhouetted figures, the films "horrific" action is marked with various coloured filters, giving a very '60's charm to it. Oranges, reds and blue filters flash on screen, the editing at times too quick to register, as the screams of victims, and the flight of a beast are signified simply, for budgetary purposes no doubt. Stockwell gives a fantastically hammy, yet suave performance as the tortured, yet controlling man, who's past is shrouded in mystery. The climax reveals a potent edge of cerebral, nightmarish horror, a conclusion of twisted, monstrous proportions. Produced by Samual Z. Arkoff's AIP, it sometimes feels like a very East-coast American Hammer film, but the tentacled monstrosity (which we don't really see exactly) is absolutely from the imagination of Lovecraft. It's preposterous, but a hell of a lot of fun - helped by Stockwell's furry eyebrows and moustache.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Andrei Nancy Walker and Elizabeth Hamilton, two students who attend Miskatonic University and work in the school library, are putting away the Necronomicon , a rare book on the occult, after a lecture on the supernatural given by visiting professor Dr. Henry Armitage. Dr. Armitage discovers Wilbur Whateley memorizing ritual passages from the Necronomicon and is at first angry, but learns that Wilbur comes from nearby Dunwich, a village having a history of evil occurrences, and that Wilbur is the great-grandson of Oliver Whateley, who was hanged by the villagers as a demon. Nancy, finding herself attracted to Wilbur, offers to drive him home when he misses his bus. Later, in the old mansion where Wilbur lives with his grandfather, Wilbur drugs Nancy and sabotages her car, thus forcing her to stay for the night. (He plans to sacrifice her in a fertility rite in the hopes of gaining for himself contact with the spiritual world.) Nancy accepts his invitation to spend the weekend there, but her absence alarms both Elizabeth and Dr. Armitage, who learn that Wilbur's mother has been living in an insane asylum since giving birth to twins--Wilbur and a boy who has never been seen. Wilbur steals the Necronomicon from the library, kills a guard, and takes Nancy to the "Devil's Hopyard," a rocky hillside, for the ritual. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Dr. Armitage arrive at the Whateley house; Elizabeth opens a locked door and is immediately devoured by an invisible creature, the Dunwich Horror (Wilbur's twin). The Horror escapes and ravages the countryside, intending to kill Wilbur. Eventually, Dr. Armitage confronts Wilbur and the monster at the Devil's Hopyard, and there Armitage utters a curse which sends both Wilbur and the Dunwich Horror up in flames.