Beginning in the mid-1960s, there was a wave of mainstream interest in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). Howard Phillips Lovecraft had been popular in the 1930s and 40s but only amongst a fringe element of readers and/or writers of what was then called “weird fiction”. Once his pulp fiction magazine copyrights expired, his stories were published in paperback thus allowing them to reach a much wider audience. In addition to the books, movies began to appear starting with Roger Corman’s THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963). Later several stories were adapted for television in the early 1970s on Rod Serling’s NIGHT GALLERY. In between there were two movies directed by Corman’s former art director, Daniel Haller. The first, DIE,MONSTER, DIE! (1965) starring Boris Karloff, was based on Lovecraft’s THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE. It was made in England and done in the Gothic style of the Corman Edgar Allan Poe pictures although given a contemporary setting.
That film was a box office success so director Haller did a second one, THE DUNWICH HORROR, 5 years later. This time the film was shot in America.and was aimed squarely at the youth market. It is full of late 1960s hip trendiness which proved to be a mistake with this type of picture giving it an incredibly dated feel. I saw this film in high school when it came to town in 1970 and was not impressed as I appreciated the period Gothic approach and wasn’t into the counterculture at that time. DUNWICH did contain a few good scares but those were mostly accidental. Lovecraft’s otherworldly alien from another dimension was never clearly shown as it was lost in a wash of psychedelic colors and strobe light editing. The one brief shot at the end made it look like the multi-headed Hydra from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963). I remember afterwards how disappointed I was that the old school atmosphere had been sacrificed for lots of drugged out visuals.
The essential elements of the story are in place with a modern day warlock attempting to resurrect an ancient race of beings by mating them with women. Dean Stockwell, in a role intended for Peter Fonda, gives a subdued, intense performance despite the rather dumbed down script and he receives able support from old pros Sam Jaffe and Ed Begley (in his last film). Sandra Dee, despite this attempt to change her squeaky clean image, doesn’t help matters. One interesting bit of trivia is that DUNWICH HORROR features an early appearance by Talia Coppola (later Shire) 6 years before she played Adrian in ROCKY. It’s hard to believe that this movie was made by the same director who did MONSTER and how attitudes in the cultural climate and in the movie business had changed in just 4 years. I recently watched DUNWICH again after several years only to realize that it was still just as bad as I remembered although it is an interesting time capsule.
The Capsule Critic 