Review of The Dunwich Horror (1970) by Megan D — 28 Nov 2008

Very loose adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft short story that pinches large parts of ROSEMARY'S BABY. Surprisingly, it works to create a good/bad movie. It looks very good for a AIP film, showing that director Daniel Haller learned a lot from art directing a ton of Roger Corman films.

Most film versions of Lovecraft stories make the mistake of building tension, promising something 'terrifying' and 'unspeakable', only to end up producing a creature that resembles an invisible whistling octopus.

Written by future director Curtis Hanson, he does the opposite of H.P.L's worse writing tendencies - he under-explains and holds back on showing us the monsters in full, instead using quick editing, atmospheric lighting, and damn good use of sound.

There are some failings: Stockwell and his grandfather both share the 'fake facial hair' gene and emote hammily; Dee's performance runs the gamut of A to B (catatonic or passive); the Olden Ones of the hallucination dream look plucked from a performance of HAIR.

But overall, I thought it was pretty good, especially on an HDTV.