The Dunwich Horror [film]

Yes, it's October, so let's make the first post of the month a horror one! I watched this on Talking Pictures TV, so it's sure to be repeated on there at some point.

"Is it weird that a single bloke has lingerie in my size in his house? Naaaaah, I'll trust him."

Leaving aside all arguments about HP Lovecraft’s merits as a writer (I think he did have some) and a person (definitely a terrible racist), it’s still sometimes surprising to me that more film adaptations haven’t been made of his works. Okay, you could argue that if you put an indescribable horror on film you are making it describable and thereby removing a lot of its power, but filmmakers have never shied away from attempting to film the unfilmable in the past. The Dunwich Horror is said to be one of the best attempts to bring Lovecraft’s work to the screen.

Though it was released in 1970, production on the film began in the late 1960s, and so while it has a very 1970s feel – it’s hard for me to put into words, but there’s a sense of wide blue Californian skies, and somehow also an air of beige and blonde – there are flashes of psychedelia. But I’m getting ahead of myself!

There’s a brief sequence showing the birth of twins at the start, then action flips to the present. Well, 1970. The film’s star is Sandra Dee as Nancy. Yes, that Sandra Dee, good-girl star of many a 1950s and 60s teen movie. She’s still a good girl here, though quite a stupid good girl, despite attending Miskatonic University in Arkham. The first time we see her, Dr Armitage is asking her to return the Necronomicon to the library. (Subtlety is not the film’s strong point.) There she encounters a real oddball. I assume he’s supposed to be handsome, but 70s curly hair with sideburns and moustache have never done it for me, and even if that is good looking in Nancy’s world, the flat way he speaks is reminiscent of various movie psychos of the era and ought to be enough to make any sensible girl flee. 

Don't go for picnics with paranormal-obsessed oddballs, that's my advice.

But Nancy’s not a sensible girl, and somehow makes eye contact with him long enough for him to hypnotise her. She not only drives him back to his creepy old home – despite her professor warning her about him, and a garage attendant flipping out when he realises her passenger is Walter Whateley, of the notoriously dodgy Whateley family – but goes in for a cuppa, during which time he sabotages her car so she has to stay the night. And she still doesn’t bat an eyelid when he just happens to have a sheer black nightie in her size in the wardrobe in the spare room.

I know it’s not fair to victim blame, but an ounce of sense on Nancy's part really wouldn’t have gone amiss here. What follows is pretty much what you’d expect, with a plucky professor, suspicious villagers, the uncovering of evil secrets, and unspeakable rituals, and none of this need have happened if Nancy had taken one look and said, “NOT TODAY, PSYCHO MOUSTACHE.”

That said, I did enjoy this film. There are some genuinely creepy moments, and it probably helped that I found Wilbur Whateley so repellent. (Actor Dean Stockwell was great as Al in Quantum Leap, so I’ll put that down to good acting on his part.) Rather than showing the horror, colourful psychedelic sequences are resorted to, which definitely also helps as it still forces your brain to fill in what’s happening. Worth giving a go.