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Review of Dunwich Horror from a Lovecraft fan/filmmaker

posted 15 years ago by aaronjv-1
8 replies | jump to latest

I regret that I missed this one at last year's HP Lovecraft Film Festival http://www.hplfilmfestival.com/. As has been typical the last few years, there are far too many movies each year to see them all. I mistakenly thought this Dunwich Horror, which starred Dean Stockwell, was the old 1970 version of the story.

Fortunately, I was finally able to catch it. I heard from C. Courtney Joyner (screenwriter of The Lurking Fear) that this movie did for the original Lovecraft story what The Curse did for Lovecraft's favorite story, "The Colour Out of Space". Ouch.

So it was with some trepidation that I watched this.

SPOILER ALERT[

Ultimately, it's a mixed bag. The story is closer to the original text than I expected, which was a good thing. There's no Powder of Ibn-Ghazi, alas.

Dean Stockwell plays Henry Armitage, and Jeffrey Combs plays Wilbur Whateley. I thought Stockwell was fine, and Combs was perfectly cast as someone who didn't want to be there and scowled through every scene thinking about the only actor's motivation: their paycheck.

The main leads, however, are "unknowns" and did OK.

The Whateley farm has been relocated from New England (in the original story) to Louisiana. I didn't have a problem with this, and the location shooting was great. And any way to bring money into that hurricane-torn state is a good thing in my mind.

But the characters managed to hop from New England to the swamp fairly easily. Isn't it a two-day drive to get down there?

Also, many of the interior locations, while very antiquated and picturesque, weren't quite right. This is best exemplified when Wilbur comes to Miskatonic looking for the Necronomicon, and Armitage takes him into the "library." Armitage says something like "there's a lot of books here, can you describe the one you're looking for, maybe we can narrow it down," yet we can't see any books anywhere in the room.

As a no-budget indie filmmaker, I am well aware of the difficulty in getting good locations, but couldn't the working-for-free PA's check out a few hundred library books (they have libraries in Louisiana, right?) and buy some cheap IKEA bookshelves? (do they have IKEA in Louisiana?)

Other locations also fell into that mold: looks great, but doesn't really have anything to do with the scene.

The computer graphics effects were a tad below average, mainly because something had to be shown. The best was the look/face of Wilbur's brother, which was kick-ass, and only seen briefly, in glimpses.

The script failed on a few levels: believability, dialogue. I see and appreciate the attempt, but I think the Arkham Horror board game was a bigger influence on the writing than Lovecraft's story (If you are familiar with the game, and see this movie, you'll understand). Armitage can shoot bolts of lightning out of his hands? Really? When the money for those shots could have been better spent on production design and art direction? Or making Wilbur Whateley (Combs) look more monstrous?

I had a problem with some of the camera and editing work as well: strange angles and weird, unmotivated cuts...or lingering on a shot too long. It seems like they were trying to make a $2 million dollar picture with $200,000, rather than a 200-large picture using $200,000: the seams are showing.

There was one scene that caused me to burst out laughing, and not in a good way:
the two main characters travel to Louisiana to meet Olaus Wormius, a millennia-old wizard who translated the Necromicon from Arabic into Latin. He's shacked up with a harem of topless girls on the swamp (which I could accept--you're thousands of years old, why not get a bunch of hotties to belly dance around you all day long and call you "Master"?). He appears to the characters by FLOATING into the room. Which was hilarious because the actor is a few hundred pounds and bald, so he looked like a dirigible sailing into port.

Maybe it's my fault for stereotyping ancient sorcerers who have vast knowledge of the Cthulhu Mythos as degenerate wizened crones, but I just couldn't take this guy, or this sequence, seriously. But it was nice to see titties, you know (the only point in the movie where the audience is privileged to such globes of delight).

Overall, a mixed bag. It is a semi-serious attempt at one of Lovecraft's best stories, and one with a lot of room for action and effects. A great cast and some great locations offered promise, but it finally falls flat under its own lack of understanding of the basic nature of Lovecraftian horror and terror.

For a better version of the story, check out the HP Lovecraft Historical Society's Dark Adventure Radio Theater play: http://www.cthulhulives.org/radio/DART/dart-tdh.html

(Note: it's by the same brilliant folks who brought us the best Lovecraft adaptation to date, The Call of Cthulhu...made on far less than this movie.)

Aaron
The Internet gave everyone a voice-everyone has chosen to use that voice to bitch about movies.

[–] silovik812 15 years ago

I was going to write a formal review of this movie, but you pretty much stole my thunder here, as I mostly agree with what you say here, so I'll only append my comments.

I was going to title my review: "One of the best Lovecraft adaptations yet...and that's not saying a lot for this movie!" Compared to the hippy-dippy 1970 version, this was sheer Hitchcock. Also, it's nice to see a movie on the Sissify Channel (where I just now watched it) which doesn't involve people running around, yelling, shooting guns, and blowing things up real good. This is probably top-of-the-line writing and directing for Leigh Scott, whose artistic work includes such gems as "Hillside Cannibals" and "Bird Flu Horror".

As a New Englander, though, one thing that bothered me a lot was, yes, the change in locale. In Movieland, inbred depraved families with, um, unusual religious practices, only exist in the American South. I myself live not too far from actual Lovecraft Country, and it's clear to me that these movie guys have never visited some of the strange little towns in north-central Massachusetts that inspired Lovecraft in the first place. Well, at least by moving the action all the way down to the bayous, they left the Appalachian people alone this time.

And another thing: can't they ever get those pronunciations right? Granted that "Cthulhu" can only be approximated, but at least they should be able to figure out "Dunwich" and "Innsmouth". (think "Greenwich" and "Portsmouth" )

I really did like all the catch-'em-or-don't references to the Mythos: the possessed girl was a descendent of Enoch Bowen, the "Ward House" was given the correct street address, along with Mr. Ward being correctly connected to the ancestor who found himself on the business end of the Salem witch trials, and so on. I'm not sure if the use of Simon's Necronomicon (along with its phony-baloney Sumerian conceit) was intended as a joke or not, but I got a good laugh from that anyway.

I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't care for the inclusion of the actual Olaus Wormius in the movie, but I think your dirigible comment brought it into focus. Also, I found that whole scene with the harem girls a little hokey, completely off-key with the rest of the movie, but yeah the girls were a nice distraction. One little correction: Master Olaus would be only centuries old, not millenia--Lovecraft's character was 13th century, and a real person of that name lived in Denmark around the turn of the 17th century. He was not an occultist, to my knowledge, but he did collect runic inscriptions and "curiosities", and was likely Lovecraft's inspiration.

What else? Oh, yeah, I agree with you about Wilbur's twin brother, they showed just enough of him to really creep me out, and I understand better why Lovecraft's characters keep going insane when they see these creatures face-to-face. Wilbur himself was a real disappointment, and I was SO hoping he'd be set upon by dogs and have his inhuman parts revealed to all. The family dynamics among the Whately clan were a bit confusing. And the ritual at the end made no sense at all to me. It was as if, right before shooting the scene, someone realized, OMG, we need some kind of magick something or other Here, let's dash this off real quick and hope the special effects will cover it.

One thing the movie missed completely, was the basic Lovecraft world-view: that the universe is an overwelmingly huge and alien place where everything we count as important really counts for next to nothing, and we hide ourselves from that reality so that we won't go insane from thinking about it. (Writing in the '20s and '30s, Lovecraft himself had no idea how huge and how alien the universe really is!) Instead, we get the clueless intellectual who discovers the importance of faith and love and real human relationships. Not that I disagree with this, but I'm sure that if Lovecraft believed in life after death, he would rise out of his grave and slap Leigh Scott's face.

All in all, not great, but entertaining enough, and if I could get the DVD for, oh, say, five bucks or so, I would buy it and watch it again from time to time when I'm in the mood for this sort of thing.

[–] silovik812 15 years ago

If you want the director-himself's explanation for a few of these matters, look on this board for the thread "Just saw it", posted by kajira_2001. Mr. Scott gives some explanations for why the movie is set in Louisiana, and why it departs from the original Lovecraft story. Gosh, if I'd have known the director was reading these remarks, I might have dialed back my snarky comments a little bit.

[–] DirectorLeigh 15 years ago

No need to dial back the snark. When people approach the film with a sense of intelligence and respect, I am more than happy to take my licks. I've said it once, and I'll say it again: no one is a tougher critic on Leigh Scott movies than Leigh Scott. I threw my shoes at the TV twice tonight watching it on SyFy.

I included the mythos references to let the Lovecraft scholars and fans know that I wasn't completely clueless going into this. What people should understand (and not as an excuse for shortcomings, but for additional insight) is that films like this are made backwards from what the audience expects. We are asked to make a film that has X,Y and Z elements. It has to fit commercial breaks. It has to have certain story "beats" that keep the lowest common denominator viewer interested. Then, once you have that, we have to fit it into the story and tone of H.P. Lovecraft. Only the really small films, that are not made for profit (Like "The Call of Cthulhu by the Lovecraft society) or big films with a big director (like the upcoming Del Toro adaptation) can truly stay close to the source material. Producers are interested in the Lovecraft name not because they appreciate the author, but because they hope to add value to the project through name recognition. I would love (and I think the material deserves it) to make a film that is faithful to the story without having to worry about distributors, producers, and accountants. Alas, that is easier said than done.

Having said all that, I hope that one day I can release my cut of the film that has quicker pacing through some of the dialog scenes and a bunch of hallucination/dream sequences that were deemed too esoteric for the release.

But for what it is, what it cost, and the trials in making it, it hit the marks that it was supposed to and turned out pretty good. At least it's not HILLSIDE CANNIBALS! Right?

Thanks for watching,
Leigh

"There is no peace without freedom, no freedom without a fight."

[–] silovik812 15 years ago

Thanks for being a good sport, and for taking my comments as they were intended. Truth be told, I have not seen any of your other movies, I just picked out the two looniest-sounding titles from the list on your IMDb page to make my point. I'm a great fan of low-budget films, and those two are also the ones from the list that I might want to see, just from their titles. My list of favorite movies includes not only "Citizen Kane", "The Seventh Seal", and "North By Northwest", but also "The Brain That Wouldn't Die", "The Creeping Terror", and "The Frozen Dead". So go figure.

One thing I meant to say above, that I never quite got around to, was that Lovecraft himself was hardly Charles Dickens when it came to basic writing skills, and even today people make fun of his style. Lovecraft did not consider himself an artist, he was a craftsman doing what people paid him to do, and spent a lot of his writing time editing other people's work for pay. In a way, he was doing a kind of low-budget entertainment himself, working for the pulps in the '20s and '30s, but he had the vision to push the boundaries of his genre.

I've never been involved with filmmaking, and I can't imagine how tough it must be to have to please the people with the money on one side (producers) and also please the people with the money on the other side (the public). After reading your other comments about why the change to Louisiana, I understand why it was done that way (same reason why Vancouver stands in for a lot of other cities these days), but still, living as I do within 50 miles of most of the Lovecraft sites.....

All of my reservations aside, though, I did enjoy the movie enough that I would watch it again, and as I said, I would certainly buy the DVD if I could get it cheap enough, that's mainly because I'm a cheapskate to begin with. And I'll keep an eye out for "Hillside Cannibals", and let you know what I think about it on its own IMDb page.

[–] mr_magnetism_himself 14 years ago

>>Lovecraft did not consider himself an artist, he was a craftsman doing what people paid him to do, <<

Ummm ... this is not at all correct, is it? HPL more than once decried the notion of writing fiction for money. I don't have access to his letters while I'm sitting here at work, but this passage from

http://scififantasyfiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/h_p_lovecraft_ghost_writer

rather nicely sums up my perception of the matter --

>>He disdained anyone who wrote to please the masses, or, in other words,with the intent to make money. An artist wrote for himself, not the expectations of others.<<

[–] Wuchakk 13 years ago

Re: "I have not seen any of your other movies, I just picked out the two looniest-sounding titles from the list on your IMDb page to make my point."

Despite its title, "Flu Birds" is actually a worthy low-budget nature-runs-amok flick which delivers in all the requisite creature-feature areas but mostly, believe it or not, in the realm of human interest, specifically self vs. group dynamics, self-sacrifice, the potential for positive change, forgiveness and redemption.

See my review for details, if interested.

[–] aaronjv-1 15 years ago

Hi Leigh

Thanks for checking out the comments and replying. Were you at the HP Lovecraft Film Festival when this played there?

I want to comment on what you wrote here;
Only the really small films, that are not made for profit (Like "The Call of Cthulhu by the Lovecraft society)

They didn't make it for profit, but they DID make a profit (and, percentage wise, a pretty hefty one) off Call of Cthulhu. They used the money to fund their next movie, a feature adaptation of The Whisperer in the Darkness, which, I think, just finished shooting tonight.

(Just read director Sean Branney's email to me: "Anyway, we still have two sequences we need to pick up but principal photography is about 95% done and we are wrapped at our sound stage.")

This represents my view towards movies, and art in general (and probably explains why I have no money):

Make money by making the best project possible. I understand there are many, many, many demands on movie making, money being #1, but low or no budget doesn't mean quality needs must suffer.

Also, being "faithful" to the story isn't always in the best interest of the movie. As I continually talk about on panels at the HPLFF, there's a difference between a translation and an [a]adaptation[/a]. Stories, and especially Lovecraft's stories, work best as literature. Trying to put exactly what was written onto the screen isn't always the best idea. However, it is possible to keep the spirit, tone, style of the story on the screen, and make a great movie.

The Dunwich Horror isn't the worst HPL movie out there, but neither is it the worst. From what I have seen and made of HPL movies in the last fifteen years (I've seen a lot), The Dunwich Horror is a hair under the median level of quality. What's heartbreaking is that a greater potential was there.

But my opinion doesn't matter, really. I'm not a distributor, producer, nor accountant; the three classes that control most movies made.

Aaron
The Internet gave everyone a voice-everyone has chosen to use that voice to bitch about movies.

[–] hackermc 15 years ago

SPOILERS!

I missed "the Devil's Hop Yard" as well as the Powder of Ibn Ghazi, lol. I enjoyed Jeff Coombs' performance as Wilbur, and I thought that the script had some surprises.

SPOILERS NOW!!!

Dr. Armitage shoots Lavinia. I did not expect this and it surprised me. The motivation was pure horror on Dr. Armitage's part, his disgust and revulsion. I thought it worked pretty well and was a "genuine moment" in the film. Lavinia's performance was more Rob Zombie than Lovecraft and that must have driven Jeff Coombs crazy. But in terms of storytelling it was an interesting twist: using violence to solve a threat of violence (pre-emptive violence, perhaps) is self-defeating. Note how Dr. Armitage doesn't survive, lol. Rather, using faith and belief to solve the threat ultimately succeeds, which is an affirmative theme, imo. (Take THAT, you neocons!)

Ward's house. The best original idea in the film imo is Ward's house as the Necronomicon. The pages under the wallpaper, the weirdness of the dream. Of course, it's a vision caused by Wormius' potion but it was interesting nonetheless. I'm always creeped out by weird architecture, but so was Lovecraft.

I unfortunately missed the first 15 minutes of the movie, finishing up a World of Warcraft session, so I will seek an opportunity to see it again I'm sure.