User reviews

Sandra Dee (the original GIDGET to you beach bunny fans) is Nancy Wagner, a virginal blonde student at Miskatonic University who meets Wilbur (Dean Stockwell), the grandson of a warlock who was lynched years earlier.

Wilbur shows interest in the Necronomicon and in Nancy, because he needs both to open a gateway for demons called "The Old Ones" to enter our world. He invites her back to his secluded home in Dunwich, where he keeps her drugged, plots to sacrifice her on a seaside altar and fights with his senile, ranting grandfather (Sam Jaffe). A strange-looking, barely-seen, multi-headed flying monster that sees things in negative (and looks kind of like GHIDRAH!), is kept locked in the attic, but escapes for the silly finale.

It's amusing to see the once-wholesome Sandra Dee saying sex is "great" and simulating orgasm while being groped on an altar, but she should also get credit for delivering a decent performance. Ditto Ed Begley in his last role as a heroic professor. Stockwell is so soft-spoken and weird it's hard to gouge just how good (or bad) his performance really is.

Compared to most recent H.P. Lovecraft adaptations, this isn't half bad and it all looks very cool and colorful. Roger Corman was the executive producer. Director Haller also made DIE, MONSTER, DIE, which was based on Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space."

"The Dunwich Horror" of 1970 may not be great Horror, but it is nonetheless a worthwhile little film that has many qualities. The film is based on the writings of the almighty H.P. Lovecraft, which may be one of the reasons why many fellow Horror lovers find it to be disappointing. Many films based on Lovecraft writings are downright brilliant all-time Horror-greats, above all Roger Corman's "Haunted Palace" (1963) with Vincent Price (which was marketed as a Poe-adaptation), Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" (1981) and Stuart Gordon's "Re-Animator" (1985), just to name three absolute masterpieces inspired by this great writer's work. "The Dunwitch Horror", of course, comes nowhere near the brilliance of films like those just mentioned, it is not even comparable to films like these, and it is certainly no classic, but while the film has its flaws, it is still an entertaining film that has its qualities.

I will not go into detail regarding the plot, but, as usual for Lovecraft adapt ions, the Necronomicon, and the 'Old Ones' play an important role. The quality of the performances differs. Sandra Dee, is sexy and nice to look at in the female lead, and she even reveals some of her charms, but her performance is quite awful. Dean Stockwell (who sports one of the most fake-looking mustaches in motion picture history) arguably delivers the best performance in the film, and the cast furthermore includes Sam Jaffe and the weird-looking Ed Begley ("12 Angry Men", "Hang 'Em High") in one of his last roles. Talia Shire also has a small role. The visual style is very much a matter of personal taste. The film has a nice general atmosphere and cool settings. The occasional flashy colors, in which the whole screen turns at some points, don't really fit in and annoy at times. The films greatest aspect is the excellent score by Les Baxter, which contributes a lot to the atmosphere. The film has a brilliant animated opening credit sequence, which is another reason to give it a try. All things considered, "The Dunwich Horror" is certainly no great film, but even though it is quite cheesy and never really suspenseful it is yet a highly entertaining little film that I recommend to fans of occult fun.

A kind of disappointing foray into the realm of Lovecraft. Dee looks like she's lost in a library, not in a twisted necromantic nightmare. Stockwell is fun at times and he's a good actor but Haller lets him play too broad to be convincing. the legendary "topless Sandra Dee" scene lasts all of 2 seconds, and I thought it looked like it could just as easily have been anybody's (well, almost anybody's, but possibly not even Sandra Dee's!), because the camera dollied behind Dee's head and got dark on her just before showing it, so a switch and edit could easily have been accomplished. That means, if it IS a true totless shot, the cameraman and Haller should be ashamed for making it look fake.

Surely, Roger Corman should have exercised a stronger hand over this one (or somebody should have). Still, it's fun and kind of different. Will not particularly please H.P. Lovecraft fans.

I remember reading Lovecrafts classic The Dunwich Horror back when I was a boy, I always enjoyed his works and nobody else could write quite like him.

As I grew older and my movie obsession truly took hold I was astonished how bad almost every Lovecraft adaptation was, seriously awful stuff.

It's taken me a longtime to get round to the original 1970's movie and I can confidently say I'm more than a little miffed.

Starring Dean "Quantum Leap" Stockwell and Sandra Dee this is a very loose streamlined version of the tale and it simply isn't very good.

Upon investigation it turns out that The Dunwich Horror has been adapted quite a few times and I can only hope the others are better than this. It looks terrible, it doesn't do the source material justice and strip Dunwich from it's title and you'd likely not even realise it was a Lovecraft piece.

Utter mess and that's a damn shame.

The Good:

Dean Stockwell is on form

The Bad:

Some weird choices for the score

Really crummy sfx

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The best method of tackling a man with a spear is to dive right onto it

H.P Lovecraft was the original purveyor of hentai

If I had watched this with a bunch of friends, we would have laughed and thought it was awful. But when watched alone at night, without a critical attitude, it is creepy and effective as only an old, cheap horror movie can be. Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee give low key, almost distracted performances that, intentionally or not, contribute to the eerie tone, and presentation of Dean Stockwell's unearthly twin was very atmospheric and evocative - a good example of how to play on the viewers' imagination (a lost art in most of today's horror movies). The movie has a titillating sexuality (which seems very 1970 but quite un-Lovecraftian but it has been a long time since I've read his stuff) with a few quick almost subliminal nude shots.

Part of my enjoyment of the film was nostalgia - it reminded me of tv shows and movies I enjoyed as a kid in the early 70s. Dunwich Horror is very similar in style to the Night Gallery tv series (which was rarely successful, but I still enjoy watching it if I get a chance).

So - not a great movie, but good if you like this sort of thing and are in the right frame of mind. The DVD looked pretty good, especially the color.

The writings of the great H.P. Lovecraft have lead to some truly great films, but unfortunately his stories aren't always enough to carry a film through, and despite the fact that this film features all the elements of a successful Lovecraft adaptation - The Dunwich Horror is a sadly lacklustre movie. It has to be said that the film does look very nice - for a low rent early seventies production, the cinematography is surprisingly crisp and the locations look good - but this isn't matched by the story, which is always intriguing but director Daniel Haller lets the suspense build and build and then makes the cardinal blunder of not giving his audience a worthwhile payoff at the end. The plot revolves around one of Lovecraft's most famous creations - the Necronomicon, a book which can supposedly summon alien Gods to Earth. Wilbur Whateley wants this book so that he can complete some ancient rite, and in order to do so he needs the services of Nancy Wagner - a young University student that offered him a lift home when he unfortunately missed his bus.

The film is packed with provocative imagery (for the time), and includes a nude scene for Sandra Dee and a whole host of trippy psychedelic scenes. However, while he was doing all this stuff, the director forgot that he was actually filming a horror film - and because of that, there's barely any horror on display at all and the closest we really get to anything horrifying is a vibrating door with a bolt on it. Naturally, it's not long before all this starts to get more than a little bit boring as you can only watch a bunch of meaningless characters swan around for so long. However, the way that the director builds suspense is sometimes intriguing, and I have to admit that I did want to know what was going on - the fact that the ending is so pithy pretty much cancels that out, however. There is a good sequence mid-way through in which we find about the birth of the main character and some other scenes are interesting (like the fight between our warlock and a library security guard...), but overall there really isn't much to recommend this film for and I don't doubt that my fellow Lovecraft aficionados will be disappointed.

Another movie featuring Gothic horror that collides with late 1960's psychedelic/Hippie clothing, fashions, design, etc. It makes for a potent combination that is somewhat silly but great fun to look at.

The rumor is that Peter Fonda was supposed to play the lead but Dean Stockwell stepped in at the last minute. It would have sure been a different movie with old Pete. Stockwell gives the role a creepy yet seductive intensity. Could Fonda have done the same? Not so sure about that. I tend to think that Peter Fonda would have been a little too "slick" for this role, that is, too much on the side of the sleazy seducer and too little on the side of the menacing necromancer. But, who knows, that's just my silly idle speculation, as Peter never did the role.

This would make a great double feature with "Simon: King of The Witches," also currently available on DVD. Filmed shortly after this film, also has a warlock, and a lot of trippy psychedelic visual effects. Also great fun to look at and quite entertaining performance in the lead role by Andrew Prine.

In the Arkam University, Dr. Henry Armitage (Ed Begley) has the infamous Necronomicon exposed in a glass box in the library. Dr. Armitage's assistants Nancy Wagner (Sandra Dee) and Elizabeth Hamilton (Donna Baccala) are closing the library, when Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell) arrives and asks to consult the notorious book. Nancy is seduced by the young man and lends the Necronomicon to him. But soon Dr. Armitage arrives and guards the book in the glass box. Then they go to a restaurant and Wilbur says that he lives in Dunwich. When Dr. Armitage and Elizabeth leave the restaurant, Nancy offers to drive him home. When they arrive at the Whateley's home, she accepts a spiked tea and Wilbur sabotages her car. Nancy decides to stay at his house, but she does not know that Wilbur wants to conjure the Old Ones and Nancy and the Necronomicon are essential for his purpose.

"The Dunwich Horror" is a horror film with a good storyline, but lame screenplay, terrible acting, and awful special effects. There are many holes in the plot, and it is hard to list all of them. But how Dr. Henry Armitage and Elizabeth easily find Wilbur's isolated house; how Elizabeth vanishes from the story; how the security guard runs onto a man holding a spear; and how the local from the mob shots the being and nobody overhears the firing of the weapon are terrible. The acting in general is very poor, but the special effects are among the worst that I have ever seen. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Altar do Diabo" ("The Devil's Altar")

Note: On 24 November 2022, I saw this film again.

I liked this one, but it was not without its faults. One of these is clearly the monster. It does not look to good, but on the bright side they try to cover up its appearance with weird flashing lights and they usually only show it by showing its point of view. Another problem is I found myself pulling for Wilbur to succeed in his rituals. I am sure that is not the makers of this movies intent. This one has a man wanting to see a book at a library that contains many rituals for bringing those called the "old ones" to the earth. He can't convince the man in charge of the book to loan it to him, but he does get a gal to drive him home and stay the weekend. His house is rather drab, but she seems okay with it. She soon becomes part of his plans to bring the "old ones" to earth. Meanwhile, her friend and the guy with the book investigate the guy. Overall I liked it, but I wasn't thrilled with the ending as it did not seem right to me. The old guy was about three or four steps behind in everything to me, so it didn't seem right that it should end that way. Some nudity in this one, but not all that much. Could have used a bit of gore too, but the story is interesting enough to keep my attention anyway. Based on a Lovecraft story that probably explains the monster. He always describes such horrors in his story that they are nearly impossible to duplicate by building them or using computer graphics.

Dean Stockwell (sporting a 'fro and looking like a sinister disco king) visits Miskatonic University in hopes of "borrowing" the original Necronomicon. It seems that Dean is the grandson of a powerful wizard, and the illegitimate son of a woman who is finishing her days in the padded room of an insane asylum. Sandra Dee and her huge helmet of blond hair accompany Dean back to his isolated farmhouse where she is quickly drugged, talking about sex, having orgasms on altars and dreaming about strange beings (who rather resemble Manson Family members) who chase her along the misty sea cliffs. Suspicious friends arrive to help the stoned Miss Dee, who has no desire to be rescued from her creepy new boyfriend or his awful perm. But the well meaning friends learn some shocking truths about Dean anyway: he has a twin brother, and if looks are anything to go by, then their Daddy was a mutant sushi dinner.

There's some pretty decent creepy moments to be found in this film. The mood is nice and eerie, the atmosphere as thick and creepy as the fog that lies thick along the coastline beside Dean's house. We don't get to see much of the Twin Brother, but the POV shots are nice, done in blood red negatives. Dean Stockwell delivers a truly icky performance as the not-quite-human Wilbur who succeeds in seducing virginal Sandy, whose Good Girl image goes bye-bye here pretty quickly. The ending is a tad rushed and somewhat silly, but everything leading up to it is nice and tense, with minimal gore and some haunting sound effects. I give it a fat 8 on a scale of 10.

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...

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.

As Sandra Dee got older her youthful virginal image did not play well in the 60s counterculture. The Dunwich Horror was an effort to save her career and break the typecasting.

Sandra getting a little long in the tooth for a college student meets a rather strange Dean Stockwell who is looking a rare book that professor Ed Begley has. It contains some spells that will bring some creatures from another dimension and Begley doesn't want to part with it. Stockwell then steals it and returns home with Dee.

Dean's got big plans for Sandra. She's to be part of a ritual that will open up the portals to another dimension. And he's got reason to want to bring these beings into our universe.

The Dunwich Horror didn't serve the careers of Dean Stockwell or Sandra Dee very well. Ed Begley does well in a sympathetic role, one of his last. But I was singularly unmoved by it all.

I saw this movie when I was around 13 years old.I felt the movie seemed a bit like a "movie of the week".

The only great thing about this movie was the intro at the beginning and the theme of the movie.

The intro (beginning credits) was a scary cartoon done in shadow.In the cartoon you see a woman giving birth to a baby to be quickly taken away by the "devil" who then eats the baby! Very strange to say the least.I tried to get the soundtrack on CD but I had to settle on getting a 12 inch record.

When it came on DVD,I bought it just for the intro!

The film boasts fairly good performances by some veteran Character actors. Ed Begley is a rock-like Armitage, and Sam Jaffe is an appropriately mangy (and deranged) Old Whately.However, it could have benefited from much better direction and a tighter script.It would also have helped to set it in the Twenties. Perhaps Tim Burton could do a remake. In fact a couple of Lovecraft's tales could stand retelling by Burton-or Lynch.

I gotta hand it to Corman and his people. He has a real talent for making a 90 minute movie feel a half hour too long.

There's a single drop of the original Lovecraft story in a big bucket full of Rosemary's Baby. I watched this because of Stockwell's recent passing, and I really wanted to like his performance, but this just isn't the one to put on his in memoriam reel. I don't know if his delivery of his lines are by choice or by the director, but his version of Wilbur is less unholy monstrosity and more boring grad student. The last half hour of the film is cycling between three shots: Sandra Dee writhing and moaning, Stockwell saying "Yog Shoggoth" a hundred times, and a point of view monster killing people extremely slowly with different light filters. You can almost make out a good film here, but man, do you have to squint.

Long ago, on a dark and stormy night, two brothers were born. One, was a normal, multi-tentacled, half-human spawn of Yog Sothoth. The other, grew up to become the hideous, poodle-haired creature with humongous sideburns known as Wilbur Whately (Dean Stockwell).

Now, Wilbur sets out to unleash the dreaded "Old Ones" from their millennia of slumber. He needs only two things to get started: #1- The Necronomicon (aka: Book Of The Dead). #2- A female virgin. After securing a handy copy of the terrible tome at the local college, Wilbur snags a young coed named Nancy (Sandra Dee). One slipped Mickey later, and Nancy's in the company of a group of cultists who look like the cast of HAIR. Psychedelia ensues, and the movie ambles along toward its inevitable conclusion.

What -almost- saves the film is the escape of Wilbur's half-brother from his / its locked attic room. Many innocent villagers perish as the titular horror oozes through the countryside! While we don't get to see much of it, the rampage is still pretty cool. THE DUNWICH HORROR is based on the story by H. P. Lovecraft, and is perfectly representative of its era...

To be honest I really didn't hate watching this movie for its first half. Yes, it all was kind of slow but I thought that this was merely a build up to something great, exciting, mysterious, tense. But none of that was the case. The movie gets progressively worse and even reaches a point that it becomes almost a totally unwatchable one.

This is a movie that just never takes off. Its story just goes nowhere and it is simply a ridicules one. The concept is just too dull for an horror. The only way this type of story could possible work out is if it has a good dark, mysterious atmosphere. Something that this movie just doesn't have. It's not the type of story that provides the movie with lots of blood, monsters or scary moments. It's more about its haunting atmosphere and mysterious story and characters, which this movie just doesn't know how to handle well. There is just nothing happening and when there is it's just too ridicules and far from interesting. You also often have no idea what is happening because of the messy, offbeat way the movie gets told.

It's an early '70's movie but it already has a typical sort of experimental '70's style over it. This style already sort of started off in the late '60's, so it's not really a great surprise or something renewing or original for its time. But it was this style that still made the movie a good and interesting one to watch at times. It's about one of the only positive things I can say about this movie really.

I just really started to loose interest in this movie as it progressed. Instead of developing, the story becomes only more and more simplistic, dull and just plain ridicules. It was written by the then still young Curtis Hanson, who would much later go on to win an Oscar for "L.A. Confidential". I also really feel that it was more the director's fault than the writer's that this movie turned out so bad and messy. After the halve way point it seems like they had no idea anymore what they were doing or what they were trying to create at all. The story itself got based on a short H.P. Lovecraft story but the fact that there still never have been made a good movie based on the story should already also tell enough. It's a story that might work on paper but just doesn't translate very well to the silver screen and doesn't make a good horror movie, or just movie in general, at all.

The movie has Dean Stockwell, Sandra Dee and Ed Begley in it but still I can't say I was too happy about the casting. Perhaps the way Dean Stockwell was sexy back in the early '70's, though I highly doubt it. And he was supposed to be a very charming and seductive character, who completely got a girl like Sandra Dee in his grip. He just looked like an '70's porn actor, without any charm or charisma. He was absolutely boring and miscast in his role. It's even more sad that Sam Jaffe is also in this, who I like very much as an actor. But due to the story, dialog and directing, all of the actors come across as '50's B-monster movie actors, that often act against nothing. They must have thought they would fix things in post-production but they just messed up big time with it.

A boring, slow mess, that is lacking as an horror movie and just as a movie in general as well, at basically every department.

3/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I rented this movie today and went over to my sisters to watch it. She took out the movie that she was currently watching to check out what I had. I guess she was enchanted by CGI and dumb dialog because in mere disappointment, she said, "what is this old sh#%?!" when the opening scene was playing. By looking at my "you're a simpleton" stare, she was quiet and continued to watch the movie until it froze.

Due to this being a very old CD that was used many times, it was dirty as hell and I had to take it out to clean it.

Needless to say, once it was cleaned, the show was on and going and I had not heard another peep of disapproval from her because the story is a great one despite it's out of date dialog and mannerisms.

I will not go into the story of this movie but rather just ask, who doesn't like a good 'ol HP Lovecraft story? I'm sure there will be many who will pick apart the movie because it's not up whatever standards that they hold but in defense of it, for its day (1970) it's pretty good.

It doesn't matter if the blonde was dumb and oblivious to evil, or dean stockwell's fake mustache, or a semi, photo transparent, hologram monster, or old school 3D visuals of horror.

I mean anyone here knows that in this day and age, if we're lucky to have a girl (purposely) stranded at our house for the night, we just don't offer them a nightgown, but hey, at one point, I guess that was what people did. But none the less (again) it's a good film for it's time and still decent enough to stand up to most of the crap that's coming out of the celluloid grinder.

This movie is a HOOT! Unintentionally, of course--which makes it all the better. Dean Stockwell moves through most of the movie like he's heavily sedated (or maybe in shock at finding himself in such a bad movie), only coming to life in the film's climax.

Poor Sandra Dee--the eternal virgin--has to learn the hard way never to give strange young men a ride home from the library.

Psychedelic "special effects" complete the experience...all of it taking place in the accursed hamlet of Dunwich...but I won't spoil the fun by saying any more. Let me just add that I am a fan of Lovecraft's & should have been miffed at this botched attempt...but I was too busy laughing.

Interesting film about a young college coed who becomes involved with a young man who has connections that extend well into the underworld and who only needs the right book to unleash them. Sandra Dee in a surprisingly sexy role as the young student and Les Baxter's very nice soundtrack just about save an effort where the actual film doesn't do justice to its title. Nonetheless the production design creates creepy atmosphere especially in the seaside alter where Dee is nearly undressed while Stockwell prepares her for the arrival of Satan himself. And there is a certain amount of imagination involved in the film that combines a nice mixture of classic horror themes with hip sensibilities.

Although this film has hints of the chillingly mysterious horrors that are conveyed in Lovecraft's stories, in is incredibly boring, awkward and stilted. The best performance in the film is turned in by Sandra Dee, which may give you a clue about the low quality of the acting by such generally competent performers as Ed Begley and Sam Jaffe. Dean Stockwell phones in what must be the worst job of his career. The dialog is at times incoherent. The special effects abysmal. The editing, non-existent. I lay the blame for most faults squarely on the shoulders of the director, a former designer and art director on some classic horror films who seems to be well out of his area of competence here. The film clearly must have had a lowest of the low budget as well. Alas, we have yet to see a really good treatment of any Lovecraftian tale on film.