The Dunwich Horror

This is a below average Lovecraft movie, so all bar HP Lovecraft lovers should avoid like the plague. In all honesty this TV movie is worth no more than 3 stars, but being Cthulhian and starring Jeffrey Combs it gets another.

Considering IMDb rating (3/10) and terrible reviews, I expected to withdraw from the film after about ten minutes, but the film really is not so bad. The story is more faithful to the source material than most adaptations of Lovecraft and pretty well captures the atmosphere for which this horror giant is recognizable. The acting certainly isn't an Oscar material, but it's quite decent, and for a low-budget B movie, technical aspects are not that bad either. The only serious flaw of the film are the effects, because of which I had the impression of watching a movie from the '80s, or maybe the early '90s. If the film was not from 2009, even the effects would be ok, but for 2009 they are absolutely unacceptable. This disadvantage has affected my rating, which would have been a bit higher with the contemporary effects, but it does not necessarily have to affect your film experience. Simply imagine you're watching a movie from the eighties and the effects will not bother you anymore. They did not bother me too much when I was watching, but I have to take them into account when evaluating because they are really extremely outdated, while not being necessary at all. If the budget did not allow for the effects to be in accordance with current technology, they could simply completely avoid them with simple directorial tricks. If you are expecting a horror that will scare you and hold you on the edge of the seat, this definitely isn't a film for you, but if you're a fan of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos, and if you're not overly demanding and meticulous, you will enjoy the good atmosphere of this adaptation.

5/10

In Louisianna, the thirty-five year old single mother Lavina (Lauren Michele) delivers a baby boy and a monster in the evil Whateley House. Ten years later, Dr. Henry Armitage (Dean Stockwell) and his assistant Professor Fay Morgan (Sarah Lieving) discover that the page 751 of every copy of the Necronomicon is missing and The Black Brotherhood has summoned the gate keeper Yog Sothoth to leave the portal opened to the demons and ancient gods. They invite the arrogant and skeptical Professor Walter Rice (Griff Furst) that can translate the Necronomicon to help them to seek the book. Meanwhile Lavina's son Wilbur Whateley (Jeffrey Combs) ages very fast and seeks the missing page to open the portal.

"The Dunwich Horror" is a cheesy low-budget horror movie that has an awful screenplay associated to terrible acting and poor special effects. Dean Stockwell and the cult-actor Jeffrey Combs are wasted in this forgettable flick. The romance of Fay and Rice is quite ridiculous and out of the context of the plot. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Bruxas" ("Witches")

The film is as cheap and mediocre (leaning towards bad) as you can guess. Bad directing, bad effects (that's the least), a rather sloppy plot that doesn't really do any justice to the original material. The acting is better than I expected, but doesn't deserve praise either. The only real reason to watch the film is that there is such a shortage of Cthulhu Mythos based movies (and how few of them are actually good!) that a true fan will try anything.

The house-searching scene was the only one that showed a little bit of inspiration, albeit poorly executed. Other than that you get a pointless background (really far in the background) romance, a rather silly version of Olaus Vormius and a momentary presence of Abdul Alhazred who kind of steals the show.

Initially I was kind of excited to see that Jeffrey Combs was in the movie, so it was with some anticipation that I sat down to watch it. And I am a huge fan of H. P. Lovecraft's work and all the Lovecraftian work that followed in his wake. This movie, however, was somewhat of a lukewarm attempt, to be bluntly honest.

The story does stay fairly close to the story of the Whateley's as Lovecraft initially built it up, but at the same time there is a bit too much other loose ends thrown into the frame. Ends that are never really seen through and come full circle. In that way, there is a lot of things going on in the movie, too many things in my opinion, and most of these things doesn't really get to be concluded.

"The Dunwich Horror" suffered from a fairly weak acting crew, with most performances being mediocre to look at. Had they managed to put more enthusiastic people into the movie, it would have come out with a more vibrant and appealing result. And the dialogue didn't really help lift up the movie, because it was halting and at times embarrassing to witness.

What did work for the movie was Jeffrey Combs, of course. As always it is nice to see him in a Lovecraft-inspired movie. And his name is usually associated with such. Unfortunately, his character wasn't given enough on-screen time. "The Dunwich Horror" is not one of Comb's more impressive performances, but being a fan of his, I just had to sit through this movie. And aside from Combs, then the core essence of the Whateley's was also pretty nicely interpreted.

There was a bit too much name-dropping in the movie, with lots of references to places, people and such in the Lovecraft-created Cthulhu mythos. But most of this was irrelevant, and seemed to be put in there only to impress the really hardcore Lovecraft fans, people who are familiar with these names. To other people, it is just a bunch of random and pointless facts. The reference to (August) Derleth was, however, a bit surprising.

As for the effects and CGIs in "The Dunwich Horror", well, they were low-budget, and it was showing clearly. Hats off to them for their effort, just a shame that they didn't have a bigger budget for these effects. There were some shots where Yog Sothoth actually looked rather nice. So the effects weren't all bad. The storms that ravaged the buildings, well that is a whole other story. You have to see that to believe it!

In my honest opinion, then this adaption (or interpretation) of "The Dunwich Horror" is not really one of the better Lovecraft-based pieces of work around. Sadly, most of these movies are B-movies and often fail to leave impressions in the viewers. This is one such movie, which is a shame, because it had potential. Had they trimmed down the plot-lines and put in some more whole-hearted actors, the outcome would have been much better and would have had a chance to actually become noteworthy.