The Dunwich Horror

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Blu B Music is alright I guess. Kind of overused but it's probably the best thing here. Everything else is subpar. Or rather maybe decent by Corman Standards. Wilbur is so campy and wooden. Lots of the acting is just alright hnestly. It's crazy seeing Stockwell, & Shire here in very early roles. It's crazy how many future stars came through the doors of Cormans Productions. So this is basically like a Rosemary's Baby inspired type of flick but isn't nowhere near as good. The kills get pyschdelic out of nowhere (It's looks so 1969) and are so dated and out of place. Than there's weird brief second flash back cuts that are weird too. Besides Wilbur who is just weird, everyone else doesn't get hardly any backstory, is generic, or makes dumb choices. Christ the girls from Halloween get more backstory than these characters do. The fact Nancy just trusts Wilbur after seeing how weird he acts and wanting a freakin book of the dead and than going home with him is just so bizarre and classic making dumb choices in a horror movie. It's so hard to care about someone when they are so dumb right off the bat or so campy and not well acted. Than it just starts getting a bit jumpy on top of missing the character development. Her friends uncovering the mystery of what happened to Wilbur's Mom going insane, Wilbur doing a weird ritual, the creature attacking which we never actually see besides psychedlic POV shots. It's not hard to follow, it just feels very scattershot, campy, rushed in it's setup, and just not very well executed in general. Unless your a big fan of Corman & want to see some famous actors in early roles, most should skip this. It's not even scary really either. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 04/23/25 Full Review Justin T Whilst this is flawed it is still worth watching even fifty years later. It is a slow brooding Lovecraft mystery. It feels very seventies in style and tone. The fight scene is absolutely terrible, the lack of music, the bad fight cinematography and bad fight choreography really destroy this scene and make it unwatchable. Other than that the film has no real major issues but some might argue it is a little dated. It is a pretty abstract interpretation of Lovecraft which is probably the most correct and it also feels accurate to the original lore. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 10/02/24 Full Review Ranjit S When a strange man shows up to Miskatonic University asking to study the Necronomicon, or "Book of the Dead", a strange and terrible sequence of events is unfurled. A must-watch for fans of Lovecraft and/or of 1970s horror movies. Dean Stockwell offers an appropriately enigmatic portrayal of the main character, Wilbur Whateley. The psychedelic opening credit sequence is noteworthy. This movie moves slowly but builds to a horrific climax. Overall, I view this movie as a classic of 1970s horror. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/02/24 Full Review Steve D Some decent ideas but it doesn't come together. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 07/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Well it's not great. I watched it for the first time all the way through last night, and found it mildly entertaining although I fell asleep part way through. And somehow I feel that a movie about the necronomicon, inbreeding and otherwordly gods and monsters should not help facilitate a long nap right in the middle of the goings-on. The problem is, the movie is too long for its own britches. It doesn't have that much of a plot, so scenes are stretched out interminably as when Sandra Dee is strapped to the rock in the devil's hop yard. Apparently naked and sexually charged up, but all Dean Stockwell's character can think of to do is use her groin as a book stand. Yawn. Then the endless scenes of his silly incantations. And the endless scenes of reverse-negative colored images cycling through every color of the rainbow. Sheesh - about the 40th time we see the patches of dirt and trees going by as a deranged monster ranges about in the woods, I was reaching for the fast-forward button. Then the ending is wildly outrageous - for about five seconds. Then it's over. I think the potential was there for a pretty good cult movie, but it was just stretched on too thin of a frame. Still I might it again some night - when I have 14 cups of coffee standing by. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review dave s The Dunwich Horror, based on the H.P. Lovecraft novella, is an unimaginably bad movie. The virtually incomprehensible plot centers around the much-hated Whately family from Dunwich, Massachusetts, who are despised due to their dabblings in the supernatural, a hatred that is only intensified when a monster of some sort is unleashed on the villagers. The acting is consistently brutal, highlighted by a seemingly Quaalude-induced performance by Dean Stockwell. The direction is horrible (pointless close-ups, equally pointless flashbacks), the editing is seizure-inducing at times, and the psychedelic visual effects used when the monster is doing its killing is simply laughable. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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