News

Arrow swings into 2023 with a disc of a horror thriller ‘with issues’ — but appointing it with intriguing extras. Sandra Dee gets her perky nose all tangled up in an inter-dimensional conspiracy run by sneaky occultist Dean Stockwell — and we know that it’s all going to lead to a sacrificial altar. Roger Corman designer Daniel Haller directed this cross between a Poe picture and a psychedelic epic, for good old American-International.

The Dunwich Horror

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date January 10, 2023 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: Sandra Dee, Dean Stockwell, Ed Begley, Lloyd Bochner, Sam Jaffe, Joanne Moore Jordan, Donna Baccala, Talia Shire, Barboura Morris, Beach Dickerson.

Cinematography: Richard C. Glouner

Art Director: Paul Sylos

Film Editor: Christopher Holmes

Original Music: Les Baxter

Written by Curtis Lee Hanson, Henry Rosenbaum, Ronald Silkowsky from the story by H.P. Lovecraft

Executive producer Roger Corman

Produced by James H. Nicholson,...

Curtis Hanson, the Oscar-winning director of films including L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile, and In Her Shoes, has died. He was 71 years old. Hanson was born March 24, 1945 in Reno, Nevada but grew up in Los Angeles. After dropping out of high school, he pursued opportunities as a freelance photographer and editor of the now-defunct Cinema magazine before turning to screenwriting, which bore fruit with 1970's The Dunwich Horror, a Roger Corman-produced fright film that he co-wrote with Henry Rosenbaum and Ronald Silkosky. Hanson subsequently moved to directing with Sweet Kill, a 1973 horror film about a sexually-repressed man who finds gratification in murdering the women he sleeps with. That was followed by a string of other low-budget efforts in multiple genres, including Losin' It, a teen comedy starring a pre-Risky Business Tom Cruise.  Though he worked consistently through the '70s and '80s, Hanson wouldn't achieve mainstream recognition until...

Look out! Here come two A.I.P. horror pix from the soggy end of the Poe cycle: the first features Jason Robards, an impressive cast and a disorganized storyline. The second is an almost-good Lovecraft horror with interesting performances from Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee.     Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Dunwich Horror Blu-ray Color Scream Factory Street Date March 29, 2016 / 26.99

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Scream Factory's new double feature disc finishes off two different American-International horror series. The first picture is the last fright film made for the company by the directing and writing team of Gordon Hessler and Christopher Wicking. It's no gem, but it's a lot more interesting on a second viewing. The second is the company's final try to make that old joker H.P. Lovecraft into a filmic horror icon, like Edgar Allan Poe. It has a lot going for it, but also its own set of problems.