The Dunwich Horror

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")

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me too much when I was watching, but I have to take them into account when evaluating because they are really extremely outdated, while not being necessary at all.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

Due to the limited supply of copies and the great interest of collectors, these kinds of niche Horror DVDs cost a lot of money, but rarely offer the good film they promise.

The Dunwich Horror (The Witches) from 2008 is another such film: based on a good story by HP Lovecraft, but so poorly executed that it has become a big mess.

The good news: it are not the actors that are to blame. Each and every one of them did their best to save this film. Unfortunately.

The story has been adapted and not for the better. Instead of Lovecraft's ghastly creepy story, we get a messy quest for a missing page from the Necronomicon. There is a strange, half-hearted relationship between two main characters woven into it. The level of this love story does not get any further than that of the average bad soap ...

Even more disturbing than a chopped plot, are the laughable special effects. Bad cheap computer animation just kills this horror movie. I've seen worse, but not all that often! It is not easy to shoot a good film on a small budget, but other filmmakers are much better at this! I guess they rather use sugestion than bad Playstation 2 graphics for monsters.

I can go on, but it's clear I have no more good things to say. 3 points for the acting, nothing for the rest. Don't waste your money on this one...

One thing that always bugs me is when a movie goes by multiple names. I know it's a petty thing but for me it makes no sense, it takes away from the movies credibility. This Dunwich Horror version goes by many names including Witches, Darkest Evil and Necronomicon.

It's a less than faithful adaptation of H.P Lovecrafts classic Dunwich Horror and though its hideously flawed it's still better than the 1970 original in my opinion.

It stars Dean "Quantum Leap" Stockwell (Who was in the original as Wilbur Whateley), the always excellent horror icon Jeffrey Combs and the highly underrated Sarah Lieving.

It doesn't really try to stay loyal to the original material and is instead more of a messy remix. The special effects are appalling, far worse than you'd imagine considering the caliber of the cast! The plot is hit and miss and the whole thing is spotty at best.

I still for the life of me cannot figure out why the vast amount of Lovecraft adaptations are so bad. This material is pure gold so why do so many writers balls it up?

This isn't the worst adaptation out there, but it'll certainly not going to appease fans of the book.

The Good:

Fantastic cast

The Bad:

Major differences from the original

Weak sfx

Constant fade to blacks are just annoying

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Jeffrey Combs would have played the book version of Whateley considerably better

Sarah Lieving seems to be naturally attracted to crappy roles