Review: The Dunwich Horror (1970)

 

Has any H.P. Lovecraft story ever been successfully adapted into a feature film? It must be quite a challenge; after all, Lovecraft traded in short stories, so any full-length movie is required to do the unthinkable by adding to the author's original structure and narrative--which is an ill-advised proposition. Also, because Lovecraft's stories frequently dealt with cosmic or inter-dimensional beings that primarily work best in the theater of the mind, trying to bring creatures like Cthulu or Yog-Sothoth to visual life can be unconvincing at best, outright comical (as seen here) at worst. 

1970's The Dunwich Horror makes a noble effort. In fact, I really like this movie, despite realizing that it isn't very good. The first major stumble stems from the fact that it isn't really much of an adaptation of Lovecraft's original 1928 short story, originally published in Weird Tales and anthologized endlessly in the near-hundred years since. Instead, the movie is firmly rooted in the counter-culture movement of the late 1960s, complete with half-naked young people wearing body paint frolicking in forests and pastures. (Somewhere on set, one suspects "Incense and Peppermints" was playing softly on the radio.) One might, therefore, think that The Dunwich Horror falls under the "folk horror" sub-genre, which leans heavily on ancient or pagan traditions as handed down from generation to generation. That doesn't really describe this movie, where a mustachioed Dean Stockwell, clearly in his Sergeant Pepper phase, seeks to summon forth "The Old Ones" from their inter-dimensional resting place where they can once again inhabit the Earth that they once ruled. Sandra Dee co-stars (she actually gets top billing) as a young graduate student who gets caught in the web of Dean Stockwell's occult guru gimmick. Dee must have been trying pretty hard to take a sledgehammer to her "Gidget" image at this point in her career, as this role frequently sees her clothed in black robes and showing enough bare skin that her scenes had to be shot on a second soundstage so as to avoid looky-loos and gawkers. Supporting performances come from Ed Begley, shortly before his death, Sam Jaffe, Lloyd Bochner, and even a pre-Godfather Talia Shire, billed here as Talia Coppola.

Maybe part of the problem is that this film comes courtesy of American International Pictures producers Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson, and legendary schlockmeister Roger Corman. It's not my intention to state that these titans of exploitation cinema were incapable of making popular movies; on the contrary, their resume proves over and over again that they certainly were. From Corman's Poe cycle with Vincent Price to the seemingly-never-ending stream of Beach Party movies that AIP created throughout the 1960s, these guys knew how to put bell-bottomed blue jeans in seats. But they excelled at movies that appealed to teenagers, offering cheap thrills for a youth-oriented audience. That's clearly the case here, with a 26-year-old Dean Stockwell who feels like he's just dying to show you his record collection. The film's forays into full-on color-changing psychedelia further cement that this is less a literary adaptation than youth-oriented rebellion picture. Also worth a mention is that the screenplay credit goes to Curtis Hanson, yes, THAT Curtis Hanson, the filmmaker who would go on to direct 1997's L.A. Confidential and a hidden gem from 2000 called Wonder Boys, plus the Oscar-winning 8 Mile, starring rapper Eminem. Did I mention he also directed Bob Dylan's Things Have Changed music video, too? It's amazing how many wonderful filmmakers got started working for Roger Corman, AIP, or both. Almost invariably, though, the work they made after their time with Corman surpasses those made under his budget-conscious thumb. The direction from Daniel Haller--who had helmed 1965's Die, Monster Die! as well as a whole string of other Corman-produced exploitation movies--is competent, but often feels like a TV production. No coincidence that Haller would go on to work almost exclusively in television throughout the 1970s and 1980s.  

There are things I like about The Dunwich Horror, enough so that I'm frustrated that more of the picture doesn't work. The overall visuals of the movie are great. The set decoration is top notch, with the creepy old house that Stockwell lives in feeling almost like an old curiosity shop, filled with oddities, interesting chachkies, and items that hint at a deeper history. I like the movie's forays into psychotronica, even though they root this story in a very specific time that is at odds with Lovecraft's original tone. To quote Stockwell himself from an interview with Psychotronic Video Magazine: "I happened to be a fan of H. P. Lovecraft, and it was nothing like H. P. Lovecraft, so that was a little disappointing. Kinda sophomoric, not what you really call a horror film, whereas Lovecraft's writing can be scary at times." I also think Les Baxter's theme from the film is absolutely fantastic. Baxter, who had landed on every hi-fi turntable in America back in the 1951with his LP Ritual of the Savage, a foundational entry in the "exotica" musical genre, is in full "rock god" mode here, crafting a central theme that starts as a cinematic backdrop but quickly turns into a full blown prototypical progressive rock song, blending guitars, drums, and synthesizer as deftly as any band from the 1970 top 40 charts. To quote the younger generation, this movie is a "vibe." Rather than take us on a white-knuckle trip to the edge of our sanity, the movie simply hints at a larger (and darker) universe by giving us glimpses of the Necronomicon--an ancient grimoire, aka an old book filled with forbidden knowledge that can only be accessed at a cost. At only 87 minutes long, this is a Magical Mystery Tour of the wild side, rather than a full expedition. 

Where The Dunwich Horror fails as a Lovecraft adaptation, it succeeds as a counter-culture statement. Yes, it does tip its hat to movies like Rosemary's Baby, but it's less about the cosmic beings that exist just out of reach or the occult urge to bring the unspeakable to life and more about the repressed urges and desires of the youth of the era. Five weeks before The Dunwich Horror hit theater screens in January of 1970, the hippie dream had died a violent death at a Rolling Stones concert in Altamont on December 6th, 1969 with the stabbing of Meredith Hunter.  Nobody--not Corman, Arkoff, Nicholson, nor any of the cast of this film--could have known while making this movie that acid-fueled ideas of communion with nature and the destruction of the self-imposed societal walls would already feel naive an out of touch by January of 1970. It's a marker of a specific time and place, made at the pinnacle of a thing and released right after its demise. The quest for the metaphysical--the seeking of some supernatural communion--would endure well into the seventies. This sense of "seeking" embodies the first half of the 1970s, giving birth to both Jesus Freaks and the mystical movement that would open the door for the supernatural horror cycle that includes The Exorcist and The Omen. I don't mean to imply that those latter movies wouldn't exist without The Dunwich Horror (they certainly would), but that culturally, The Dunwich Horror captures the end of the dream of the 1960s and the birth of the more cynical, darker direction of the 1970s. It's a movie tonally at odds with itself. 

The Dunwich Horror is one of several failed adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft's truly unsettling fiction, but it may accidentally capture one of the pivot points of pop culture. Whenever I watch it, I want to like it more than I do. And yet, there's something about that keeps me coming back.