The Dunwich Horror (1970) Lovecraft via 1960s New Age Hippie Psychadelia (Review)

Adapting the work of the world-famous horror author H.P. Lovecraft for the screen is a task which still seems to challenge filmmakers to this day. His tales of unreliable narrators coming face-to-tentacled-face with unimaginable eldritch horrors with nigh-unpronounceable names have struggled to make the transition from page to celluloid for over 60 years now, with the results ranging from ambitious failures to legitimate modern horror masterpieces. 1970’s The Dunwich Horror was by no means the first Hollywood take on Lovecraft – the film’s director, Daniel Haller, was no stranger to the author, having helmed Die, Monster, Die!, an adaptation of “The Colour Out of Space”, only five years prior. However, this early work of “weird fiction” cinema still bears some significance as one of the first films to proudly display its connections to the man behind the Cthulhu mythos, not to mention one of the first to attempt to adapt a Lovecraft tale faithfully for movie-going audiences.

Based on the short story of the same name, The Dunwich Horror follows Nancy Wagner (played by ‘60s teen movie star Sandra Dee), a student at the prestigious Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, who falls for the charms of the reclusive Wilbur Whateley (veteran character-actor Dean Stockwell), an Aleister Crowley-esque occult enthusiast with a shady family history and a great interest in a certain leather-bound book of the dead that resides in the Miskatonic library. After giving Wilbur a lift to his gothic ancestral home in the titular small town of Dunwich, Nancy finds herself unwittingly ensnared in a sinister plot involving ancient fertility rites, human sacrifice, and the awakening of a powerful race of extra-dimensional beings known as the Great Old Ones which ruled the Earth before mankind. This will, of course, be nothing new to Lovecraft enthusiasts, and yet it still feels unusual and strangely charming to see a classic theatrical technicolour horror film where movie stars casually drop terms like “Necronomicon” and “Yog-Sothoth” – it’s an unusually delightful experience that you’re unlikely to find elsewhere.

It’s a decent genre picture, one which stays fairly close to its source material, albeit with an added flavour of mid-century psychedelia. The Dunwich Horror’s answer as to how to depict an unseeable terror in a visual medium is, naturally for 1970, to make the film as trippy as possible – and it honestly works in the film’s favour. Whether we’re being shown a faded, shifting dream sequence through a thin layer of fabric, or a horrifying creature attack scene washed over with harsh acid-tinged colour filters, the movie’s visual choices are appropriately disorienting and mesmerising in equal measure; at moments, it does feel as though the film is giving us a real glimpse into another dimension. There’s something distinctly counter-cultural about the aesthetics of The Dunwich Horror, whether conscious or not; sure, the arcane rituals and orgiastic revelry we see in some of the film’s more surreal moments are supposed to be aeons old, but I’d be lying if I said the imagery in them wasn’t inspired in some way by hippie culture and the New Age movement of the late ‘60s. On top of all that, the film boasts a gorgeous animated title sequence courtesy of illustrator Sandy Dvore, bearing clear pop-art influences and some deviously playful occult imagery. It’s a colourful film, that’s for sure, and just how strikingly-preserved those colours are is one of the highlights of this latest Arrow Video release, the film’s debut on U.K. Blu-Ray.

Story-wise, The Dunwich Horror is a fun supernatural romp, and a neat little early example of cosmic horror on screen. As was typical of much of the output of the studio behind the film, B-movie maestro Roger Corman’s American International Pictures, the film adds a little sleaze and perversion that wasn’t present in the original text – though when it comes to flesh and blood, there’s decidedly more of the former than the latter, with AIP upping the film’s sex appeal in order to draw in ‘70s audiences. The added element of sexuality to the villainous Whateley’s motives is played wonderfully by actor Stockwell, who brings a little bit of a wannabe hedonistic cult leader vibe to the character, albeit in a sinisterly underplayed fashion.

With all that said, the film’s pacing does drag in parts, and beyond the Lovecraftian elements, it isn’t exactly the most unique genre flick out there. The way in which the women in the film’s story are largely relegated to the roles of drugged-up victims and props in the male characters’ narratives also doesn’t hold up so well to modern-day attitudes; though the film may only contain traces of author Lovecraft’s infamous bigotry which contributed to his crippling fear of the unknown, it, unfortunately, bears some of the uglier misogynistic marks of a lot of American International’s ‘70s output. This doesn’t necessarily make The Dunwich Horror a bad film, by any means – it’s deeply watchable, entertaining, and a fairly solid Lovecraft adaptation; however, its adherence to cliché, particularly in its treatment of women, holds it back from the horror classic status that this early Lovecraft adaptation should by all means deserve.

Cthulhu mythos enthusiasts won’t want to miss out on this new Arrow Video edition of a much-requested Blu-Ray upgrade, and this newly restored transfer of the film taken from its original 35mm camera negative is some of the best work that Arrow has done in recent memory. The disc boasts over three hours’ worth of extras, including an extended conversation between authors Stephen R. Bissette and Stephen Laws on the film. After Summer After Winter, a featurette in which author Ruthanna Emrys speaks on Lovecraft and the difficulties of adapting his work to film is an entertaining and informative watch, and fans of composer Les Baxter’s score for The Dunwich Horror will be interested in The Sound of Cosmic Terror, a piano-accompanied exploration of the musical choices and techniques used in the film, presented by music historian David Huckvale.

Robyn’s Archive: The Dunwich Horror (1970)