The Dunwich Horror (1970), or Gidget Goes To Dunwich

The Dunwich Horror (1970): loosely and hilariously adapted by Curtis Hanson, Henry Rosenbaum, and Ronald Silkowsky from the story by H.P. Lovecraft; directed by Daniel Haller; starring Sandra Dee (Nancy Wagner), Dean Stockwell (Wilbur Whateley), Ed Begley Sr. (Armitage), Lloyd Bochner (Cory), Sam Jaffe (Old Whateley), and Talia Shire (Nurse Cora): Oh, great Cthulhu, what a terrible movie. Yet the cast is terrific. Too bad script, direction, set design, and budget let them down.

H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" (published 1929) is one of the central stories in what would be dubbed by other the Cthulhu Mythos. This movie... whew. Well, at least there's nudity. And the producers add a character played by Sandra (Gidget) Dee to... well, get raped by an extra-dimensional entity. 

It doesn't help that Dee has to play the world's dumbest academic librarian who is immediately (albeit with some magical prompting, also not in the story) smitten with Dean Stockwell playing a shaggy-haired hipster-Lothario who wants to summon the Lovecraftian god Yog-Sothoth to Earth. The story's version of Stockwell's character is an eight-foot-tall monstrosity with a lot of alien limbs and tentacles hidden under his shirt. Oh, well. At least Stockwell has some bitchin' torso tattoos...

Lloyd Bochner and Ed Begley (Sr.) soldier on as the forces of Good, trying to halt the apocalypse. Sam Jaffe wanders through occasionally, looking for his paycheck. Sandra Dee looks baffled. Dean Stockwell does what he can, which is very little. And The Godfather and Rocky's Talia Shire has a brief role under her birth name, Talia Coppola. And Curtis Hanson, who would go on to direct L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys, and 8 Mile, shares screen-writing credit. Hoo boy.

The filmmakers wisely keep the monster of the story invisible for the most part, as in the story. We do occasionally get some exciting monster POV shots! Great stuff! It's the same sort of colour-flipping that cloaked Igor while he was dancing on Hilarious House of Frightenstein!

In terms of film history, The Dunwich Horror does feature the most-ever utterances of the word 'Yog-Sothoth.' And when he's casting some of his spells, Stockwell occasionally puts his hands to either side of his face and seemingly imitates a puffer fish. He's also got some crazy moves with his knife.

The Dunwich Horror would be more fun if it were a bit zippier -- somehow, with all the craziness and a 90-minute running time, it often drags. Still, it can be entertaining. I imagine on pot it's probably hilarious. On LSD, you would probably die.