Lawdy miss Clawdy,I'm whacked outta my fuckin' gourd over here tonight.Maintaining the rock n' roll lifestyle sure can be tiresome,my beloveds.I've been on and off benders the past few months,and still manage to churn out reviews,write a screenplay,and put the finishing touches on the underground comedy cd.I'm channelling the Masters at the moment.Speaking of masters,H.P. Lovecraft has always been one of my favorite writers,and when he wrote "The Dunwich Horror" as a short story in 1928,I'm sure he exclaimed,"Oh,if only I could survive another 42 years,so that I may see a low budget production by AIP that not only bears little resemblance to the story itself,but signs on an early sixties ingenue like Sandra Dee in the twilight of her film career to partially strip on camera,zooted on roofies,but by then,nobody's gonna wanna see her even partially naked.Man,I wish I could live long enough to see THAT!"Well,it's safe to say he probably never said that,but I may have once or twice,in whole or part,to myself and/or others.Though this particular piece of celluloid isn't much to look at,if you're expecting a faithful adaption from the likes of Samuel Z. Arkoff and Roger Corman,simply harken back to The Raven(1963)for a premonition of things to come.With that outta the way,I have to express my appreciation for all things Stockwell,and his performance here is aptly creepy and outrageous,as always.Add a strong supporting cast that includes Ed Begley Sr.,and Talia "Rocky" Coppola(later Shire),a great soundtrack by Les Baxter,and an inventive title sequence,and you may just look past some of the budgetary shortcomings and enjoy this one,afterall.
The citizens of Dunwich were always a bit leery of the Devil's Matte Painting.
At Miskatonic University,in Arkham,Massachussetts,Dr.Armitage(Begley,Sr)has just finished a lecture on the ultra-rare copy of the Necronomicon he has before him.He gives the priceless tome to his student,Gidg...err,Nancy(Sandra Dee) to return to the college library for safe-keeping.He doesn't warn her about groovy guys with caucasian afros,porn 'staches,dual pinky rings,OR flamboyant eyebrows,leaving her succeptible to the penetrating stare of Wilbur Whately(Stockwell),who has been searching for this book for some time.Armitage is somewhat of a local historian,fully aware of the Whately family shenanigans,so he cuts Wilbur's Necronomicon time paifully short.This doesn't stop Wilbur from hitching a ride home with the young girl,disabling her car,drugging her tea,then influencing her to spend the weekend with powerful eyebrow-based hypnotic suggestion,the likes the cinema world hadn't seen since Fuad Ramses layed the forehead-caterpillars on Trudy Sanders some seven years earlier in Blood Feast.Whately may not lip synch "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison here,but that doesn't mean he's not up to something.Armitage and one of Nancy's school chums drive out to the Whately place to convince her there's demonology afoot,but she turns them away with her best Patricia Hearst impersonation.
"...what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat."I don't know about you,but all I see is a woofin' pair of eyebrows.
Investigating further,the two discover that Wilbur's mother is still alive,and healthily bouncing to and fro in a rubber room at the squirrel farm.It seems Wilbur was the survivor of a pair of twins,but the doctor never got a look at the other "child",whose birth was so traumatic for Wilbur's mother,it sent her into a state of perma-crackers.After goading from the locals,Nancy's classmate sneaks into the Whately estate,and uwittingly gets herself murdered by an undescribable mass of tentacles and such,freeing it to go on a kill-crazy rampage through Dunwich in the process.Old Whately eats fatal step plummet-death,and the townsfolk balk at Wilbur's pagan ritual and disallow the young man from burying his father in the local cemetery.As the shapeless creature continues on its murderous path,Wilbur's mother dies in the asylum,white-haired and insane,at the ripe old age of 45.Wilbur takes Nancy to an impressive stone altar on a matte painting/soundstage,where he plans to use her as a sacrifice to bring back the "Old Ones",specifically,Yog Sothoth,his actual birth father,probably looking for some long overdue child support.Armitage shows up as weird psychedelic clouds of smoke from another dimension envelop the half-dressed,drugged out college student,and has a Necronomicon jibberish-off with Wilbur,after which lightning strikes the would be sorcerer,sending his flaming body into the sea below.As Armitage and the nurse help Nancy from the altar,we see the outline of a fetus in her midsection.Apparently,Yog Sothoth likes 'em cottage cheesy around the thighs,and with a midriff bulge.To each his own...
Sesame Street looked quite different to Mr. Hooper after scoring double-dipped blotters from Gordon.
Though Sandra Dee would only return to the big screen twice more,and Begley,Sr. would die later the same year,Coppola(Shire) and Stockwell have gone on to successful film and television careers afterwards.Peter Fonda turned down Stockwell's role,while Keir Dullea,David Carradine,and Carol Lynley all were namedropped in pre-production as possible leads for the film.Released on an MGM double bill dvd with "Die,Monster,Die!",and earlier alone as part of its "Midnight Movies" series,this entry finds its way into my dvd player ever once in awhile,since I've gotten over my Lovecraftian elitism of days gone by.Standing alone,it has enough going for it to merit two B.W.s on the yellowed and cracking pages of the Wopronomicon...
Look at meeee,I'm Sandra Deeeee,being raped by an undescribable entityyyyyyy..
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