THE DUNWICH HORROR

This blurb should have been the Brady Bunch theme tune.

I would like to begin this voluptuous rant with a word of warning to the reader: I FREAKING LOVE LOVECRAFT.  LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVECRAFT.  If I wasn't already married to the hottest mo-fo in the land....and if old H.P. wasn't so creepy (and dead)..... and if I was suddenly a polygamist, I would definitely marry him .....(and John Lennon - also dead, no dice).....(and possibly young Bruce Campbell circa 'Evil Dead' era).  I am very unrealistic about hotties.  Not that Lovecraft was hot or anything but there's more to being sexy than looks.  I'll tell you what's sexy: HE INVENTED HIS OWN FUCKING MYTHOLOGY!!!  And it caught on!!!  There are warped burnout conspiracy theorists out there who actually think Cthulu is real!!  How many of us suckers can in all honesty boast an achievement like that?........(crickets...brief creaks from the graves of the apostles and L. Ron Hubbard)......... Yeah, I thought so.  Guys: I would be tickled pink if I had warped conspiracy theorists believing in the shit I came up with.  For about five minutes, it was my goal in life and so I tried to think of my own mythological beast.  It was named "Octobagus"....I had no idea what it looked like but it had lots of tongues and occasionally hid in people's swimming pools.  It also came with a set of stickers that said: "Hello!  My name is Octabagus!".......I decided not to quit my day-job.     

But that, ye children, be utterly besides the point.  

The point is "The Dunwich Horror" is hysterically bad at its best.  A inbred cross between "The (original) Wicker Man" and a bad episode of Star Trek. "Half-witted" if you will.  I've been using that phrase a lot since I saw the poster:  "Hey bro!...I'm doing gooooood.  Feeling a bit half-witted lately.  That dinosaur birthday card you sent me was so half-witted, yeah...well, if I wasn't so half-witted, I'd consider not putting my underwear over my pants again...[screaming out of car door] HALF-WIT!"...and so on.

It's also my buzzword for the mental state required to enjoy this film.  

Here is my overly-generous review:

WTF = 16 (yeah, for realz)
W = 5
T = 6
F = 5 

I am ever so glad that Lovecraft died long before this atrocity came out because he probably would've thrown himself feet first into a woodchipper if he saw the level of mockery this film makes of the awesomely metal power of his awesomely metal horror vignettes.  What hits me even harder is that his short story, "The Dunwich Horror", is one of the best I've read in the vast and chunky anthologies of his self-made lore.  YOU DON'T NEED TO CHANGE THE GODDAMN PLOT, HOLLYWOOD!!!!!  I really don't get it, was it a copyright issue?  Did the keepers of Lovecraft's estate see what a laughable shitcake film this would be and decide to deny any actual plots being used? 

Now, readership, don't get me wrong here.  It's not that I have anything against a movie that is so bad it crosses another line into the land of hysterically good.  In fact, I love those kinds of movies!  Every time one of those movies gets made an angel gets its wings, we ALL know that!  I guess I just get a little bit homicidal stabby bludgeony antsy when you take something as gloriously intricate and beautiful as a good Lovecraftian tale and distort it into something non-ironically funnier than the episode where Batman battles the armed hippies.  And so here we have Lovecraft vs. ...................the flower children?

Normally, I would find this shit priceless.  It's just disgusting to me that you had such a sick plot already laid out there for you!!!!!  Why change it?  Reminds me of when people make history-based TV shows and change up the real history for these stupid TV plots...when the lives of the people they are blurring were totally interesting and novel and weird all by themselves.  If this were a completely different movie with a wacked out story all its own, not ripped off of one of the primordial horror writers of our time, I would be cool as a cucumber with it.  But quite simply: you don't mess with H.P. on my watch.  Dig?

I'm also going to put this out there: I was kinda uncomfortable with two things.  The first thing that made me feel weird was the quantity of Sandra Dee side-butt shots during the whole initiation/impregnating scenes.  I tried to imagine myself as a lesbian or a guy to see if this weird shit would turn me on.  Epic fail.  Totally not turned on by lengthy self-grabby side-butt shots.  Either show the whole damn thing or leave it out.  This made me realize the movie was a step away from bad soft-core porn.  So the side-butt was the first thing that weirded me.  The second thing that weirded me was Dean Freakin Stockwell.  And don't give me this "but he saaaaved the film!" bullcrap I keep hearing from the "Quantum Leap" fiends.  All I can do is conjecture as to what specific type of acid he took prior to filming in hopes that I never NEVER take it myself. 

That being said, I will briefly expostulate on what is good about this movie.  What is good about this movie is the color.  That was actually pretty much it for me - lots of high contrasty stuff typical of 70's horror films.  But there was something a bit more neat-o about it, as if the set designers were perhaps the only truly creative people in the entire production.  I think that aspect saved the movie from becoming something hopelessly forgettable.  That being said if you happen to be drunk and high on paint fumes, you will absolutely love this movie and it will reside on your 'favorites' shelf.  I was in neither of those states when I watched it having left my 1000% proof and paint fumes in the garage next to the cleaning products and laundry detergent.  It made me briefly wish I had the addictions required to thoroughly enjoy this movie but I just don't have the gusto or level of self-loathing to cultivate them.  Being my just plain sober insane and egomaniacal self, I can only categorize this film as a colorful piece of half-witted side-butt. 

And here is the preview for said half-witted side-butt for your paint-fuming pleasure: