The Dunwich Horror

2009 "The devil’s spawn is about to open the gates of hell"
3.6| 1h31m| R| en
Details

In Louisiana, in the wicked Whateley House, Lavina delivers two babies whose fate is written. Ten years later, three scholars of the occult discover that one page of the “Necronomicon,” the unspeakable book, is missing and the Black Brotherhood has summoned the ancient gate keeper to free legions of evil gods and monsters from the dimension of chaos.

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Reviews

EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise
Cleveronix A different way of telling a story
Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
Keira Brennan The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.
TheLittleSongbird I was dubious about this film, but got an inkling that Jeffrey Combs would at elevate it if just a tad. I have to say The Dunwich Horror was neither better or worse than I expected. Granted the concept is great, and there were two performances that were at least halfway decent, Griff Furst who did have a naturalistic charm to him, and especially Jeffrey Combs, whose acting and appearance doesn't feel at all out of place. However, where The Dunwich Horror is let down in particular is in the quality of the production values and the way it was written. Granted I have seen worse editing before but it still looked very choppy at times and the lighting does lack atmosphere, but the biggest let down in that regard were in the special effects, especially with the tentacles they are ridiculously fake. On top of that, the script didn't flow naturally from one line of dialogue to the next and some parts even came across as cheesy, while the characters are stock and not developed very well. While the concept was great, the actual storytelling itself was not convincing, with the scary moments coming across as predictable and the romance very forced and further disadvantaged by very lacking chemistry between the leads. The rest of the acting was poor, with Dean Stockwell giving the impression that he didn't want to be there in the first place and doesn't even try and Sarah Lieving while attractive is too stiff and rather miserable-looking. Overall, other than the concept, Furst and especially Combs the movie didn't do much for me I'm afraid. 3/10 Bethany Cox
sidekickllb *** SPOILER ALERT *** OMG, I loved this movie! I am a Lovecraft fan, albeit not a purist, so I really enjoy updated takes on his stories. This movie was a really great, modern take on The Dunwich Horror. I was hooked from the very beginning to the slimy, tentacled end! Griff Furst, as Walter Rice, with his ever-so-dreamy eyes and fantastic acting, really made this movie for me. I really connected with and believed his character. Not to mention that I caught myself humming Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" a few times, LOL. Bravo, casting director!!!!! I was also happy to see Dean Stockwell (Dr. Henry Armitage) and Jeffrey Combs (Wilbur Whateley) - two exceptional Lovecraft movie alums - in this film as well. I was a fan of Stockwell's first Dunwich film also, and let's face it, Combs has brought Lovecraft mythos to life for countless fans for over 2 decades now. I only have 2 complaints. (1) Both of their deaths (Wilbur and Armitage) seemed a little quick to me ... I mean, Lovecraft is known for writing about gory, slimy death throes that can last entire lifetimes, and these two seemed to be snuffed out in a second or two. Oh, well. And (2) I just couldn't quit giggling when the 'Sumerian incantation pyramid' thing was -- a 1980's Rubik's Pyramid painted bronze (I know, because I had one 'back in the day,' LOL). I'd kind of like to see a sequel ... maybe see Rice and Morgan as a Lovecraftian X-Files??? Hello, Hollywood? :D
trashgang If you put Dunwich in your title and add Witches to it then you are sure that it will sell. And when one old horror is already titles The Dunwich Horror then some people will think it's a remake. But not alone that, if you use the word Necronomicom then you automatically think of Lovecraft. And knowing that Lovecraft's short story The Dunwich Horror lays in the public domain, well, hell breaks loose (no pun intended). The acting is okay, we do have some well known names, Jeffrey Combs (re-animator), Dean Stockwell (The Dunwich Horror 1970) and Griff Furst. But names are not enough. From the start you know this is going to be so badly wrong. The possessed one, well, she just has colored contact lenses. Then she gets CGI wings. It's cold in the room, remember Exorcist. Her voice, remember Evil Dead, the pyramid is some kind of puzzle box, remember Hellraiser. But what makes this flick a turkey is one of the worst CGI that I have seen for a modern horror. Sparks shooting from fingers, soooooooooo eighties, It never was scary or bloody. It's just about incantations. well, do I have an incantation:"go away bad movie go away..."
JoeB131 Some of the cast choices gave me hope. Dean Stockwell was in the 1970 adaptation of the Lovecraft classic, and there has been some law passed that Jeffrey Combs has to be in every Lovecraft adaptation made after 1980, I think. Sadly, the two guys who you might have heard of are barely extended cameos. Then again, so is much of Lovecraft's story, which only takes up about 14 of the 1:45 running time of this turkey.Fans of Lovecraft know this story. A human woman mates with the elder God, Yog-Sothoth, having a pair of twins, a human looking Wilbur who ages dramatically in ten years, and a hideous monster that eats people. Sadly, they are only in the movie for a brief period, and Combs isn't nearly trying his best. (Imagine him saying. "Hey, I've been on Star Trek! I don't need to do this Lovecraft garbage anymore!") Most of the rest of this film is our star-crossed lovers searching for the missing page of the Necromonicon, a lot of name-dropping from other Lovecraft stories. Ugh. A romance in a Lovecraft story? No, in a Lovecraft story, everyone usually goes insane and is sent to an asylum.Combs is probably closer to the way Lovecraft wrote Wilbur Whatley in the original story, but so what? It seems they realized they had to stretch a 44 page story into a hour and half feature on the skiffy channel.Also, nothing in the story really emphasizes the horror of this situation. There are a bunch of alien Gods waiting to get back into our universe and kill everyone... Except for one line, there's no discussion of the philosophical implications of it.