Really Surprised!

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Blistering performances.

At a Massachusetts University, Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell) searches out for the mysterious Necronomicon book. Dr. Henry Armitage (Ed Begley) is unwilling to lend it to him. Student Nancy Wagner (Sandra Dee) gives him a ride back to Dunwich. He lives with his grandfather Old Whateley (Sam Jaffe). He keeps her at the house through drug-induced hallucinatory visions. Armitage and her friend Elizabeth Hamilton come looking for her.This is a lower grade slow-moving B-horror. There is nothing scary. Stockwell does his best creep but there isn't much else. The hippie old visual effects saps any horror from the movie. This is based on a H.P. Lovecraft story but it really doesn't deserve the name. The snakes-headed figure is only in the film for a seconds and is a disappointing stiff static thing.

To judge from the poster of the 1970 version of "The Dunwich Horror", you would think this must be one of the most kickass horror movies of all time. Unfortunately, as the story unfolds, you soon realise that a lot of artistic licence was taken with that poster - a lot.Sandra Dee plays Nancy Wagner, a research assistant to Dr. Henry Armitage (Ed Begley), an expert on the occult. When she encounters Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell), she ends up at the Whateley mansion and falls under his spell - she keeps on drinking those cups of tea. Wilbur believes that a combination of rituals, incantations and sacrifice of the 'right girl' will allow an ancient race of superior beings, the Old Ones, to be brought back.The story involves twins, mating with dark forces and a room at the top of stairs that hides an evil entity. That room generates a lot of tension, until it's opened that is, then the limitations of the special effects are revealed. It needed something like the monster out of John Carpenter's "In The Mouth of Madness", but got strobe lighting instead.The best effect in the film is the altar on the headland. When Nancy innocently asks Wilbur what it was used for, he gives her a rundown on the program of events.It entailed selecting a beautiful girl, just like Nancy strangely enough, who would be placed on the altar naked to the elements while black robed figures gathered round to observe and 'relish' her, "and then they waited for the moment when she would allow the power of darkness to enter; the moment when the gate would open and the Old Ones would come through." Sandra Dee wasn't someone you automatically associated with sexy roles, but she has her moments in "The Dunwich Horror", especially when she ends up on the altar with a fair amount of thigh and hip exposed to relishing.Less appealing is Lex Baxter's score; he needed a safety catch on that theremin - his music makes the film seem more cheesy than it actually is.The film was remade in 2009, but it was a cheap looking effort with even worse special effects than the original. However there was homage for Dean Stockwell who played the role of Dr. Armitage.The stars of the 1970 version generate a certain level of interest, although I think disappointment over the depiction of the Old Ones is unavoidable.

The Dunwich HorrorWhen you birth a monster the C in C-Section stands for 'clawed its way out'.Mind you, the monstrosity in this horror movie is rumoured to have been a stillbirth.Years after his insane mother brought him and his malformed twin into this world, Wilbur (Dean Stockwell) appears on the Miskatonic University campus in search of the Necronomicon.Hypnotizing a student (Sandra Dee), he not only gets her to hand over the magical textbook but to also accompany him back to Dunwich, Massachusetts, where he plans to use it and her in an occult ceremony to summon the otherworldly Old Ones to Earth.Based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story, B-Movie producer Roger Corman's low budget interpretation is not the best incarnation of the Outer Gods, but it's not without its Gothic charms.Unfortunately, the crucifixes for these tentacled gods will require way more nails than the ones before.Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

As Sandra Dee got older her youthful virginal image did not play well in the 60s counterculture. The Dunwich Horror was an effort to save her career and break the typecasting.Sandra getting a little long in the tooth for a college student meets a rather strange Dean Stockwell who is looking a rare book that professor Ed Begley has. It contains some spells that will bring some creatures from another dimension and Begley doesn't want to part with it. Stockwell then steals it and returns home with Dee.Dean's got big plans for Sandra. She's to be part of a ritual that will open up the portals to another dimension. And he's got reason to want to bring these beings into our universe.The Dunwich Horror didn't serve the careers of Dean Stockwell or Sandra Dee very well. Ed Begley does well in a sympathetic role, one of his last. But I was singularly unmoved by it all.