MonsterHunter

I’ve read a good portion of H.P. Lovecraft’s writing in my time and for the most part, I’ve found it enjoyable, in spite of the often times purple prose. Once upon a time I even read The Dunwich Horror story that this movie is purportedly based on. I say purportedly because I don’t honestly recall much of what went on in the story (nameless Old Ones attempting to invade this dimension I assume - that seemed to be part and parcel of Lovecraft’s writings), but I don’t recall ever sitting there thinking, “this would make a great movie with Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee.”

I also don’t recall the story being so deadly dull. Lovecraft’s works have had a checkered past in their translation to the big screen which I’m too lazy to recall for you in any detail. Suffice it to say, this movie has its admirers, but they probably also think that the wacky psychedelic scenes in this movie are some form of art instead of the confusing, headache inducing mess they truly are. I even stumbled across someone’s rantings that compared this film to Rosemary’s Baby. Heck, I’ll give that to you. I thought Rosemary’s Baby was the cinematic equivalent of Nyquil, too. If you want to watch one of those devil baby movies, go rent The Omen. You’ve got the great Gregory Peck trying to stab a five year old boy. What more do you need from a movie? Baboon attacks? Shoot, it’s got that, too.

Things start off ominously enough when Professor Armitage, played by Ed Begley, asks Sandra Dee to take the Necronomicon book back to the library. The good news is that this is Ed Begley, Sr. not Ed Begley, Jr. so you don’t have to worry about some tall goof driving around in one of those midget electric cars babbling endlessly about the benefits of a solar powered toilet. The bad news rolls into the local coffee shop where Armitage is holding court with the only two women on campus that are desperate enough for a passing grade to hang out with him. The bad news is of course Dean Stockwell, playing a player by the name of Wilbur Whateley.

Before they hooked up at the coffee shop, Dean and Ed had an encounter at the library. Somehow Dean managed to do some Jedi mind trick on Sandra Dee so that she would let him look at this super-rare book. The professor arrives and gets his panties in a bunch because no one is supposed to look at that precious book but him. He gets excited though when Dean tells him that he is Wilbur Whateley, the great-grandson of some other Whateley who got lynched years ago over in Dunwich for trying to open up the gates of hell or something.

Later at the coffee shop, Whateley is still trying to get Ed Begley to give up the book, but he won’t do it. Soon though, Sandra Dee and Wilbur are alone and Wilbur conveniently misses his bus back to Dunwich, so it’s up to Sandy to give this warlock a ride home. I’m assuming it’s because he’s been giving her a work over with his scary eyes because there is no way a blonde chick like Sandy is going home with a dude like Wilbur under any non-supernatural circumstances.

Wilbur is this skinny freak with a Mike Brady perm, bad sideburns, and a mustache that looks like a wooly-bear caterpillar crawled onto his upper lip and died. Stockwell plays the guy as being so soft-spoken, you wonder whether he shouldn’t be trying to hook up with Ed Begley instead of Sandra Dee. Later in the movie, in scenes that require him to wear this dark cloak with a hood, you can’t help but think that this guy probably spent most of his college career holed up in his dorm room with about four of his buddies trying to level up his orc character.

Wilbur’s place is about as spooky as trailers come. There’s animal skulls and strange gourds hanging up and even an owl perched on the porch railing. The interior is also decorated with occult themed floors and rugs as well as mysterious transparent paperweights that Wilbur can move without touching them. Sandra looks at the weird paperweights and sees visions of crazy people running around half naked, altars and pretty much a whole jumbled mess of witchcraft imagery, all of which is accompanied by the director’s demonic use of a Vaselined lens, kooky colors and quick cutaways.

Wilbur tampers with her car and also drugs her tea - all while she was in the bathroom! When a girl’s go to go, a girl’s got to go! Once she discovers her car doesn’t work and that she’s really tired from all the drugs in her tea, Sandra agrees to stay on at Wilbur’s place. He directs her to a room and tells her there are some clothes in the closet that she can use to sleep in. He pulls out this sheer black nightgown and says that she can use that. Now that sounds pretty ballsy and pretty cool, but we know from watching the opening prologue that this is the same nightgown his mom wore when he was born and when his twin was born. That would explain the blood and placenta on the nightie.

Twin? He had a twin? Of course he did! What do you think is kept locked up in that room where the door constantly rattles like something inhuman and with ten snake-like heads is trying to break out? Yes, this is one of those movies where the monster is kept under lock and key, not so much to build up suspense, but because the budget is so weak that there isn’t any monster to speak of. They try to get around this when it does break out by having us see very quick glimpses of it and by using some stupid color tricks with the camera. Is there someone I can sue? I think my seizures were caused by this movie and not my fetal alcohol syndrome.

This movie follows the formula for these types of stupid movies to the letter: dumb girl taken in by bad guy has friends come to investigate, some die and some end up saving her. In this case you’ve got Armitage and Sandra Dee’s girlfriend. They go to town and unearth a bunch of poppycock about how Wilbur was born and that his twin was stillborn and that his mom is now in the looney bin and Wilbur doesn’t even go and visit her. Then you’ve got Sandra Dee’s girlfriend busting into Wilbur’s house demanding to see Sandy. The grandfather tells her to get lost so she goes upstairs and lets Wilbur’s brother loose, getting herself killed in the process.

At some point Wilbur has Sandy up on an altar at the old satanic ruins outside of town and there’s visions and he makes whoopie with her. Then he starts trying to summon the old ones with his dumb book and goo-goo ga-ga incantations and Armitage shows up and things are resolved pretty much as you expect complete with a shock ending that really isn’t.

This is a movie that doesn’t aim for much and manages to miss even that. The tricky camera shots and hippie-dancing montages have aged about as well as Stockwell’s perm. Armitage is such a pompous ass (well, he is a college professor) that you wish he had been stillborn. Sandra Dee, doesn’t do anything in this movie except come under the spell of Wilbur, thus depriving us of knowing whether she was ever worth worrying about. The best thing about this movie is the poster art from its original release back in 1970, a demonic head menacing a beautiful young thing. It had nothing to do with the movie, but you can’t expect them to use the image of a sweaty-faced Dean muttering nonsense words and looking like he had migraine, can you?

© 2008 MonsterHunter