How sad is this?

Fresh and Exciting

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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.

***SPOILERS*** It's Wilbur Whateley's, Dean Stockwell, obsession with the mysterious book, the one and only copy in existence, of the unabridged occult classic "Necronomicon" that caught pretty blond Nancy Wanger's, Sandra Dee, eye. This happened when Nancy and her girlfriend Liz Hamilton, Donna Baccala, were visiting the Miskatonic University library outside the New England town of Akham. Wilbur's, known as Weird Wilbur back home in Dunwich, obsession soon shifts to Nancy in her being a virgin, how did he know that?, that he needed for his soon to be conducted, with instructions from the book, far out occult ceremony to bring back the evil spirit Yog Sothoth to destroy the entire human race!The movie "The Dunwich Horror" goes into a number of different directions in its story about the evil that Wilbur is about to unleash on earth. With Wilbur using a very naive, and what seems like in love with him, Nancy in her being used in his evil experiment as a human sacrifice, to Yog Sothoth, in order for him to trigger it! It's the wise old Miskatonic philosophy professor Dr. Henry Armitage, Ed Bagley, who's on to Wilbur's evil plan right from the start. And with the help of Dunwich's doctor Cory, Llyod Bochner, who delivered Wilbur and his stillborn twin brother 25 years ago Dr. Armitage does everything he can to stop him!While all this is going on Wlibur's grandfather Old Man Whateley, Sam Jaffe, knows he's gone off the deep end in him bringing Yog Sothoth and his minions back to life. Gramps tries to stop Wilbur's experiment of the occult ceremony before it's too late for him and the town of Dunwich as well as the entire world's population! Something as things soon turned out was far beyond the old guy's powers to prevent!***SPOILERS*** Wilbur is confronted by Dr. Armitage at the Devil's Hopyard where he's conducting his experiment or human sacrifice to bring all this evil about! By then it too late for the town of Dunwich with it being incinerated by Yog Shthoth & Co. but by Dr. Armitages knowledge of the occult and the book "Necronomicon" he's able to stop Wilbur's plan for the total destruction of the planet earth! P.S Check a very young, age 23, future star in the "Godfather" & "Rocky" films Talia Shire using the name in the film credits Talia Coppola, her real name, as Doctor Cory's nurse Cora.

Remember that they attempted to do a Lovecraft Story about the 'Old Ones' back in 1970. And when you see that the movie was made in 1970, you are really talking about late 60's cinematic techniques. So yes, they were limited by what they could do-- plus Lovecraftian monsters cannot really be passed off as a man in a rubbersuit or anything else within the means of 1968-69 technology. Another misreading I see from some reviewers is the assumption that this was a Devil Movie. It isn't. This is Lovecraft. God, Jesus & Satan have nothing to do with the story. Yog-Sothoth does not care about Judeo-Christianity.Dean Stockwell is wooden as heck, but it can come at you as creepy: He is supposed to be a practitioner of the dark arts, not Don Juan. And the rest of the cast are your frightened stock little village characters plus a learned Doctor or two.I was surprised by the lite sexual content--for 1970, that is. Back then, this movie, if it had been in a theatre in my town would have been rated a solid 'R' back when 'R' meant NO CHILDREN PERIOD. And No Teenager would have even been allowed to buy a ticket!!! And that was why I never saw this as even a Late night Re-Run on Poor People TV. (Today, we'd call it Free OTA TV)Today-- it might make NC-17. And current teens would probably continue to phone Text out of boredom and lack of interest. Their Video games are way scarier anyways. Ah. . .for the good ole days. . .Beyond that, if you rent or stream this little gem, be prepared for a laugh or two at the ridiculous personal predicaments. Especially as 'Gigdet' does EVERYTHING a smart young lady is NOT SUPPOSED TO DO when she meets creepazoid Wilbur. Like Drive him halfway across the county in the dark. Like walk with a complete stranger into a totally wacked-out decrepit mansion. And good Lord, I only smiled as I said: "Oh you silly girl, you're gonna drink the Tea AGAIN?!? Didn't your momma teach you ANYTHING?!?"The monster is a disappointment when it finally emerges, but the growling/howling noise it made until it does was neat. Though the men hollering and rolling through the bushes in the psychedelic light was hilarious!No, this movie isn't GREAT by today's standards. And it was probably more 'shocking' in its time. But if you are a Lovecraft fan, this one bears a critical viewing-- with a good sense of humor.

This was one of the first movies to mine H.P. Lovecraft's works for a plot, using the story of the same title, but radically changing the plot interactions and characters. (The story was a linear progression from the view of outsiders, while the movie was told from the perspective of Wilbur). It's keeps a lot of the ambiance of Lovecraft's tale, but is completely different in its take. It also includes a lot of 1960's occultism that would have embarrassed HPL.Dean Stockwell is creepy as Wilbur Whatley, the more human looking twin spawn of Yog-Sothoth. Where the movie falls down is in the actual monster twin,(the main focus of the story, but an afterthought here.) It looks like a guy in a costume, and no amount of filtered photography was going to take away from that.The selling point of this movie is Sandra Dee, who manages to be quite sexy as the intended sacrifice/receptacle for the Old Ones. The level of sex in this movie would have gotten an NC-17 today...