“Dunwich Horror” remake: Breaking news in the land of Dean Stockwell

Dunwich Horror has been remade and will be released this week (at least according to IMDB). Dean Stockwell, who played Wilbur so campily and committedly in the cheesy (totally enjoyable) version in the 1970s will be back – this time playing Dr. Henry Armitage. I’m so excited! The only thing that would make me happier would be if Ben Marley had a role as well.

In preparation for the new Dunwich Horror, here is the post I wrote about it, at the height of my Stockwell obsession. Wonderful film, with not one lackluster moment. Brill.

THE DUNWICH HORROR

Dunwich Horror from 1970 has pretty much nothing to do with the HP Lovecraft story from whence/which it came – and that’s a bone of contention for many people, Stockwell included. He was disappointed in how the movie came out – being a huge Lovecraft fan. But the point must be made that it is, essentially, a B-movie, with all the glory and mortification that that implies. It must not be taken too seriously, and it must be seen as an homage to Lovecraft – rather than a faithful adaptation.

The thing is a HOOT. I love B-movies: To me, they are the best examples of the sheer JOY of film-making. And Dunwich Horror, while it definitely has much better production values than Ed Wood’s stuff, is in the same vein. It doesn’t take itself too seriously – it’s not ponderous or pretentious in the slightest – it doesn’t worry too much about itself – it is unapologetically manipulative – and frankly, it’s a blast.

Every time I find myself in the middle of such an obsession as the one I am in now – and I “go to work” – meaning: seeing everything the object of desire has done – there are always surprises. And there are always movies I discover that I NEVER would have seen otherwise.

Discovering movies like The Dunwich Horror has been so much fun.

Dunwich Horror wastes no time in getting started.

There’s a “creepy” opening sequence as the credits roll – a cartoon depiction of a woman being impregnated by this massive devil-like creature – and then the first scene shows a plump and innocent Sandra Dee, with her immovable blonde bob, walking on a college campus with her professor. She is holding a huge book that looks very old. The professor says, “Could you please go return the Necromonicon to its case? Can I trust you with this task?” Suddenly – with no warning – we get a glimpse of a man nearby, eavesdropping. He is Dean Stockwell and he looks distinctly sketchy. He is intense, his eyes burning a B-movie glaze at Sandra Dee and the book. He also is wearing a totally porn-star-from-the-70s ‘stache. It is so gross. Sandra Dee goes back into the library with the book – obviously an important book – and she goes to put it back into its case – and suddenly, as if from out of nowhere – Stockwell is there, intense, quiet, and asks if he can look at the book.

She, at first, is befuddled … No, no, she can’t … the library is closing … she’s supposed to put it right back … but he, with his subtle arts of persuasion (uhm, burning-eyed porno-stache brainwashing) gets her to give it to him to flip through. He sits down at a table, and naturally (because that’s what you do) – he begins to read it out loud, in a quiet low voice – that builds in intensity as he turns the pages. The words he reads are all like:

“and then when the moon is ripe and the sea is in high, the door will open … and the Old Ones will come through … and all will flow, and all will cease to be, and all will move and churn and there must be a sacrifice … there will be a sacrifice … and then … as has been decreed … the Old Ones will rise again …”

Total gibberish, new age gibberish – but Wilbur (Stockwell) is obviously enthralled. Watching Dean Stockwell sit in that library, reading those words out loud like a creepy incantation, has become one of the primary joys of my life. He has all these thick rings on his hand – with weird squiggles on them (what does it mean???) – and his shoulders are narrow in his little corduroy jacket – and he looks sort of normal, yet there is something OFF about this Wilbur. Is he attractive? Sandra Dee seems to think so. She murmurs to her friend, “Did you see his eyes?”

Uhm – how could you miss them with closeups like this one?

Dude. Step back. Learn boundaries.

Thanks.

So the movie is tons of fun. There are gloriously campy moments (Stockwell speaking some ancient “language”, while holding his Ogam-stone rings up beside his head Ha!!! Love it, love it, love it, love it… Sandra Dee writhing almost naked on some Druidic altar as Stockwell places the sacred book in between her legs – to do his incantations – naked witchy hippie types running through fields in dream-esque sequences that are supposed to be horrifying yet end up looking just mildly amusing and vaguely erotic – lots of intense closeups of people looking evil or suspicious. Also there has to be the creepiest house in history. Wilbur takes Sandra Dee there for a “date” – and seriously, if some dude took me into his house, and it looked like that one, I’d run for the hills as quickly as I could.

Oh, some interesting trivia:

Curtis Hanson (you know, LA Confidential) wrote the screen play.

And Talia Shire is in it. This is pre-Rocky. She has a small part but it’s always cool to see someone on the cusp of great fame. She has no idea what’s going to happen in her career in the next decade, and it’s going to be something else!!

Stockwell’s great in the movie. One of the things he has said about it that I really liked was this:

He loves HP Lovecraft, so he was really psyched to be involved with the film. Very early on, though, he realized: Okay. This isn’t exactly the movie I thought it would be. This ISN’T really about Lovecraft’s story.

So what did he do? He adjusted how he played the part. He gave up the movie he wanted to be in, and accepted the movie he was in. He said he played the whole thing in a “tongue-in-cheek” manner – because that was the overall TONE of the movie. This is a very very smart move – and surprisingly difficult. I can think of examples of my own life where I had to give up my idea of what I WISHED was happening – and just go wtih what was actually happening. To quote one of my acting teachers in college, “It may not be the show you want, but it’s the show you got.”

I was in a version of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds – and at the time, it was one of my favorite plays ever – and I had got the part I wanted. Tillie! The lead! So exciting! Dream come true! And very early on in the rehearsal process (one of the worst I can remember) it became apparent that … well, I was gonna have to give up my fantasy of being in that play I loved so much … because of certain factors I won’t go into (the woman playing my mother, ahem) – It was NOT Zindel’s play because that actress refused to play her role in the manner in which it was written. She used to go off stage and vomit. That was how big her antipathy was to the material. She REFUSED to play a bad mother, and basically – that’s what the whole play was about. It was a devastating experience for me – a huge disappointment – but my acting teacher’s maxim “it may not be the show you want, but it’s the show you got” really came in handy.

The Dunwich Horror was a campy movie, with ‘scary’ moments, and an infrared “monster” raging through the woods, and lots of nudity and dream-sequence orgies (again, they’re supposed to look scary but they actually end up looking really fun) … and Stockwell went with the movie he was IN, rather than his fantasy of what the movie SHOULD have been.

And the tongue-in-cheek manner in which he plays that part is delicious.

It’s one of his funnest performances.

There’s a scene where his grandfather dies (his nutso bearded grandfather who wanders around the haunted house like a wraith – holding a huge stick) – and Wilbur and the Sandra Dee character go to the local graveyard to bury him. But because he was a Whateley – a hated entity in the town – the funeral is busted up by townsfolk who refuse to have a pagan madman be buried near their Christian relatives. But before the townsfolk show up – Wilbur goes through his pagan rituals, and guys? Seriously. I watch Stockwell with the little mortar and pestle, and his big shiny knife, and his chunky rings – he is also wearing a black cape – and he does these swoopy motions with the knife over the gravesite, saying things like, “Ick. Nick. Ick.” Or whatever – gibberish – but you know it means something to Wilbur. Anyway, I watch him – and I am in love with him. I love actors. There is something beautiful about a job well done, even in a B-movie such as this one. There’s dignity in it – and I love it.

Then at the end, Sandra Dee is all naked on the altar – she’s gonna be a virgin sacrifice – or – it’s going to be a Rosemary’s Baby type situation – where some Beelzebub creature from the 9th dimension enters our world and impregnates her – or maybe it’s like The Astronaut’s Wife … anyway, and Stockwell, in his stupid cape and his cheeseball mustache, walks around the altar – holding his hands up beside his face, knuckles facing out – so his rings are … what … facing the heavens? And he’s shouting gibberish incantations into the wind …

And I watch such scenes and think, “I have never been so happy. This is hysTERical.”

Doing Hamlet is awesome. The classics are there for us, to challenge us, and to be embodied, generation after generation.

But something like The Dunwich Horror also has its place – and it’s a blast. I highly recommend it.

Some screenshots below.

The freakin’ rings.

Dude, I thought I told you to learn boundaries.

run for the hills, Sandra!!

The ‘stache. In all its nasty glory.

That’s such a Stockwell expression.

Run!!!

Up to the Altar of New-Age Death and Virgin Sacrifice.

You vill climb up on ze altar, you vill take off your clothes, and you vill soon feel very very sleepy …

Here’s a quote from Dean Stockwell:

“The best thing in The Dunwich Horror is a scene towards the end, where the guy takes the girl up and sticks her on the altar and does these incantations. It was indicated in the script that he opens his shirt. In Lovecraft’s story, there’s an indication that he has very weird stuff on his skin. So, I arranged to have a friend of mine, George Herms, a fine artist, paint my chest. He came down to the set and spent four hours in the morning, doing what looks like runic hieroglyphics, all on my chest. Those stand out when I open up my shirt and you see all these weird calligraphies on my body.”

I love that that was his idea.

And here is part of the scene at the graveyard I mentioned above. I just love him. He’s an actor, playing a part, he is behaving ridiculously serious … but he’s not at all condescending to the material. If that makes sense. Stockwell is not “slumming” in this movie. “Tongue in cheek” doesn’t mean condescending – it means a certain attitude towards style. Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell) is DEADLY SERIOUS as he does this stupid ritual, with runes, and dust, and shiny knives, while wearing a flowing black cape. I adore it. And look at Sandra Dee in the background, all concerned and womanly. Hilarious.

I just … come on. Look at that. It’s hysterical.

Those damn rings again.

Uh oh.

I have no words for how much I love that shot.

Oh whatever, I’m just wearing a black cape, reading my book, which just happens to be resting on your mons veneris, as you writhe about on an altar. Yeah, same ol’ same ol’ for me.

Wilbur, man, you gotta cut it out with that ring gesture. It’s gettin’ kinda old. ChillAX, bro!

I wouldn’t look so cocky, Wilbur. Things are NOT going to end well for you, my friend.

All Stockwell stuff here