Revisiting The Dunwich Horror

Child of Dunwich rise
You have your fathers’ eyes
Child of Dunwich rise
End the world that you despise
     -Electric Wizard, “Dunwich,” Witchcult Today

Return to Dunwich

One of the most looked-forward-to horror movies of 2020 was Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space. It was Stanley’s return to directing after 1992’s Dust Devil. There was much excitement about what the talented filmmaker would do with a work based on one of horror’s most beloved, and problematic authors–Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Upon release, the movie quickly was lauded as one of the year’s best movies. The reasons for its success are many, but Stanley’s unique envisioning of the story and his reverence for the source material were among the largest. Not surprisingly, the moviegoing public is anxiously expecting what he will do next.

Early in 2020, Stanley announced plans to make a Lovecraft trilogy. He had begun writing a script for The Dunwich Horror, based on Lovecraft’s story, first published in Weird Tales magazine in April 1929. This was exciting news for me because watching Daniel Haller’s The Dunwich Horror (1970) on late night television was my introduction to Lovecraft’s eldritch New England with its caches of forbidden knowledge, occult practitioners, and transdimensional monsters. I had been thinking about watching it again and now had a reason. With a new version coming soon, it was time to revisit spooky, aged Dunwich, Massachusetts to refresh myself on what devilry the Whateley clan did to earn their place in the hallowed halls of horror.

2020 YEAR END REVIEW

La Llorona

Holy shitballs has 2020 been a wild ride! But I believe we all learned a lot this year. Sadly, most of that probably falls under the “Good to Know” category rather than the “Good News” category. Who knew we would all end the year with Christmas lists that include day pajamas? Or be faced with the unsettling discovery that behind the burled, polished hardwood exterior of our system of checks and balances is the maggot laden, decomposing, hungry-for-your-brain zombie of despotism? Or just how easily many of our nation’s most beloved ideals could be subverted and perverted, used to attack the very principles they were established to protect?
But lets talk about the movies. Here is my first ever end of the year wrap up of favorite films from the last few years. I made an effort to concentrate on movies that I haven’t written about previously because everyone already knows that Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is my favorite film. No, I mean Mandy, or was that Midsommer? Or…

I have been using the tools at Trakt to record what I watch and rate. My profile (please feel free to follow me!) is here: https://trakt.tv/users/mcubed1220

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020 SIXTH AND FINAL EDITION

 

David Kajganich, screenwriter of Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria spoke on The Gaylords of Darkness Podcast about there being two kinds of horror: Rigorous and less rigorous horror. To me, that defines the movies I watch once or twice and forget about and the ones that I rewatch many times because they offer plenty to ponder. For this edition, I mixed in some less rigorous films and reveled in their easy-going charms!

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020 FIFTH EDITION

Dear Past-Mike,

So much has happened in the world since you wrote to me in mid-September! Suffice it to say that life is still overwhelming, and our limbic systems are overburdened. The effects of long-term exposure to stress can lead to real changes in brain functionality and behavior. People can exhibit bizarre behavior and may become more susceptible to addiction and depression. Lucky for us, we have been dealing with those issues successfully for quite a while!

SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020 FOURTH EDITION, A ROUGH TRANSITION TO THE MODERN ERA

Add caption

This week’s edition of Shocktoberfest 2020 is about old world horrors under the modern world’s electric lights. A Bay of Blood, which I wrote about last week, is an apt milestone to delineate between the dignified, gloomy gothic horror films set in the past and the newer, present-day, violent, and gory horror films that began to push them aside. Viewers began to lose interest in watching movies set in the previous century and began to crave movies set in a more familiar world – the one they were living in now. 

[FANTASIA FEST REVIEW] ’12 HOUR SHIFT’ IS A GRUESOME COMEDY OF ERRORS

12 HOUR SHIFT (2020)

Directed & Written by Brea Grant
Stars: Angela Bettis, David Arquette, Chloe Farnworth, Mick Foley

Lucky you got family checks on you.

12 Hour Shift is a true gem of a movie! Writer-director Brea Grant’s ode to the fucked-up-ness of life in Arkansas in 1999, 12 Hour Shift (2020), was the movie I was most looking forward to watching at this year’s virtual Fantasia Fest. The acting, the story, the music, and the attention to fine detail made watching this long-anticipated movie a treat!. Like a master storyteller, Grant splays out her characters like a group of spinning quarters whirling around a tabletop. They ricochet off of each other in unpredictable ways, fall over or sail over the table’s edge.

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020, THIRD EDITION

 

Dear Future-Mike,

I am writing this on September 18th, 2020 just after I found out that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead. For the first time, I am considering giving up and letting hopelessness take over. I keep thinking of a social media post about trauma survivors  who watch the same movies and shows over and over. It is because they find comfort in the familiarity of the experience. Revisiting favorite shows and movies is a powerful antidote against the unpredictability of life. Pattern recognition for humans, where we examine the data,  looking for the reassurances that we will survive the present.

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020, SECOND EDITION

 

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020, FIRST EDITION

This week I revisited a film that after 50 years still gives me nightmares. I was surprised to find some curious links between it, modern horror films, and today's news cycle. Like Ripley tells the xenomorph in Alien 3, "You've been in my life so long, I can't remember anything else,"  I can't remember my life before images from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead started making started making an impression.  In fact, it was so powerful that I first viewed it subconsciously during my nighttime slumbers years before I was able to actually watch it. The world also said goodbye to Diana Rigg this week. This was perfect reason to watch her and Vincent Price ham it up in Douglas Hickox's Theater of Blood, a thriller-chiller of Shakespearean proportions.

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020, FIRST EDITION

 

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020, FIRST EDITION

My first nightmare - Lon Chaney

Where did my love of horror come from? As near as I can tell, it is probably hard-coded into my DNA. I am certain that there is a specific gene sequence that is related to a passion for the macabre and ghastly. As a small child, maybe even as young as 5 or six, my dreams became populated with images that I would later recognize as monsters from movies. In the first dream I can remember, I was trapped in the dark, spooky side of our basement when a frightening creature lunged at me from behind the furnace. Later on, I would find a picture of that monster in a book on movies at the local public library. It was none other than the great Lon Chaney Sr. from London After Midnight that pursued me into the dark and damned spaces of imagination that I call home. In order to celebrate that first panic run into nightmare territory, here are the first week’s movies from my yearly Shocktoberfest! 

[REVIEW] THE BEACH HOUSE (2019)

In the midst of an extinction level event, The Beach House reminds us of how fragile human life really is.

THE BEACH HOUSE

Starring:  Liana Liberato, Noah Le Gros, Jake Weber, Maryann Nagel

Written & Directed by: Jeffery A. Brown

“You should be thankful you have all the time to do what you want” -Jane

Writer and director Jeffery A. Brown’s first feature film, The Beach House (2019) takes four characters in the midst of pivotal, personal journeys and exposes them to the cosmic horror of a deadly force from the primeval ocean floor. Two couples are brought together at the titular beach house by chance. While soon-to-graduate Emily (Liana Liberato) is pondering grad school programs, her boyfriend, Randall (Noah Le Gros), is pressuring her to join him on his quest for a life of “vacation all the time.” The go to Randall's family's beach house to discuss their future together. They discover they are sharing the house with Mitch (Jake Weber) and Jane (Maryann Nagel), an older, married couple with their own major issues. Jane is gravely ill, possibly dying, while Mitch struggles to care for her and is  drinking heavily. 

[REVIEW] ‘RELIC’ TRAPS VIEWERS IN A DARK MAZE OF A FAMILY’S DEEPEST FEARS

Natalie Erica James’ first feature film is a slow-burn, emotional drama about the horrors of ageing parents and hidden family histories.

RELIC (2020)

Starring: Bella Heathcote, Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin
Writers: Natalie Erika James, Christian White
Director: Natalie Erika James

A JOURNEY INTO THE DARK

Australian writer/director Natalie Erika James’ first feature film, Relic (2020), traps viewers in the terrifying, dark maze. Her inspiration began while she was visiting family in Japan. There she saw a sign outside a temple promising “the key to paradise” could be found inside. Following the signs led her to a basement labyrinth where she quickly got lost in the dark. After groping her way to freedom, James noted that the experience had changed her being, “Everything seemed brighter, sharper. I felt buoyed by my small, private achievement for the rest of the day.” (MovieMaker Magazine)

TEENAGE FURY

Brigette

Ginger Snaps (2000)
Director: John Fawcett
Writers: Karen Walton (written by and story), John Fawcett (story)
Stars: Emily Perkins, Katharine Isabelle, Kris Lemche

Hard Candy (2005)
Director: David Slade
Writer: Brian Nelson
Stars: Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh

Jennifer's Body (2009)
Director: Karyn Kusama
Writer: Diablo Cody
Stars: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody

Many modern, female-centered, coming-of-age horror movies share common roots with ancient Grecian dramas wherein individuals act as stand-ins for greater societal concepts. Coming-of-age stories feature an essential turning point that allows the protagonist to display their progress towards maturity. Needy, Haley, and Brigette, the protagonists of Jennifer’s Body, Hard Candy and Ginger Snaps, reach that point and beyond as they display characteristics similar to the stages of development the ancient Greeks went through on their evolution toward a legal system that was fair to all, as fifth century BC playwright Aeschylus illustrated in his play cycle The Oresteia. The three plays, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides, symbolically tell the tale of Ancient Greece's coming-of-age via the conversion from lawlessness and vigilantism to a legal code that applied to all and was enforced by the government, not individuals. This progression is mirrored by the adolescent girls' transition from the chaotic powerlessness of childhood to the responsibility that comes with the agency of adulthood.

TWIN TALES OF TAGALOG TERROR, 2020 EDITION

]

Kulay Dugo ang Gabi (1694 ) -  Released as The Blood Drinkers (USA) or The Vampire People (USA)

Staring: Ronald Remy, Amalia Fuentes, Eddie Fernandez, Eva Montes
Produced: Cirio H. Santiago, Premiere Studios in Manila, dist by Hemisphere Pictures in US
Written: Cesar Amigo (screenplay), Rico Bello Omagap (story)
Directed: Gerardo de Leon, Eddie Romero

Brides of Blood (1968)
Staring: Kent Taylor, Beverly Powers (as Beverly Hills), John Ashley,Eva Darren
Produced:Kane W. Lynn (Hemisphere Pictures)
Written: Cesar Amigo
Directed: Gerardo de Leon, Eddie Romero

I am grateful to have a group of friends who love unusual movies. We often have movie nights to watch some pretty far out films like Liquid Sky, I Drink Your Blood, and recently, we had an unplanned Russ Meyer double feature - Faster PussyCat and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. One of my favorite movie nights was a double bill of The Blood Drinkers (1964) and Brides of Blood (1969), two Filipino horror films we dubbed as TWIN TALES OF TAGALOG TERROR! These movies shown together tell a story about the influence of not just the political climate in the Philippine Island in the 1960s  but also how American filmmakers radically changed the industry in both countries. Together they represent the calm before a giant typhoon that would sweep back across the Pacific Ocean to the drive-ins and grindhouse theaters of The United States.

MONSTROUS FEMALE FEAR : THE POWER OF SADY BOYLE'S 'DEAD BLONDES' AND DAVID CRONENBERG'S 'RABID'

I am a horror film fanatic. I love how they are both exciting and thought-provoking, as well as their capacity to be so weird! Having spent so much of my life watching, enjoying, analyzing, and discussing horror films, my worldview has been undeniably influenced by them. Last year, I set myself to the task of reading more, not only to broaden my understanding of the world I live in, but also to seek understanding of the world through the eyes of others. So, when the Faculty of Horror podcast recommended Sady Doyle’s Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, my interest was piqued.

VINEGAR SYNDROME’S BLOOD MANIA AND POINT OF TERROR SET RIPS THE SCREAMS RIGHT OUT OF YOUR THROAT!

Maria De Aragon

VINEGAR SYNDROME’S BLOOD MANIA AND POINT OF TERROR SET RIPS THE SCREAMS RIGHT OUT OF YOUR THROAT!

BLOOD MANIA / POINT OF TERROR

Blood Mania

Starring: Peter Carpenter, Maria De Aragon, Vicki Peters, Alex Rocco, Leslie Simms
Written by: Peter Carpenter, Tony Crechales, Toby Sacher
Directed by: Robert Vincent O’Neil

Point of Terror

Starring: Peter Carpenter, Dyanne Thorne, Lory Hansen, Leslie Simms, Joel Martson
Written by: Peter Carpenter, Ernest A. Charles, Tony Crechales, Chris Marconi
Directed by: Alex Nicol

“We’re very young souls. Very young and evil.”
“Yes, very evil…You’ll probably live to be a hundred and ten.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Only the good die young.”

Currently, going to the movies is a single-film event but it was not always that way. My dad told me that when he was a kid during the Depression (I am that old), going to a picture show meant featurettes, a newsreel, and two movies, sometimes even singing, all for a dime! When I was a child in the 1960s and 1970s, that sort of thing was long gone. But drive-ins will always have double bills where a current feature is coupled with the return of something from last year or the year before, that were thematically linked (Stallone/Schwarzenegger pairing of Raw Deal and Cobra in 1986 taught me everything I needed to know about being a man.). Sometimes they were odd pairings, such as the Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein and psychological slasher Toolbox Murders double feature that I convinced a friend from church to get his dad to take us to see. Mr. D. lasted about 7 minutes into the The Toolbox Murders before pulling the plug on the evening.

Sometime during the mid 1970s, a horror triple feature of Blood Mania (1970), Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972), and the 1974 Vincent Price meta-horror film Madhouse made the drive-in rounds. I was around ten or 11 at that time, so there was no way to see it. But the TV spot was filled with enough weirdness to fuel my imagination for decades. Replete with the most brain bending bizarre images: undead monks crawling from graves, frightening monsters gathered in a living room, and all the distorted shadows and shapes that can be derived from descending a spiral staircase in the dark, I felt a need to go to those places and explore their environments. While Tombs of the Blind Dead and Madhouse are better known, it was Blood Mania that packed the most punch.

VOLITION(2019) ASKS HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO CHANGE THE FUTURE?

VOLITION (2019)

Director: Tony Dean Smith
Writers: Tony Dean Smith, Ryan W. Smith
Stars: Adrian Glynn McMorran, Magda Apanowicz, John Cassini,Frank Cassini, Aleks Paunovic, Bill Marchant
"Our choices don't matter, life happens beyond our control."
Volition-the faculty or power of using one's will.

I give most of my movie attention to films that fall under the “blood soaked orgy of terror” category. But I love a well written, fast paced story with great characters and plenty of action plus interesting ideas to play with. The trailer for director and writers siblings Tony Dean Smith and Ryan W. Smith, aka The Smith Brothers, for Volition(2020) promised all that and I had to check it out.