The Dunwich Horror (film)
| The Dunwich Horror | |
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Film Poster
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| Directed by | Daniel Haller |
| Produced by |
Samuel Z. Arkoff James H. Nicholson executive Roger Corman |
| Screenplay by |
Curtis Hanson & Henry Rosenbaum Ronald Silkosky |
| Based on | "The Dunwich Horror" by H.P. Lovecraft |
| Starring |
Sandra Dee Ed Begley Talia Shire |
| Music by | Les Baxter |
| Cinematography | Richard C. Glouner |
| Edited by | Christopher Holmes |
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Production
company |
American International Pictures
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| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,043,000 (US/ Canada rentals) |
The Dunwich Horror is a 1970 independent supernatural horror film from American International Pictures directed by Daniel Haller and produced by Roger Corman. The film was based on the short story of the same name by H.P. Lovecraft with a script co-written by Curtis Hanson.
The leading role was offered to Peter Fonda, but he turned it down. Instead, played the role of Wilbur Whateley. The film was shot in Mendocino, California.
The film begins with the groaning of a woman. The camera slowly pans to show two elderly women (who look like twins) and an elderly man who are watching a woman writhe and moan with the pain of childbirth on a bed in an old-fashioned looking bedroom. She is then led out of the room by the elderly man, who is later revealed as the elder Whateley.
The film continues, after the opening credits, at the fictional Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, where Dr. Henry Armitage (Begley) has just finished a lecture on the local history and the very rare and priceless Necronomicon. He gives the book to his student Nancy Wagner (Dee) to return to the library. She is followed by a stranger, who later introduces himself as Wilbur Whateley (Stockwell). Whateley asks to see the book, and though it is closing time and the book is reputedly the only copy in existence, Nancy allows it under the influence of Whateley's hypnotic gaze.
Whateley's perusal of the book is cut short by Armitage, who has researched Wilbur's family's sordid past. His warnings about the Whateleys go unheeded by Nancy, who decides to give Wilbur a ride back to Dunwich after he misses his bus, perhaps purposely. At a gas station on the outskirts of town, Nancy first encounters the ill-esteem in which the locals hold Wilbur.
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