Put a little Love-craft in your heart

Cheesy, yes, apt, possibly. I finally got around to finishing the meagre 40-pages of The Dunwich Horror, by H.P. Lovecraft. I had watched the 1970 film version not long ago and, having read that the movie was a far from accurate adaptation, I decided to read the original tale.

About halfway through reading I figured out that the movie is as far from accurate as one can get. Something big must have happened half-way, I hear you say to yourself. Well you're right. The main character of the movie dies half-way through the book. And he looks nothing like his film counter-part either. The story concerns an apparently fatherless man who seeks out a book called the Necronomicon in which he hopes to find spells that will allow him to conjure up the Great Old Ones and take over the Earth. Later in the book you find out that he has a twin brother, who is pretty much a complete monster, who eats raw cattle and lives in the barn. The main character himself, Wilbur Whateley, is 9 feet tall and wears baggy clothes to hide his deranged lower half. You find out, after he dies, that his legs and feet resemble those of an elephant, and he has many tentacles coming out of his stomach and back. The filmmakers thought that Wilbur should look like this instead:

His twin, after Wilbur dies, goes on a rampage and kills and destroys things around the countryside. Some men, a few of them learned men, destroy "him" with some counter spells also found in the Necronomicon. After that no one speaks of the Whateley's again. The movie has Wilbur hooking up with Sandra Dee with the hopes of using her as a human vessel with which to bring the Great Old One, Yog Sothoth, to Earth. Kinda different, right? Remember, Wilbur Whateley is supposed to be 9 feet tall with elephant feet in the book, but in the movie he looks like this:

I know why they had to make him look like that. Sandra Dee is not a great animal lover, and even if she were she'd probably shy away from someone with the legs of an elephant. I will say this about the movie: It's got a lot of great 60's/70's horror movie tropes. The clothing is ridiculous and hilarious and every time the strange monster is shown a whole bunch of colors flow around the screen and the image gets all distorted like you're on an acid trip. There's also some obligatory nudity-on-the-altar-of-sacrifice stuff. (I suspect that it's a body double for Sandra Dee, though, because you never see her face in the frame at the same time as the naked body.)

Lovecraft adaptations are made by people who love Lovecraft, but who just get so excited about making their little opus/ode/homage that they fuck it all up. Not once have I seen a movie even begin to communicate the eerie feeling I get when reading Lovecraft's tales. The only person I'd like to see try would be Daren Aronofsky. I think he could do a great job. I'd also like him to use the all in-camera effects from The Fountain because there was no CGI in that movie, and everything had a great texture and tangible nature to it. Maybe this upcoming adaptation will be a bit better:

Dunwich Horror Trailer
Uploaded by dreadcentral

I can think of two movie that strayed so far from their source material: Starship Troopers and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Oh, you didn't know Roger Rabbit was based on a book? Well, you'll find out more about that next time.