Dreams in the Witch House (2005)

"Dreams in the Witch House" aired during the first season of "Masters of Horror"; adapted by Stuart Gordon from the short story written by H.P Lovecraft. Gordon, who gave us the wonderful film adaptions of Lovecraft stories such as "The Re-Animator", "From Beyond", and "Dagon" works his magic again by modernizing this intricate tale and casting "Dagon" star Ezra Godden as Walter Gilman. This adaption takes the strongest beats from the story while ignoring others due to the 55 minute time limit. The changes and story is a great fit for the "Master of Horror" series and is one of my personal favorites.

Walter Gilman is a grad student writing his thesis on string theory. He finds the perfect place to rent a room while finishing his work. There he meets Francis Elwood and her infant son Danny as well as an elderly neighbor named Mr. Masurewicz. While studying one night, Walter is stunned that the walls in one corner of his room are just like those that he's working on, with slants and intersections that might make inter-dimensional travel possible. The next day Francis asks Walter to watch Danny while she goes to an interview; Walter agrees to but is visited by a naked woman who looks like Francis who seduces him and scratches a pentagram on his back. Walter discovers, all too late, that a witch lives in the space behind the walls and makes the men who live in that room do her bidding...which is to kill and sacrifice young children. Walter even wakes up at the university with the Necronomicon opened to a page on sacrifice! Walter now must do all that he can to resist the spells of the witch and save Danny and Frances as well as himself!

The Dunwich Horror (1970)

This 1970’s version of “The Dunwich Horror” stays pretty close to the source material that was originally written in 1928. There are a few added characters that were not needed but helped flesh out the story. There is a psychedelic dream sequence about twenty minutes in that feels odd and really out of place. And it stars Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley and Sandra Dee as one of the extra characters, in this case, Wilbur’s love interest. Enough of the main plot points are present in the film to forgive those that are left out or for those that occur differently than in the story. Watching this film now makes me appreciate the fact that I wasn’t seeing it for the first time in 1970. It’s not a bad little film, but wow, we’ve made a lot of progress since then!

The basic premise of “The Dunwich Horror” film is that Wilbur and his family are outcasts from town, with good reason. Wilbur’s great grandfather was hung by a town mob after trying to perform a ritual to call forth “The Old Ones”. Wilbur wants to attempt this ritual now and goes to the Miskatonic University to retrieve a copy of the Necronomicon. He meets Nancy, who is nice enough to drive him back to Dunwich where he lives. When she doesn’t come home, her friend and Dr. Artimage go and try to find her. They discover that Wilbur had a twin sibling that was supposedly dead but in reality was locked away in Wilbur’s house. The movie ends with a busy and confusing ending with Wilbur’s brother, the “Horror”, killing a mob of town folk and Wilbur being struck by lightning as he was attempting to sacrifice Nancy and summon the Old Ones.

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

“Evil Dead 2” is a unique movie to say the least. It’s more of a reboot than a sequel; the first portion of the film goes over some of the same story points that the first film was about before going on to new material. “Evil Dead 2” is also unique because it includes some very dark comic moments throughout the film but still remains a horror movie. Most of the horror movies I have seen fail whenever they try to change the mood more than once.

The movie is about a couple who go to a cabin in the woods for a romantic weekend. In the cabin they find a tape recorder and when it’s played a professor of sorts is heard explaining his research about the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, also known as the Book of the Dead. After the tape is played Ash’s girlfriend becomes possessed. He is forced to kill her and shortly after becomes possessed as well. He recovers when the sun comes out and he returns to the cabin after seeing that he is trapped in the forest. The movie continues with new the material which includes laughing inanimate objects, more possessions, more people coming to the cabin, and a creepy demonic hand.

Note - The Book of the Dead has a different name in the original Evil Dead and it's recent remake. In those films it's known as Naturon Demonto. I wonder why there was a change between the films...

Favorite moment – I have to be predictable and say that my favorite moment of “Evil Dead 2” is when Ash’s hand becomes possessed and smashes plate after plate against his head before noticing a knife and dragging his body towards it.