MASTERS OF HORROR SEASON ONE, EPISODE TWO: DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE
MASTERS OF HORROR SEASON ONE, EPISODE TWO: DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE-United States-2005
Ezra Godden as Walter Gilman
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Teleplay by Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli
Based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft
You would think that since I am such a connoisseur of all things horror that I would be familiar with the works of one Howard Philips Lovecraft. I’m not. In fact, my familiarity comes from Stuart Gordon and his adaptation of Lovecraft’s work. I have watched Re-animator countless times and I’ve seen From Beyond at least twice. I’ve also seen The Unnamable; that one’s not Gordon, but it is Lovecraft. So, I’ve seen H.P. quite a few times; but it is only recently that I have begun to read Lovecraft. So far I’ve dove into “The Beast in the Cave“; and I am now smack dab in the middle of “In the Mountains of Madness”. I know Lovecraft is regarded as one of the masters of the horror genre. So, with all that, why did I find Gordon’s adaptation of his Dreams in the Witch House a bit…underwhelming?
Is it because I’m not familiar with the work of Lovecraft? This Masters of Horror episode helmed by Gordon about a student at MIskatonic University (an H.P. staple) who moves into an apartment full of strange tenants, rats with human faces; and a witch who travels from world to world via intersections in time and space. The episode hints at Lovecraft, but it doesn’t seem to dig too deep into him or the short story it was based on. There are the Gordon trademarks; Dreams in the Witch House features a student moving into a new place the same way Herbert West did in Re-animator in 1985. Like I said before, I haven’t read a lot of Lovecraft; but I am smart enough to know when something’s missing.
Like Incident On and Off a Mountain Road in episode one, Dreams in the Witch House isn’t a bad episode of Masters of Horror; but it’s not a very good one, either. I like Gordon and I loved Re-animator; I just think that this would benefit from less Stuart and more H.P.
TRIVIA
In this movie it’s the second time Ezra Godden has a character that wears a ‘Miskatonic University’ t-shirt in a Stuart Gordon film. The first one was Dagon where they both were involved.
On the DVD commentary for another Stuart Gordon movie called From Beyond, Gordon and Brian Yuzna mention that they had planned to make an adaptation of Dreams in the Witch-House in the 1980s after the success of Re-Animator. From Beyond ended up getting made instead.
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Posted on 12/02/2012, in Movies and tagged Dreams, Gordon, H. P. Lovecraft, Herbert West, Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, Lovecraft, Masters of Horror, MIskatonic University, Stuart Gordon. Bookmark the permalink. 21 Comments.
I have to admit that the Lovecraft connection pulled me into this one. I didn’t think it was all that bad. I did like this series because they had released all the episodes individually, which allowed me to pick and choose which ones I thought sounded decent.
Yeah, I liked the choice of buying separate also.
I saw this! Unfortunately I don’t remember a ton about it (I watched the whole season pretty much in a week) but I know I didn’t dislike it. This is definitely a uniquely fun series.
I did the same thing and yes for the most part it was. Thanks!
I actually liked this episode. I had also read the story, one of my fave Lovecraft stories and would say that not too much was missing in this adaptation. There is more explaination to the angles of the room and the entry into another dimension, which makes you buy into the whole premise of the Lovecraft story to begin with – but three pages of exposition about theories would probably not have made for a good film. Besides, the real horror of the story is that the main character killed the baby and maybe he was just psychotic. Re-animator was probably more Gordon than Lovecraft – Lovecraft stories don’t have gore or anything sexually explicit.
Hey, I’m still in the learning curve with Lovecraft. I understand that I may have missed the point of the story a bit. Thanks for giving me a little more info on HPL and his work.
I have been contemplating renting this episode but have never heard anyone’s opinion on it. Thanks for the review.
You’re welcome!
I was wondering what you would think about this collection of shortrs. I have seen a few but would love to get the whole set (downloaded or streamed what have you). This was entertaining but I agree missed a little something. My favorite two are Jessica and Imprint.
Do you mean Jenifer, the one from Argento?
*FACEPALM!* yes that’s the one. haha I should never try and type, watch tv and play with kids at the same time.
Yeah, the last time I did that mastication (chewing one’s food) became something entirely different.
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