H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreams in the Witch-House (2005)
Starring Ezra Godden, Jay Brazeau, Campbell Lane, Chelah Horsdal, David Racz, Nicholas Racz, Yevgen Voronin, Susanna Uchatius
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Expectations: Moderate. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every Stuart Gordon movie I’ve seen, but I’m worried this will disappoint like the previous Masters of Horror episode.
Another week, another episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror. After last week’s frustrating entry, I questioned if watching the rest of the series was worth it. My love of Stuart Gordon won out though, as the second episode was directed by the man who brought the world Re-Animator, From Beyond and Robot Jox. And who better to bring H.P. Lovecraft to the small silver screen than his most faithful adapter, Stuart Gordon? After watching the film: no one, that’s who. Dreams in the Witch-House proves once again that Stuart Gordon is one of the premiere horror directors (and one of the most underrated).
The story concerns a college student named Walter who takes a room in a run-down house so that he has a quiet place to study and write his thesis on string theory. The evil look of the house and the shady manager should have clued Walter into something fishy, but alas he’s a horror movie protagonist so of course he moves in unheeded. When strange things start to happen and the rat with the man’s face tells Walter that “She’s coming for you!”, he’s in too deep and nothing can rip him away from the interdimensional shenanigans that threaten his building.