The Perfect Lovecraft Horror Double Bill
One of my favorite viewing habits is to assemble my own double bills, pairing two movies with similar stories, aesthetics, or ideas. For example, pair up House of Wax (1953) and How to Make a Monster (1958), with their tales of artists driven to revenge by the greed of others. Take House of Usher (1960) and watch it with The Haunting (1963), with their monstrous houses whose walls drip with hostility.
And on that note, take Die, Monster, Die! (1965) and screen it with The Dunwich Horror (1970). These two H.P. Lovecraft adaptations were both produced by American International Pictures (AIP) and directed by Daniel Haller. While they take significant liberties with their literary sources (The Colour Out of Space and The Dunwich Horror, respectively), paired together, they make for an entertaining horror duo.
Die, Monster, Die!
Die, Monster, Die! was originally to be called The House at the End of the World, but its eventual title better captures the sensational showmanship for which AIP was known. The film stars Nick Adams as Stephen Reinhart, an American visiting the English village of Arkham to see his fiancé, Susan Witley (Suzan Farmer). Susan’s father, Nahum Witley (the great Boris Karloff), has been experimenting with a meteorite that crashed nearby. Now, its strange powers are mutating everything and everyone.
Die, Monster, Die! immediately evokes several horror styles at once. For example, Boris Karloff instantly affords it a sense of genre authenticity, his unforgettable voice warning of grave misfortune should Stephen stick around. His inclusion obviously recalls the classic Universal horrors of the 1930s and 1940s to which he was integral, especially James Whale’s immortal Frankenstein (1931).
I bring up Frankenstein in particular because of Nick Adams, who’s remembered most fondly for his work with Japan’s Toho Studios in films like Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) and, pertinent to our discussion, Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965). Toho’s Frankenstein film is fascinating, with the creature ultimately regenerated by the Little Boy bomb that exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Themes inherent to Mary Shelley’s original character, like his loneliness and pain, are all present in Koji Furuhata’s compelling performance as the monster. In turn, 1965 therefore saw Nick Adams facing two Frankensteins. Firstly, Adams faced the benchmark against which all future Frankenstein adaptations would be compared (Karloff), and then the latest iteration in Toho’s new creation. Adams’ inclusion in Die, Monster, Die! immediately conjures these other science fiction offerings.
Lovecraft And Science Fiction In Die, Monster, Die!
Speaking of science fiction, the “power” contained within Nahum’s meteorite is given a relatively grounded explanation, as opposed to the more unknowable horrors for which Lovecraft’s tales are known. Stephen theorizes that the meteorite contains uranium and that radiation is therefore causing all the mutations. It feels a very contemporary threat to include, juxtaposed with Nahum Witley’s claims that his father, Corbin Witley, summoned the meteorite from the heavens via occult means. The blending of the realistic and the otherworldly is an interesting idea, though the script discusses radiation in a perfunctory manner.
In turn, these science-fictional elements greatly contrast with another strand of horror that the film recalls: Hammer Films. The Witley mansion, with its imposing architecture, permanent blanket of fog, and grand interiors, evokes Hammer’s (literal) house style—it had been developed by the company’s core creative team, most notably production designer Bernard Robinson.
This ultimately reveals the film’s blessings and its arguable curse. In its evocation of different genre elements via its cast, art direction, and plot details, the film feels comfortably familiar. There’s a sense that you’re sitting down to watch a classic horror film when seeing all the fog, the creeping figures around the Witley mansion, and especially Boris Karloff. But this also means that the film struggles to assert a firm identity of its own, entertaining though it is.
The Dunwich Horror
The Dunwich Horror feels more distinct by comparison, particularly because of its powerful climax, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The film was shot in 1969 on location in Mendocino, California. Like Die, Monster, Die!, it went through several title changes. As reported in the Mendocino Beacon in January 1969, its initial title was The Dunwich Horrors. By March, it had been shortened to just Dunwich. Then, before its release in early 1970, it was revised to The Dunwich Horror.
Dean Stockwell plays Wilbur Whately, a mysterious figure who takes an interest in a student named Nancy (Sandra Dee) when he spots her with a copy of the Necronomicon (the Book of the Dead). She becomes the target of his diabolical plan: she must bear the child of Yog-Sothoth, an indescribable being from another realm whose race once ruled our planet. Wilbur is also the twin brother of another of Yog-Sothoth’s children, now locked away in the attic of his mansion.
David Haller, Roger Corman, And Lovecraft
Like Die, Monster, Die!, The Dunwich Horror makes great use of its fabulous mansion setting. It’s here that we must mention the director of these two films: Daniel Haller. Haller had come up through the school of maverick filmmaker Roger Corman (who also executively produced The Dunwich Horror) and had earned a place in his regular crew as a trusted and reliable art director. Haller’s work included Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations like the aforementioned House of Usher, as well as Pit and the Pendulum (1961), and The Haunted Palace (1963). The lavish art direction of these titles is a testament to Haller’s skill given the extraordinarily tight budgets and schedules for which Corman was infamous. It is perhaps no surprise that both Die, Monster, Die! and The Dunwich Horror feature such effective set design.
The Dunwich Horror sports a leisurely pace. It slowly reveals details about Wilbur’s past and the vivid nightmares Nancy suffers, carefully building suspense before an explosive finale. The tantalizing warning that no one must go near Wilbur’s attic does eventually receive a payoff in a deluge of eye-popping optical effects. When the other Whately sibling is finally loose, the film induces palpable unease via an effective combination of point-of-view photography, fearful performances, and unearthly sound design.
Otherworldly Monsters
The otherworldly being is eventually glimpsed at the film’s ending, revealing another strength both The Dunwich Horror and Die, Monster, Die! share: their realization of Lovecraftian monstrosity. In Die, Monster, Die!, Stephen and Susan encounter several animals mutated by Nahum’s meteorite. The scene is brief but grotesque as the pair gaze upon a menagerie of twisted lumps of pulsing flesh, their doll-like eyes staring out at the audience. The creature that appears at the climax of The Dunwich Horror is similarly striking and hideous, confidently adapting Lovecraft’s description from the original story: “It was an octopus, centipede, spider kind o’ thing, but they was a haff-shaped man’s face on top of it.”
Interestingly, when AIP released Toho’s Space Amoeba (1970) in the US in 1971—a film that features a giant cuttlefish monster named Gezora—its American title eventually became Yog, Monster from Space.
Die, Monster, Die! and The Dunwich Horror present dynamite double-bill potential. Die, Monster, Die! feels familiar with its amalgam of tried-and-tested horror aesthetics, while The Dunwich Horror offers scenes of genuine unease. Enjoy!
Categorized:Editorials
