Review by: L.L Soares
Date: 22nd May 2008
This was an interesting one for me.
Back when I first saw DREAMS IN THE WITCH-HOUSE, when it first aired as the second episode
of MASTERS OF HORROR, shown on the American cable channel Showtime, I remember that I
wasn’t particularly impressed with it.
Now, watching it a second time for this review for DVD RESURRECTIONS, I sat down beforehand
and reread the H.P. Lovecraft story upon which it is based (and which I hadn’t read since I was a
teenager). I expected that Gordon had deviated a lot from the original storyline. But I was
surprised to find that it was actually quite faithful to the source material.
For those who don’t know about Gordon’s work (is there really anyone who reads reviews on this
site and doesn’t know Stuart Gordon?), he made his name with a little picture called RE-
ANIMATOR in 1985, which was also based on a Lovecraft story. I can say without hesitation that
RE-ANIMATOR was one of my favorite horror films of the 80s, and while it was clear that Gordon
took liberties with HPL’s work (bringing it to the present day, including sex and nudity, and, of
course, gore), the result was such a terrific movie, that I didn’t mind. While he has made some
good films since then, I have found his subsequent output rather uneven. And he hasn’t shied
away from going to the Lovecraft well a few more times (FROM BEYOND, DAGON).
DREAMS IN THE WITCH-HOUSE is about Walter Gilman (the well-cast Ezra Godden, who had also
been in Gordon’s DAGON), a graduate student working on his thesis on string theory at Miskatonic
University (in Lovecraft’s hallowed town of Arkham, Massachusetts), who gets a room in a house
that, it turns out, is haunted by a witch who once lived there. Gilman even stays in the room she
occupied more than two hundred years before. The rest of the tenants include Frances (Chelah
Horsdal), a single mother with a baby who lives next door, Joe Masurewicz (Campbell Lane), an old
man who lives downstairs and seems to be praying all the time when he’s not peeking out from his
doorway, and Mr. Dembrowski (Jay Brazeau), the building’s manager and Walter’s ill-tempered
landlord.
Walter finds his new dwelling to be rather odd, right from the get go, when he starts experiencing
very vivid, and disturbing, dreams. These involve a strange, rat-like creature with a human face
(Yevgen Voronin), called “Brown Jenkin” in Lovecraft’s story, and the witch herself (Susanna
Uchatius), named Keziah Mason, who seeks to seduce and eventually control Gilman.
As the dreams continue, Gilman realizes that the witch wants Frances’s baby son for a sacrifice,
which he will be forced to take part in. Of course, when he tells Frances about the dreams and
that her child is in danger, she starts to believe he’s insane. The only person who believes him is
old Masurewicz, who had past dealings with the witch himself, and did some things he is still trying
to repent for.
Gordon does take liberties with Lovecraft’s story, as to be expected. It is updated to the present
day (yet retains the atmosphere of something older) and there are scenes of nudity, sex and
exaggerated gore that are not in the original tale. Also, the character of Frances and her baby
have been added to create a level of intimacy in the story that wasn’t originally there.
In Lovecraft’s tale, the emphasis was more on the dreams themselves, which also included trips to
other dimensions where Gilman sees creatures and locations that are beyond human
comprehension, and sojourns on other worlds, aside from his slow-building “relationship” with the
witch and her rodent familiar. While these are not in the film, Gordon keeps much of the meat of
the tale intact. I was surprised at how much the film followed the original story.
I do think the witch and Brown Jenkin could have been a bit more horrific. The witch has an
almost youthful-looking face (which does follow Lovecraft’s original theory that she is able to stay
almost immortal by moving between dimensions, but in his story she is plainly a hag), and Brown
Jenkin is an almost comical-looking character in the film, where could have inspired much more
terror.
In a way, reading the story beforehand allowed me to watch the episode with fresh eyes, and
while I still do not think it is perfect, I did enjoy it much more the second time around. DREAMS IN
THE WITCH-HOUSE is not one of my favorite episodes of MASTERS OF HORROR first season -
those would include Dario Argento’s JENIFER, John Carpenter’s CIGARETTE BURNS, and John
Landis’s DEER WOMAN (not to mention the unaired episode, and perhaps the gem of the series,
Takashi Miike’s IMPRINT, now available on DVD). However, I did find much to like about Gordon’s
first entry to the series.
In Season Two, he tackles another literary master, when he does an interesting adaptation of
Edgar Allen Poe’s THE BLACK CAT with the great Jeffrey Combs (Herbert West from
RE-ANIMATOR) as Poe.
Date: 22nd May 2008
This was an interesting one for me.
Back when I first saw DREAMS IN THE WITCH-HOUSE, when it first aired as the second episode
of MASTERS OF HORROR, shown on the American cable channel Showtime, I remember that I
wasn’t particularly impressed with it.
Now, watching it a second time for this review for DVD RESURRECTIONS, I sat down beforehand
and reread the H.P. Lovecraft story upon which it is based (and which I hadn’t read since I was a
teenager). I expected that Gordon had deviated a lot from the original storyline. But I was
surprised to find that it was actually quite faithful to the source material.
For those who don’t know about Gordon’s work (is there really anyone who reads reviews on this
site and doesn’t know Stuart Gordon?), he made his name with a little picture called RE-
ANIMATOR in 1985, which was also based on a Lovecraft story. I can say without hesitation that
RE-ANIMATOR was one of my favorite horror films of the 80s, and while it was clear that Gordon
took liberties with HPL’s work (bringing it to the present day, including sex and nudity, and, of
course, gore), the result was such a terrific movie, that I didn’t mind. While he has made some
good films since then, I have found his subsequent output rather uneven. And he hasn’t shied
away from going to the Lovecraft well a few more times (FROM BEYOND, DAGON).
DREAMS IN THE WITCH-HOUSE is about Walter Gilman (the well-cast Ezra Godden, who had also
been in Gordon’s DAGON), a graduate student working on his thesis on string theory at Miskatonic
University (in Lovecraft’s hallowed town of Arkham, Massachusetts), who gets a room in a house
that, it turns out, is haunted by a witch who once lived there. Gilman even stays in the room she
occupied more than two hundred years before. The rest of the tenants include Frances (Chelah
Horsdal), a single mother with a baby who lives next door, Joe Masurewicz (Campbell Lane), an old
man who lives downstairs and seems to be praying all the time when he’s not peeking out from his
doorway, and Mr. Dembrowski (Jay Brazeau), the building’s manager and Walter’s ill-tempered
landlord.
Walter finds his new dwelling to be rather odd, right from the get go, when he starts experiencing
very vivid, and disturbing, dreams. These involve a strange, rat-like creature with a human face
(Yevgen Voronin), called “Brown Jenkin” in Lovecraft’s story, and the witch herself (Susanna
Uchatius), named Keziah Mason, who seeks to seduce and eventually control Gilman.
As the dreams continue, Gilman realizes that the witch wants Frances’s baby son for a sacrifice,
which he will be forced to take part in. Of course, when he tells Frances about the dreams and
that her child is in danger, she starts to believe he’s insane. The only person who believes him is
old Masurewicz, who had past dealings with the witch himself, and did some things he is still trying
to repent for.
Gordon does take liberties with Lovecraft’s story, as to be expected. It is updated to the present
day (yet retains the atmosphere of something older) and there are scenes of nudity, sex and
exaggerated gore that are not in the original tale. Also, the character of Frances and her baby
have been added to create a level of intimacy in the story that wasn’t originally there.
In Lovecraft’s tale, the emphasis was more on the dreams themselves, which also included trips to
other dimensions where Gilman sees creatures and locations that are beyond human
comprehension, and sojourns on other worlds, aside from his slow-building “relationship” with the
witch and her rodent familiar. While these are not in the film, Gordon keeps much of the meat of
the tale intact. I was surprised at how much the film followed the original story.
I do think the witch and Brown Jenkin could have been a bit more horrific. The witch has an
almost youthful-looking face (which does follow Lovecraft’s original theory that she is able to stay
almost immortal by moving between dimensions, but in his story she is plainly a hag), and Brown
Jenkin is an almost comical-looking character in the film, where could have inspired much more
terror.
In a way, reading the story beforehand allowed me to watch the episode with fresh eyes, and
while I still do not think it is perfect, I did enjoy it much more the second time around. DREAMS IN
THE WITCH-HOUSE is not one of my favorite episodes of MASTERS OF HORROR first season -
those would include Dario Argento’s JENIFER, John Carpenter’s CIGARETTE BURNS, and John
Landis’s DEER WOMAN (not to mention the unaired episode, and perhaps the gem of the series,
Takashi Miike’s IMPRINT, now available on DVD). However, I did find much to like about Gordon’s
first entry to the series.
In Season Two, he tackles another literary master, when he does an interesting adaptation of
Edgar Allen Poe’s THE BLACK CAT with the great Jeffrey Combs (Herbert West from
RE-ANIMATOR) as Poe.
| “Their wildest dreams are your worst nightmares” |
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Masters Of Horror: Dreams In The Witch House
DVD/APPROX. 60 MINS/2006/USA UNRATED
DVD/APPROX. 60 MINS/2006/USA UNRATED
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