As the summary says, this is no Gidget film despite the presence of Sandra Dee in the lead! That's because after a 3 year layoff and a failed marriage to Bobby Darin, Ms. Dee seemed ready to renew her career in a decidedly different and more adult direction. So instead of Moondoggie, she stars with Dean Stockwell--a guy who has obviously friended Satan on his facebook!! And, since it came out in the edgy year of 1970, there is a lot more skin and sex in this film that you might expect. This film deservedly earned its R rating and it's one of the few chances you'll get to see once-virginal Sandra Dee's boobie in a film (along with a few other glimpses of her and others' nekkidness).

Now there is much about the first 80% of this film to like. It really establishes a super-creepy atmosphere and the occult angle is generally handled well. In fact, I was really hooked...and then, unfortunately, towards the end the film REALLY fell downhill fast!! Part of the problem is that they established early on that there was some sort of monstrous "thing" locked upstairs. However, when "it" escapes, the film makers take the cheesy approach and instead of showing the creature, they have bright colors flash across the screen to hide whatever it is. This is really frustrating and it happened repeatedly. So, when they FINALLY showed the creature at the end, the viewer is really ticked because it couldn't come close to living up to the expectations. To put it bluntly, it looked stupid. In addition, the final showdown between seriously disturbed Dean Stockwell and the professor (Ed Begley) didn't make much sense as, out of the blue, Stockwell catches fire and the whole film is over. Didn't Stockwell have the Necronomocon and all the powers of darkness behind him?! Begley didn't even have God or religious trinkets on his side--just some gibberish he spouted in some odd tongue. It was so silly, I found myself very loosely translating what I THINK he was saying! The film is interesting but the end totally undoes the rest of the film.

About the only interesting thing (other than Ms. Dee's "things") is a brief appearance by Talia Coppola, also known as Talia Shire of ROCKY fame.

Make no mistake, parents, this sexy occult film is NOT a new Gidget film! Though if was, the possible titles for the film are indeed interesting to contemplate. My favorite is "Gidget Does Satan", but I'm sure you'll also be able to think of a few choice titles.

As Sandra Dee got older her youthful virginal image did not play well in the 60s counterculture. The Dunwich Horror was an effort to save her career and break the typecasting.

Sandra getting a little long in the tooth for a college student meets a rather strange Dean Stockwell who is looking a rare book that professor Ed Begley has. It contains some spells that will bring some creatures from another dimension and Begley doesn't want to part with it. Stockwell then steals it and returns home with Dee.

Dean's got big plans for Sandra. She's to be part of a ritual that will open up the portals to another dimension. And he's got reason to want to bring these beings into our universe.

The Dunwich Horror didn't serve the careers of Dean Stockwell or Sandra Dee very well. Ed Begley does well in a sympathetic role, one of his last. But I was singularly unmoved by it all.

Brought to us by the man who had earlier made that tacky-but-fun Lovecraft adaptation DIE, MONSTER, DIE!, THE DUNWICH HORROR rather horrendously tries to mix in Lovecraft with the 1970s with devastating results, and not in a good way either. This is an AIP release, and Roger Corman serves as executive producer, meaning that the film has the same "look" and "feel" about it as earlier minor classics like THE HAUNTED PALACE. However, while Corman's AIP releases were all pretty damn good, THE DUNWICH HORROR commits the biggest film 'sin' in my book - it's overlong, and boring with it. I don't mind films being tacky or cheesy (incidentally, this is both of those),but boredom is a sin that I just cannot forgive.

THE DUNWICH HORROR is well regarded as being one of Lovecraft's best stories, but the makers of this film - while being fairly loyal to the story - decide to add in an hour of supposed romance and intrigue before we get to the monster bits. Aside from a few hallucinatory dream sequences, where naked natives dance about, there's not a lot of horror in the first hour either. Scenes move sluggishly with no regard for pacing. The music tries to be a mixture of classic horror and seventies cool, and fails miserably. Only some good, quality acting could keep us interesting, but I'm afraid we don't even have that.

You see, casting Dean Stockwell (with a perm) in the lead role of Wilbur Whateley was a bad idea. Stockwell, a familiar face on US television, just doesn't have enough menace in his body to play the part convincingly; he just looks like an ineffectual geek, and the monotonous delivery of his lines threatens to send the viewer to sleep. I'm not sure who Sandra Dee is, or where she came from, but she's similarly bad, walking around in a drugged daze for much of the film. We're supposed to feel for her when she gives herself up to Wilbur so easily? I think not. The only actor of any note is Ed Begley, playing one of his final roles, and he brings just the right touch of pomposity to his role as a Professor who has to track down Wilbur. Sam Jaffe is good for a laugh playing a crazed old man.

This film does benefit from trying to do some odd, different things (I liked the idea of birds coming to take the soul of a dying person),but the action comes so late in the story that I had lost interest. When the horror of the title finally appears - glimpsed in brief flashes, to disguise the ineptitude of the special effects - it looks like nothing more than a giant floating cabbage. Things quickly go downhill from here, and the film ends with Wilbur and Armitage shouting ancient words at each other. THE DUNWICH HORROR is a missed opportunity, worth a cursory glance by Lovecraft fans or those interested in '70s psychedelia, but nearly totally worthless as anything more than an oddity.