Mr Lovecraft has left an odd legacy – amazingly influential works, a great roleplaying game, accusations of racism, and an industry of plushie dolls, of course bought by people that haven’t so much as glanced at one of his texts, that would make Pokémon and the Mouse tremble. There have been some good video games – Dark Corners of the Earth comes to mind (certainly not the Call of Cthulhu game from 2018 – stupid thing didn’t track my xbox achievements). But what of film? Surprisingly we’ve done pretty well. In the Mouth of Madness (and arguably Carpenter’s the Thing), From Beyond, The Colour Out of Space, Callgirl of Cthulhu, and of course the ReAnimator films which if you haven’t seen them, get off your ass and go watch them. You won’t be disappointed.
Starring in this picture is Ed Begley Sr (12 Angry Men, every western show of the 60s, and Hang ’em High) as Dr Armitage, Dean Stockwell (Dune, Blue Velvet, and Quantum Leap) as Wilbur Whately, and Sandra Dee (I can’t believe I’m admitting to having seen this one, but Gidget – cut me some slack Yvonne Craig is in it. Same reason I watched Ski Party) as a new character, Mrs Wagner who exists for the purpose of having a cute blonde. This is an American International Pictures production which means Mr Corman is involved. After Poe, Lovecraft seems the next logical step.
We open with an awkward birthing scene but I find myself pleasantly distracted by the plush living arrangements – lots of blues and purples, fancy walpaper, velvet sheets, gilted frames, cherub statues by the fireplace, grandfather clocks, and BAM we get hit with a sick psychedaelic title sequence. Mr Whately heads over to Miskatonic, tries to get his hands on the Necronomicon, meets Dr Armitage, all similar to the story, and comes home with Gidget, drugs her, tampers with her car, then convinces her to stay in his beautiful purple mansion for the weekend. This set up tall takes about 25 minutes which seems a reasonable duration and gives us some good subtle glimpses into how the film is going to progress – there’s a tension between Mr Whately and the locals, some creepy flash-cut images of goblin-witches coming out of the sea, insane hallucinatory dreams of orgiastic cannibal-cultists, and some hints into Mr Whatelys mysterious past. If you’re going to spend a third of the film setting everything up, do what this film does – give us some good imagery and some foreshadowing that draws us in.
The middle section of this film certainly slows down a bit with an investigation into the Whatelys and some manipulative flirting between Mr Whately and Gidget but it’s kept interesting by some excellent set pieces including the sacrificial altar surrounded by gnarled oak trees on the edge of a cliff and some trippy cult scenes that look like they were filmed through a burlap sack. These scenes are cool – Mr Whately does the weird Crowley pose with his hands sticking out the side of his head like he’s trying to imitate a fish for a three-year-old nephew and he’s covered in arcane sigils like when Conan is brought back from the dead.
I thank my lucky stars (or perhaps the dark stars beyond time and space where dwell ancient entities outside of our imagination) that this was made in 1970 when people still did a lot of psychedaelic drugs. One of Gidget’s friends rolls up to the mansion, Grandpa Whately and his cool Odinic vegvisir staff tell her to get out, then she opens the door of evil secrets where we get 30 seconds of a bad trip like we took the brown acid from Woodstock. From here out, the beast of REDACTED origins runs amok while Mr Whately does some ritual nonsense and angry mobs of peasants do angry mob things. They do a good job of not really revealing the monster too much. It’s Lovecraft – showing the creature goes against the spirit of the text in a way. Instead they just cover the screen in flashing colours after cranking the contrast up to max. It makes you disoriented and confused – the exact quality you should be feeling. Kudos.
There’s definitely a Beast though kept appropriately off-screen for 99% of the film, there’s a few Breasts during a dream sequence, and surprisingly I don’t think there’s any Blood. The music is quite good, composed by Les Baxter who worked on all sorts of AIP flicks including the Poes, Beach Parties, and Dr Goldfoot, and camera work is above-average – the burial scene filmed from inside the grave is a nice touch. The first time I watched this movie I had it on in the background and wasn’t really paying attention which is a shame – this is a good flick and a very worthy entry in the corpus of Mythos films. Sure it’s no ReAnimator but can we blame it for that? It would have been nice to see what the seventies could have done with Shadow Over Innsmouth – imagine Donald Sutherland as the protagonist, Ernest Borgnine or Max von Sydow as Obed Marsh and a wild-eyed Jack Nicholson as Zadok Allen. Alas, I’ll take what I can get and in this case, it’s pretty good. Good enough for a One Thumb Way Up Seal of Approval.
Swords & Schlock 
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