Dreams in the Witch-HouseYear: 2005 Director: Stuart Gordon Written by: Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli Threat: Witch Weapon of Choice: Teeth Based upon: story -- H.P. Lovecraft Color/B&W/3D: Color Language: English Country of Origin: United States IMDb page: |
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Other movies in this series:
Please see the Masters of Horror series page.
The tyranist's thoughts
When I heard that Showtime was going to start airing a new series called Masters of
Horror, it was almost enough to get me to sign up. Imagine, a series of short movies
(about an hour each) directed by the best of the best in the horror genre. Sounds fantastic
doesn't it.
I didn't subscribe to Showtime, but the series is finally starting to come out on DVD and
this was my first glimpse of what they could do.
A grad student at everyone's favourite University, is looking for a place to stay. He finds
a dive that is cheap and available and only looks mostly run down. Soon, though, he is
having the strangest dreams involving a rat with a human face and a witch.
I'm a fan of Stuart Gordon. I love that he's brought so much awareness of H.P. Lovecraft's
work to the mainstream (or at least mainstream horror) and he manages to turn out
pretty good work. This is a pretty solid example of his work, combining Lovecraft with
a low-budget and creating something horrifying but very watchable.
I think the thing I will like most about the series format for Masters of Horror is
that they won't be stretching the scripts to be feature length. Of course, nothing stops
them from stretching a half-hour story to an hour.
The cast is good, but unknown to me. The house is truly creepy and the plot is well-paced
with the threat building and building. The ending is solid where it could have trailed off.
I really liked this. I will be paying close attention to these DVDs as they come out and
if they are all this good, it will be a lot of fun to follow along. In the meantime, if you have
Showtime, they are talking about starting up season 2. I'm still not sure I'll subscribe the
second time around, but I'm much more tempted.
Posted: April 12, 2006
Rish's Reviews
Quite excellent.
I am not a fan of Mr. H.P. Lovecraft, but I am a fan of Stuart Gordon. This made me
want to go out and see anything he's directed that I haven't already seen (and maybe
even give Castle Freak another try).
In fact, immediately afterward, I rented King of the Ants for tyranist and me
to watch (and review) together. It was a brutal film of ridiculous proportions--a revenge
picture--and though well-made, in spite of having almost no budget, we couldn't rightly
call the movie Horror.
This one was, though, and really cool. It WAS a little strange, and I can imagine some
people would be put off by the talking rat character (but you have to admit that he's
well-executed, especially since they
created him without CGI). But there was gore and some scares, nudity, and a uniquely
morbid infanticide element to it.
The "Masters of Horror" series has been rather wonderful, really (there's only been one
installment I didn't really like: Chocolate,
ironically directed by the series's creator, Mick Garris). And this was no exception.
On the contrary, this is one of the better ones.
I'd Recommend It To: Lovecraft fans, Stuart Gordon fans, "Masters of Horror" fans,
witch movie fans, ceiling fans.
Posted: September 19, 2006
Total Skulls: 8
| Sequel | ||
| Sequel setup | ||
| Rips off earlier film | ||
| Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie | ||
| Future celebrity appears | ||
| Former celebrity appears | ||
| Bad title | ||
| Bad premise | ||
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | ||
| Bad execution | ||
| MTV Editing | ||
| OTS |  |
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| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | ||
| Wanton sex | |
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| Death associated with sex | ||
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | ||
| Secluded location | ||
| Power is cut | ||
| Phone lines are cut | ||
| Someone investigates a strange noise | |
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| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | ||
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | ||
| Victim locks self in with killer | ||
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | ||
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | ||
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | ||
| Laughable scare | ||
| Stupid discovery of corpse | ||
| Dream sequence | |
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| Hallucination/Vision | |
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| No one believes only witness | |
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| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | |
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| Warning goes unheeded | |
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| Music detracts from scene | ||
| Death in first five minutes | ||
| x years before/later | ||
| Flashback sequence | ||
| Dark and stormy night | ||
| Killer doesn't stay dead | ||
| Killer wears a mask | ||
| Killer is in closet | ||
| Killer is in car with victim | ||
| Villain is more sympathetic than heroes | ||
| Unscary villain/monster | ||
| Beheading | ||
| Blood fountain | ||
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | ||
| Excessive gore | ||
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | ||
| Geek/Nerd survives | ||
| Little kid lamely survives | ||
| Dog/Pet miraculously survives | ||
| Unresolved subplots | ||
| "It was all a dream" ending | ||
| Unbelievably happy ending | ||
| Unbelievably crappy ending | ||
| What the hell? |
