MASTERS OF HORROR: STUART GORDON

 

 

Director Stuart Gordon has an obvious fondness for that master horror writer H.P.Lovecraft. This is easily proven in the fact that he has made no less than four films from the authors works (THE RE-ANIMATOR, DAGON, CASTLE FREAK and FROM BEYOND). It was no surprise to learn that when he was to be included in the Showtime series MASTER OF HORROR, that he would once again choose a work by Lovecraft.

 

An interesting aspect of Gordon is told in the interview done with him here on the DVD. Coming from a theatre background, when he first approached doing film he was told to do a horror piece because he could get instant backing. But the board of the Organic Theatre behind him (he was one of its founding members) wanted him to do an art film. Imagine the surprise of critics when he delivered on both counts. He continues to do so to this day. Gordon’s piece for this series is entitled “H.P.Lovecraft’s Dreams in the Witch-House”.

 

The story revolves around Walter Gilman (Ezzra Godden), a young college student named who studies quantum physics and his move into a low rent apartment. The building has two other occupants we know of, a strange man on the first floor across from the landlord and a young woman named Frances and her baby in the room next to Walter’s.

 

Walter is in the midst of writing his thesis, a paper exploring the possibilities of parallel universes that exist on the same level as ours. What he is searching for is the doorways from one into the other. Using his knowledge, he combines angles and planes in his search, one of which bears the uncanny appearance of the corner walls in his room.

 

A scream in the night finds Walter running to the aid of Frances when a huge rat appears in her room. Saving her and her child from the rat, Walter wakes later that night to a dream of a rat with a human face foreshadowing events to come.

 

Walter’s dreams continue, growing more urgent with each one. Each offers more clues as to what is going on. Eventually he discovers that a witch has used this portal before. But she needs a male human host to help her return. A male who will in turn sacrifice a young child and through its blood allow her to continue on, reaping souls for her master, Satan.

 

Walter does his best to battle the witch, seeking more information and doing his best to find a way to close the door. The last pieces he receives come from the old man downstairs who tried to warn him earlier. The old man was marked years before and had done what Walter may now find himself doing, killing a child.

 

Rent this one and find out if Walter can overcome his nightmares or if he will succumb to what the witch has intended for him. The film is definitely for adults, featuring nudity and enough gore to keep fans of those sorts of special effects happy. But for Lovecraft and Gordon fans, the film features enough story to go around, more than most films can say these days and especially horror films.

 

No mere naked teens cavorting around waiting for the next slasher franchise. This film has its roots in the tales of Lovecraft, tales of the Necromonicon. It looks at witchcraft from the past filled with blood soaked images and child sacrifices. Stephen King once said that the most terrifying thing for him was something happening to his children. Child sacrifices run rampant with this fear. And Gordon has taken Lovecraft’s turn on this fear as well as his witchcraft lore and made one chilling tale.