Woodyanders
Scruffy ex-con Kenny Crawford (an excellent performance by Michael Reed) arrives in the small town of Dunwich after finding out that his brother Andrew (a fine and likable performance by Jason McCormick) has been admitted to an asylum. Worse yet, Andrew is suspected of a series of disappearances in the town. Kenny soon discovers that something much more sinister is afoot in Dunwich while investigating the circumstances behind Andrew's incarceration. Writer/director Richard Griffin relates the complex and absorbing story at a snappy pace, does a sturdy job of crafting both a spooky midnight-in-the-graveyard gloom-doom atmosphere and an intriguing air of mystery, makes good use of the pleasant New England locations, and delivers a handy helping a grisly gore along with a decent smattering of yummy female nudity. Moreover, Griffin deserves extra points for coming up with one devastating doozy of a surprise downbeat ending. The sound acting by the capable cast holds the movie together: Reed excels as a refreshingly flawed and reluctant hero, the lovely Sarah Nicklin burns up the screen as kinky and sultry slut Nikki Hartwell, Carlos Brum positively oozes as slimy decadent creep Otto Bellenger, Ruth Sullivan registers well as eager reporter Marsha Hollaway, 70's cult cinema siren Lynn Lowry does a customary tip-top professional job as sage librarian Margo Warren, Jeff Dylan Graham has a field day as helpful kook Upton Armitage, and Brandon Luis Aponte provides amusing comic relief as geeky loser Batz. Ricardo Rebelo's sharp cinematography gives the film an impressive polished look. Tony Milano's brooding score does the ominous trick. A worthy fright flick.
Paul Magne Haakonsen
I must say that I was genuinely surprised with "Beyond the Dunwich Horror" - in a good way. I found this movie on a double-feature DVD in a second hand store, and the obvious Lovecraft reference in the title made me pick it up. I had initially very little expectations to the movie, but it turned out to be more than I had anticipated.Sure, this is a low budget movie, but still, they managed to pull it off nicely enough, and had a good, overall coherent story with some nice references to Lovecraft, although it could be discussed whether or not they had taken Lovecraft's original work and stretched it a bit too far and too thin.I am not going to get into a detailed synopsis of the storyline, but director Richard Griffin did manage to incorporate the story lines well enough and actually managed to pull off the differences in the timeline well and have them come together full circle at the end.Effects-wise, then "Beyond the Dunwich Horror" is not making use of flashy high-end CGI effects. There is some special effects in the movie, and yes it might be a bit campy at times, but it does serve its purpose well enough, and does look adequate enough as well.I wasn't familiar with the people cast for the various roles in the movie, so I thought it was nice with a breath of fresh air for a change, and without associating the faces with previous roles portrayed. This is not academy award-winning performances, but still, people did good jobs with their given roles.There was just something very 1990's to the movie, the way it was shot, the way the story was told, and of course the music. Whether or not this was intentional, I know not, but it worked out well enough for my liking.While "Beyond the Dunwich Horror" is not one of the best movie interpretations of H. P. Lovecraft's novels, then it is by far not amongst the worst either. It is a fairly enjoyable movie, but it just lacked that one last ingredient to make it fully stand out and become unique.
