I was dubious about this film, but got an inkling that Jeffrey Combs would at elevate it if just a tad. I have to say The Dunwich Horror was neither better or worse than I expected. Granted the concept is great, and there were two performances that were at least halfway decent, Griff Furst who did have a naturalistic charm to him, and especially Jeffrey Combs, whose acting and appearance doesn't feel at all out of place. However, where The Dunwich Horror is let down in particular is in the quality of the production values and the way it was written. Granted I have seen worse editing before but it still looked very choppy at times and the lighting does lack atmosphere, but the biggest let down in that regard were in the special effects, especially with the tentacles they are ridiculously fake. On top of that, the script didn't flow naturally from one line of dialogue to the next and some parts even came across as cheesy, while the characters are stock and not developed very well. While the concept was great, the actual storytelling itself was not convincing, with the scary moments coming across as predictable and the romance very forced and further disadvantaged by very lacking chemistry between the leads. The rest of the acting was poor, with Dean Stockwell giving the impression that he didn't want to be there in the first place and doesn't even try and Sarah Lieving while attractive is too stiff and rather miserable-looking. Overall, other than the concept, Furst and especially Combs the movie didn't do much for me I'm afraid. 3/10 Bethany Cox
