Rupert Grint gets more than he bargained for while searching for his dead twin in dark, disturbing, and ultimately heartbreaking H.P. Lovecraft adaptation ‘Dreams in the Witch House.’
This episode of horror anthology Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities gives former Harry Potter star Grint a juicy role, playing the grieving brother to a dead sister, whose efforts to bring her back have grim consequences.
The short story was first published in Weird Tales in 1933, while it was previously shot by Stuart Gordon in the Masters of Horror anthology series. Here Mika Watkins adapts the material, while Twilight helmer Catherine Hardwick directs. As ever, producer Guillermo Del Toro sets the story up with a Rod Serling-style speech to camera…
“H.P. Lovecraft – the author of today’s tale – feared the universe. He believed it to be a haunted house of cosmic proportions, one in which danger lurks behind every door, revealing new realities, dreams, nightmares. Especially for those of us who find the key.”
What is Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities ‘Dreams in the Witch House’ about?
Via voiceover – in a dodgy Irish accent – we learn that this a fable about love and life, before the film flashes back to a pair of young twins. The girl is sick, and the boy promises to protect her, but can’t, and she dies. The boy then sees her ghostly apparition, which is immediately dragged away to the “realm of the dead.”
The story then moves to Boston some 20 years later where the boy – Walter Gilman – is now a man, working as a researcher for the Spiritualist Society, and obsessed with finding his lost sibling. He visits clairvoyant Madam Levine’s show, but that’s no good, as behind-the-scenes he sees the tools and tricks of her trade.
He has more luck during an encounter at The Black Horn pub, which leads him to a drink called Liquid Gold, that sends Walter to the ‘Forest of Lost Souls.’ There he sees sis, but has no way of bringing her back.
Meet Keziah Mason and a very strange rat
That’s when he stumbles on the story of Keziah Mason, a woman who was previously tried and hanged for witch-craft, whose work may hold the key to returning his twin to the land of the living.
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Walter heads to her house, rents a rundown room, and becomes so obsessed with Keziah that he finds himself kicked out of the Spiritualist Society. But Walter is determined to see his sister again, so he presses on.
In following the clues left behind by the witch, Walter closes in on this desire. But it comes at a price, involving Keziah, and her terrifying friend who just happens to be a rat with a human face, who has ambitious plans of his own.
Raising the Stakes
The addition of the dead sister to Lovecraft’s story certainly raises the stakes, giving Gilman a very specific target to work towards, and one that resonates emotionally.
While the elements that Watckins and Hardwick retain also work, most notably Brown Jenkins, the human-rat hybrid who here is brought to life through stunning visual effects work.
The creature also takes center stage in the film’s most memorable scene, one that we won’t spoil here, but pays homage to/rips off maybe the greatest shock in horror movie history.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities ‘Dreams in the Witch House’ review score: 7/10
Dreams in the Witch House is a good ghost story that’s well told. But even though it’s just an hour long, the film takes too long to get where it’s going, slowing down at the mid-way point, then feeling disjointed at the end. But Rupert Grint makes a compelling lead, while it’s worth watching for that rodent MVP.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is streaming on Netflix.
