Good idea lost in the noise

Expected more

Brilliant and touching

Boring

"Dreams in the Witch-House" is movie based on the short story of the same name by H.P. Lovecraft, published in "Weird Tales" magazine in 1933. Director Stuart Gordon already wrote and directed several Lovecraft adaptations: "Re-Animator" (1985), "From Beyond" (1986), "Castle Freak" (1995), "Dagon" (2001), but this time he has overcome all the previous adaptations and made a real little masterpiece of horror. Although it's placed in present time and modernized, this adaptation has preserved the spirit of the original story and even improved it in some aspects. I'm amazed.9/10For those interested in more thorough review, I recommend great text by Matthew Janovic (9 April 2006), which you can find here on IMDb.

This one had its moments, just was not as good as I thought it was when I read a description of it. I was expecting something that looked and played out a bit better. Some of the things in the movie just made it seem a bit to comedic like the rat with human face. Then I was expecting some good nude scenes, but what we get is very short. Then there really is not all that much stuff in the way of horror other than the ending which I did not care for. Still, it was strange enough to keep me interested for a bit, but this one is just not as enjoyable as other "Master's of Horror" as I enjoyed Cigarette Burns and Fair Haired Child to name a couple a lot better. This one revolves around a man in a rented room that learns that the way his room sits may actually be able to access some other dimension or something to that effect. Well there is a rat with a human face and a witch that plays a part in this film, but all in all it left me feeling I needed a bit more. Felt to much like a television show than a movie, something Cigarette Burns avoided doing. Though Fair Haired Child most certainly felt like a television show also. There is a good deal of blood and stuff in this one though, however nearly all of it is confined to the end.

The idea of releasing each episode of Masters of Horror as a feature film on DVD is genius for the business but absolutely annoying for us, or at least for me. I have seen only 5 episodes of Season 1 since I usually find something else when I am at the DVD/Music store and I always think something like this: well those Masters of Horror DVDs are always there and maybe this movie wont be there the next time.I recently watched Dagon (2001) and it was my introduction to Stuart Gordon and since I really liked it and I can't find Re-Animator I decided to buy this DVD, the volume 2 of Masters of Horror. Like Dagon and Re-Animator, Dreams in the Witch-House is based upon a story, in this case a short story by H.P. Lovecraft and like Dagon is a pretty good film, in this case a short film.Ezra Godden (also protagonist of Dagon, by the way) is Walter Gilman, a student who rents a room in order to can finish his thesis. There he meets his neighbor Frances Elwood (Chelah Horsdal) and her baby son Danny. In a similar situation of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Walter starts to have bizarre dreams, actually nightmares, about one of the ugliest rats ever which are very lively and like in A Nightmare… when he is awake he has the marks of those nightmares. Of course that is not a coincidence and soon he will realize that he is just the key connection of a ritual that needs the sacrifice of Danny.All the episode is quite good and you will be entertaining during the first part but the climax is way better with the terrific scene of Walter fighting against a witch and a rat to save a baby. But even he really tried, he failed and the conclusion is also great, expected, since who will believe his bloody experiences in order to save Danny, but great and leaves that final detail of how old was that f*cking ritual and the final appearance of that -ugly as f*ck- rat.To end, this was a terrific episode yet not my favourite of the few ones that I have seen but it delivers a fine hour and on a personal level, this was the second positive time with a work of Stuart Gordon. So if you ask me get first the DVD of Carpenter's episode, second the DVD of Miike's episode and later this one.

this was a fairly well executed movie. genuinely creepy. there was a tragic flaw, which is a line that i consider to be atrocious. i added it to my list of incredibly dumb things people say. the main character is a grad student working towards his physics degree specializing in time/dimension travel. he explains how the witch is able to stay alive all these years by stating: "witches were astrologers; they knew a lot about science". horrible explanation, sir. astrology is a pseudoscience, meaning there is no scientific basis. also, knowledge of star alignment does not imply knowledge of relativity.otherwise, fantastic movie with an ending that is not normative. one of those movies that leaves you with a feeling of "oh wow, i can't believe that just happened". an absolute must for fans of this series or horror in general.