A Very Literary Halloween, Part 3 - The Dunwich Horror

For this year's celebration of the macabre, I'm journeying through American horror fiction by revisiting some of its greatest writers. Let's look at a classic short story from H.P. Lovecraft, "The Dunwich Horror."


Lovecraft was a master at crafting stories of cosmic fear, where man is dwarfed by forces which can scarcely be understood, much less controlled. But while that lack of agency makes for an unsettling milieu, it can also lead to some pretty passive protagonists. The characters in "The Call of Cthulhu" and "At the Mountains of Madness" don't really do all that much, aside from learning about unspeakable horrors.

"The Dunwich Horror" is a different kind of tale, one that is much closer to the Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG. There are heroes (the wizened Professor Armitage), there are villains (the unnatural Wilbur Whateley), and they actually come into conflict with one another on occasion. The story even has a cinematic climax and twist ending, which, while perhaps not as unique as Lovecraft's other work, are much more accessible to a mainstream audience.

As such, it's not surprising that "The Dunwich Horror" has been adapted multiple times, including a feature film starring Dean Stockwell. My personal favorite is this 1945 episode of "Suspense":