Line #6 YMMV/TheDunwichHorror


1	!! YMMV for the novel
2	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Enough that Stanley Sargent wrote ''The Black Brat of Dunwich'' which recast Wilbur as the ''hero'', seeking the ''Necronomicon'' in order to banish his more monstrous brother back to big daddy Yog-Sothoth. Meanwhile, [[spoiler:Professor Armitage was EvilAllAlong, having been born in Innsmouth (and thereby strongly implied to actually be a Deep One hybrid) and in cahoots with Old Man Whateley right from the beginning, and the account the original story described, [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis was actually written by Armitage himself, being his attempt to cover his tracks and keep his plans secret]]]].
3	* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler:Wilbur]], the hybrid son of an EldritchAbomination, is unceremoniusly killed by a guard dog of all things. A single guard dog, not even a pack, and judging for the description of the scene, the guy (who is even revealed then to be grotesquely inhuman) barely put a fight at all.
4	* CompleteMonster: [[EvilOldFolks Old Whateley]], the patriarch of the sinister, inbred Whateley family, is an ancient cultist with a storied history of BlackMagic. As vile in his twilight years as he ever was in his youth, Old Whateley is hinted to be [[TilMurderDoUsPart behind the violent death of his wife]], and later [[AbusiveParents turns over his sickly daughter Lavinia]] over to be impregnated by [[EldritchAbomination Yog-Sothoth]] itself in a hideous ritual. Old Whateley conditions one of the resulting twins, Wilbur, from youth in order to carry out Old Whateley's demands past his death; the entire Earth handed over to Yog-Sothoth. Old Whateley attempts to orchestrate the destruction of all life on the planet for a nameless purpose he takes with him to the grave.
5	* FridgeLogic: Where did Wilbur's Y chromosome come from? Males inherit that from their fathers (females have XX).
6	** If Wilbur is anything like [[spoiler:Helen Vaughan]] from ''Literature/TheGreatGodPan'', then he might not actually be biologically male--he could have assumed a shape agreeable to most people's image of physical maleness, [[spoiler:just as Helen Vaughan wears a pretense of physical femaleness but is, in fact, an eldritch monstrosity that changes sex according to the situation.]]
7	** Going by real(-ish) biology, the alien who fathered him [[RequiredSecondaryPowers must have]] human-like chromosomes to have viable offspring with a human woman. Of course, a very inhuman but sufficiently powerful EldritchAbomination could also simply [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith fashion]] whatever genome (and anatomy, for that matter) that was needed for the task.
8	** Conversely (and perhaps more likely, given his own decidedly inhuman physiology and metabolism), Wilbur Whateley may have had a more exotic genome himself. It's not as though his DNA was ever tested in the story.
9	** There's also a theory that [[spoiler:Yog-Sothoth possessed Whateley Senior to impregnate Lavinia.]]
10	* {{Narm}}:
11	** Describing [[spoiler: a fight with an invisible monster]] is hard enough to do seriously in third person narration. It becomes even worse when the reader's viewpoint doesn't actually make it to the climax of the story and is instead forced to settle for [[spoiler: listening to a description of the fight from a guy watching it through a telescope]], making the ending come across like listening to someone describe a bad mime routine to a blind person.
12	** The story's horror is somewhat lessened when described in exaggerated backwoods New England {{Funetik Aksent}}s.
13	* UglyCute: The Horror himself. He's particularly unsightly even by the standards of Lovecraft's creatures, being a house-sized blob of animal body parts with a human face, but it's also abundantly clear that he's essentially a giant child mentally and may indeed have little to no idea what's actually going on, unlike his brother and grandfather. His last words are a [[IWantMyMommy pained cry]] for his father Yog-Sothoth to save him.
14	* TheWoobie: Lavinia. She's ugly, deformed and ill physically and mentally. Isolated in squalor, she depends on her batshit insane and abusive father for everything. The same father who [[spoiler:is implied to have killed her mother and]] sacrificed Lavinia to Yog-Sothoth in the first place. When he dies, she finds herself at the mercy of her [[spoiler:demon-spawn]] son who openly hates her for no reason [[spoiler: (implied to be because she is human) and soon enough kills her]]. To make matters worse, [[spoiler: it seems that while her father and son's souls escape the demonic whippoorwhills at their deaths, they catch hers. Even after death, she can't catch a break.]]
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16	!! YMMV for the 70s film
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18	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The soundtrack of the film by Les Baxter is just a treasure trot of catchy psychedelic rock music, not to mention a rather cartoonish, but memorable main theme.
19	* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Wilbur Whateley]], child of Lavinia Whateley and [[EldritchAbomination Yog-Sothoth]], seeks to unleash the Old Ones on humanity. Practicing HumanSacrifice and intending on making young student Nancy the victim to open the gateways, Wilbur seduces her, mind controls and [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rapes]] her, killing his grandfather when the man tries to stop him. Unleashing his horrific twin on the town of Dunwich, Wilbur attempts to kill Nancy to return the Old Ones and [[KillAllHumans annihilate humankind]].
20	* CultClassic: If you close your eyes to the fact that the movie is loved by fans of the 60's and psychedelic culture of that time, it is still a perfect example of NarmCharm.
21	* {{Narm}}
22	** Try not to laugh, watching the incredibly theatrical and eccentric LargeHam play of Creator/DeanStockwell, making him look like a drunken student who is trying hard to keep his sanity and not to lose consciousness.
23	** Willbur's fight with the guard is incredibly false, including obvious stunt performance and theatrical punches.
24	** His grandfather should be perceived as an anxious, insane old man, but he is more like a funny eccentric grandfather.
25	** Incredible ending of the film, including color hallucinations, newsreels depicting "weather special effects" and a burning mannequin falling into the abyss.
26	* NarmCharm: Most of the viewing will seem to you that the film rather wants to give you psychedelic experiences under LSD, than to scare.
27	* SoBadItsGood: The film turns a very terrible and gothic story into a funny B-movie with an acidic soundtrack, a narcotic atmosphere and a LargeHam VillainProtagonist.

Context YMMV / TheDunwichHorror