http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/MastersOfHorrorS1E2HPLovecraftsDreamsInTheWitchHouse
Directed by
Stuart Gordon and based on the short story "
The Dreams in the Witch House" by
H. P. Lovecraft. Modern-day college student Walter Gillman (Ezra Godden) rents a room in a colonial house looking for a quiet environment wherein to study his grade on String Theory. However, he soon begins to experience some weird and very vivid dreams till he is convinced that a 17th century witch wants him to sacrifice the baby of the woman next door (Chelah Horsdal).
Tropes:
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Frank Elwood, Walter's fellow male student, friend, and neighbor in the original short story is turned into Frances Elwood, a female single mother neighbor, who is also the mother of the kidnapped child (unrelated in the story). Not only is Walter attracted to her, but as a result of the child's death she obviously wants nothing to do with him in the final scene, whereas in the original, Frank was present when Brown Jenkin killed Walter.
- Adapted Out: The Black Man, though the Witch appears to Walter wearing a black cape that also makes her featureless.
- Bilingual Bonus: The seemingly Ominous Latin Chanting that is heard during the apparitions of the Witch is actually a Spanish song about Human Sacrifice.
- Cassandra Truth: Nobody ever believes Walter's claims about the Witch, moreso after he is arrested and interned in an asylum for Danny's murder.
- Composite Character: Frances Elwood replaces Frank Elwood and is also the mother of the missing child, who was unrelated in the story. The Witch uses her image to seduce Walter, and first appears to him while wearing a heavy black robe that makes her featureless, like the Adapted Out Black Man.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Walter seemingly kills the Witch, but Brown Jenkin kills Danny and later Walter himself.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: The elderly tenant Mr. Mazurewicz, and eventually Walter himself become this, regarding their claims about the Witch existing and using them as pawns.
- Death of a Child: The witch has been manipulating innocent men into killing children for centuries. And poor Danny is not the exception, meeting his end at the teeth of Brown Jenkin.
- Decomposite Character: Because of Walter alienating Frances after she believes that he killed Danny, she's not present when Walter is killed by Brown Jenkin, unlike her counterpart in the original story, Frank Elwood. Instead, it is an unnamed mental hospital orderly who witnesses the latter.
- Demythification: Walter ponders that the Witch's abilities came from having mastered string theory to travel within dimensions.
- Diabolus ex Machina/Downer Ending: Brown Jenkin appears from nowhere to kill Danny when Walter seemingly fights off the Witch's manipulations to make him do the deed himself. Then he does it again to kill Walter after he is interned in a mental asylum.
- Driven to Suicide: After the plan to stop Danny's Human Sacrifice fails, Mr. Masurewicz hangs himself.
- Evil-Detecting Baby: Walter agrees to babysit Danny while Frances goes to a job interview. When she suddenly returns to apparently seduce him, it's clear that she's actually the Witch in disguise because the baby starts crying.
- Eye Scream: How Walter brings down the Witch.
- Familiar: Brown Jenkin, a rat with a human's face, is one for the Witch Keziah Mason.
- Fan Disservice: The sex scene between Walter and the Witch. She's shapeshifted into Frances to seduce him, but it's clear from the start that bad things are going to happen. She claws a pentagram on his back with her sharp nails, and morphs back into the withered ancient husk that she really is as she laughs.
- Fanservice: Before becoming Fan Disservice, the Witch poses as a completely naked Frances, who is shown in full view both from the front and the back.
- Femme Fatalons: The Witch has razor-sharp nails which she uses to claw symbols on Walter's back.
- Gender Flip: Frank Elwood from the original short story becomes Frances Elwood in the episode.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Brown Jenkin, the human-faced rat that accompanies the witch.
- The Hero Dies: In a gruesome way, Brown Jenkin kills Walter by burrowing into his chest at the end of the episode.
- Hotter and Sexier: Lovecraft's stories generally weren't known for full-frontal nudity, although Stuart Gordon is known for other exceptions.
- Hot Witch: Subverted Trope. The Witch Keziah has a full frontal nude scene while she's impersonating Frances, but her actual image is that of a typical old witch.
- Human Resources: The Necronomicon is bound with tapes of human skin.
- Human Sacrifice: With a twist. According to Mr. Masurewicz, what the Witch is after in reality is the soul of the man that performs the sacrifice, and not the child himself.
- Jerkass: Mr. Dombrowski, the house manager.
- Karma Houdini: While the Witch is ultimately fought off successfully, Brown Jenkin kills two of three characters and escapes unharmed.
- Setting Update: The original was published in 1933. This moves the story to the modern day; the main change is that Walter goes from being just a physics student to specializing in String Theory (which was formalized in the 1960s, though it had antecedents in the 1910s).
- Shapeshifting Seducer: The witch appears to Walter as his comely neighbor Frances to seduce them. The subterfuge is aided by the fact that he's keeping watch in her apartment at the moment. She eventually turns back into her regular decrepit form and laughs at him as he screams.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Right after Walter kills the Witch and saves Danny, Brown Jenkin comes out of nowhere, kills him, and frames Walter for the murder.
- Shout-Out:
- As in The Shining, the Witch takes the form of an attractive naked woman to seduce the protagonist, and reveals her true old, hideous image after she has done it.
- The Ominous Latin Chanting heard during the same scene contains the line "Iah! Iah!"
- Sympathetic Murderer: Mr. Masurewicz reveals that he killed an unspecified number of children under the influence of the Witch, and is deeply regretful about it.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: The aforementioned Necronomicon.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Walter and Frances feel attracted to one another from the beginning, but things eventually go sour.
- Wicked Witch: Keziah Mason is a decrepit old woman who forces men to sacrifice children to power her spells.
- Would Hurt a Child: The Witch manipulates men to sacrifice children. The end reveals that her former home's walls contain corpses going back all the way to the 1600s, when she lived there.
