Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Dreams in the Witch House

In keeping with the series release schedule and episode grouping, the sixth episode, like the fifth, is based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, but I am going to add, loosely based, as the source material was very different, changing many plot points.  The story has been adapted a few times including movies, television and stage.  The 1968 film Curse of the Crimson Alter is a loose adaptation and Showtime’s Masters of Horror series did an adaptation in 2005.  And for the Weird Tales Magazine’s 85^th anniversary Wildclaw Theatre Company in Chicago created a stage adaptation.

Walter Gilman’s (Rupert Grint)  twin sister dies when they were children and he sees her spirit being dragged away through a portal into a forest.  He then spends his life trying to find a way to open the portal and bring his deceased sister back into the world of the living.  A chance encounter with a man in a bar gives him access to the other realm and he sees his sister again, but only briefly.  He then learns of the Witch House which once belonged to Keziah Mason who was accused of witchcraft, but mysteriously disappeared from Salem in 1692.  He searches for the key that will let him bring his sister home.  But when he opens the portal within the house, creates a ripple that endangers both him and his sister.

It was good seeing Rupert Grint in something other than Harry Potter, and I thought he did a great job in this episode.  His obsession is well displayed, and he conveys his profound loss of his sister well.  The production value and special effects are good, and the “Witch” design is pretty cool.  But I don’t think the script and story were really at the same level as some of the other stories within this series.  There isn’t anything specific I can put my finger on.  Possibly the plot was just a bit to contrived and thrown together, and for an episode called Dreams in the Witch House, the characters were barely at that location and there wasn’t a whole lot of dreaming going on.  We also don’t get a lot of explanation surrounding the “Witch House” which could have made this adaptation a lot more interesting.  This wasn’t really a bad episode, but it just felt a bit thrown together and weaker when comparing them to the series as a whole.