This movie has something of a reputation as a stinker, but having watched just watched it again I am not sure why that is.
It does stick fairly close to the story, up to a point. The main deflection is that Wilbur Whately is the primary villain, whereas in the story... well, he wasn't such a looker to be picking up naive students and he checks out early on. Still, I think the movie made a good choice in keeping Wilbur around and giving him a creepy allure. His motivation here is more about getting revenge on the townies who mocked him than it is getting into Sandra Dee (literally). Not that Sandra Dee's character was in the story at all.
One complaint will probably be that we don't get to see much of the monster and what we do get at the very end is... well, kind of silly looking. Up to that final moment though, I was very happy with how they chose to depict things. Cthulhu creatures are weird, and still defy even the best CGI as far as I'm concerned. They're as much about presence and atmosphere as they are oogy looking tentacled thingies. This movie keeps it scarier by not showing it and instead opting for colored filters and distorted lenses.
As filmed versions of Lovecraft's stories go, I'd say this is one of the better ones... along with Roger Corman's other Lovecraftian film of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (Titled 'The Haunted Palace' because?). It captures more of the Lovecraft's weird atmosphere than other attempts, which often eschew atmosphere in favor of graphic gore and sex and bug eyed monsters.
It does stick fairly close to the story, up to a point. The main deflection is that Wilbur Whately is the primary villain, whereas in the story... well, he wasn't such a looker to be picking up naive students and he checks out early on. Still, I think the movie made a good choice in keeping Wilbur around and giving him a creepy allure. His motivation here is more about getting revenge on the townies who mocked him than it is getting into Sandra Dee (literally). Not that Sandra Dee's character was in the story at all.
One complaint will probably be that we don't get to see much of the monster and what we do get at the very end is... well, kind of silly looking. Up to that final moment though, I was very happy with how they chose to depict things. Cthulhu creatures are weird, and still defy even the best CGI as far as I'm concerned. They're as much about presence and atmosphere as they are oogy looking tentacled thingies. This movie keeps it scarier by not showing it and instead opting for colored filters and distorted lenses.
As filmed versions of Lovecraft's stories go, I'd say this is one of the better ones... along with Roger Corman's other Lovecraftian film of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (Titled 'The Haunted Palace' because?). It captures more of the Lovecraft's weird atmosphere than other attempts, which often eschew atmosphere in favor of graphic gore and sex and bug eyed monsters.