History Literature / TheDunwichHorror

* LovecraftLite: [[spoiler:Unusually for Lovecraft, this story has a happy ending. Well, 'happy' is a relative term, since a ''lot'' of innocent people still died horribly, but the evil is defeated without killing the last-minute protagonists and the rest of Dunwich, characters are traumatised but remain sane, and the earth is saved from Yog-Sothoth.]]

* NoBodyLeftBehind: The death of [[spoiler: Wilbur. His body simply melts and sublimates away]]. Also, the Horror leaves no trace of those it kills (very likely because it ate them).

* NonMaliciousMonster: [[spoiler: The Horror, for all the death and destruction he causes, appears to have no more agency than a hungry toddler; he even begs his absent father for help as he dies. The most terrifying antagonist in the narrative is arguably the most innocent.]]

* SelfMadeOrphan: Well, he doesn't kill his ''father'' obviously, but its heavily implied that Wilbur either killed his mother himself, or had her killed.

* HillbillyIncest: The story is set in the remote backwoods of Massachusetts, and much is made of the rural nature and the low intellect of the residents. It is heavily implied that Old Man Whateley served as a vessel for EldritchAbomination Yog-Sothoth to impregnate his daughter, Lavinia. This resulted in the birth of two children.

--> '''Professor Armitage:''' You needn’t ask how Wilbur called it out of the air. He didn’t call it out. ''It was his twin brother, but it looked more like the father than he did.''

* HillbillyIncest: The story is set in the remote backwoods of Virginia, and much is made of the rural nature and the low intellect of the residents. It is heavily implied that Old Man Whateley served as a vessel for EldritchAbomination Yog-Sothoth to impregnate his daughter, Lavinia. This resulted in the birth of two children.

* AdaptationalHeroism: As opposed to his book counterpart, Wilbur's grandfather in the movie deeply regrets the events that led to Lavinia's madness and [[spoiler: the horror's birth]], and (unsuccessfully) tries to stop Wilbur from carrying out his plan.

* TheAntichrist: Wilbur Whateley seems to be a shoo-in for the title, given the circumstances of his birth and childhood and his "goatish" appearance. [[spoiler: As it turns out, his father is not Satan, but an EldritchAbomination nonetheless.]]

* TomeOfEldritchLore: Wilbur's attempts to get hold of a copy of the ''Necronomicon'' [[spoiler:lead to his death when he's killed by a guard dog after his gun jams]]. Meanwhile his father Old Whateley kept a library full of lesser tomes of eldritch lore.

* FunetikAksent: The dialect of the Dunwich residents is rendered phonetically.

%%* FunetikAksent: The dialect of the Dunwich residents is rendered this way. %% Zero Context Example

* ShoutOut: To Creator/ArthurMachen's ''Literature/TheGreatGodPan'', Lovecraft's primary inspiration for "The Dunwich Horror."

Around this point, Wilbur begins to search for an unabridged copy of [[TomeOfEldritchLore the Necronomicon]], having learned all of what he knew from his grandfather's small erratic library of occult tomes; his copy of said book is a shortened English version, which he apparently found insufficient. He discovers that nearby Miskatonic University has a complete copy, but the librarian refuses to loan it out to him. So he breaks in to steal it, only to be killed by a guard dog.

His "decayed" and inbred family was already unpopular due to their dabbling in the occult, and when Lavinia Whateley gives birth to a strange-looking child and refuses to say who the father was, it doesn't improve anyone's opinion of them. Wilbur grows incredibly fast - he begins talking at 11 months; by the time he's three, he looks ten years old; and at four and a half, around 15. The townsfolk don't trust him, as he gives them the creeps even more than the other Whateleys. For all that, though, they're still willing to sell cows to the Whateley mansion; money's money, after all, even if it is in the form of weird antique gold coins. Although for some reason, despite the truly vast amount of livestock Old Whateley buys, his herd never seems to get bigger...

The town of [[LovecraftCountry Dunwich, Massachusetts]] is already a crumbling backwater with a vaguely sinister reputation.. and then Wilbur Whateley is born.

* AlbinosAreFreaks: Hideous Wilbur Whateley's mother is a mentally-ill albino woman, and this is one of the things that contributes to his family being ostracized by the rest of Dunwich.

The town of [[LovecraftCountry Dunwich, Massachusetts]] is thoroughly unremarkable until Wilbur Whateley is born.

The household only gets more suspicious with time. The farmhouse always seems to be mysteriously under construction, with more and more windows being boarded up; the townsfolk also suspect that interior walls are being knocked out. When Wilbur is ten, Old Whateley dies, shrieking instructions to Wilbur on his deathbed; two years later, Lavinia Whateley disappears on Halloween night and is never found.

Around this point, Wilbur begins to search for an unabridged copy of [[TomeOfEldritchLore the Necronomicon]], having learned all of what he knew from his grandfather's library; his copy of said book is a shortened English version, which he apparently found insufficient. He discovers that nearby Miskatonic University has a complete copy, but the librarian refuses to loan it out to him. So he breaks in to steal it, only to be killed by a guard dog.

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Poor Curtis Whateley! [[spoiler:He's the first to witness the Horror in all it's glory.]]

* AdaptationalVillainy: In the original novel, Wilbur Whatley was merely a puppet groomed by his grandfather, with it being Old Man Whatley who intends to unleash Yog-Sothoth. In the film, it is Wilbur himself who is the mastermind and does the atrocities of his own volition.
* AdaptationalHeroism: As opposed to his book counterpart, Wilbur's grandfather deeply regrets the events that led to Lavinia's madness and [[spoiler: the horror's birth]], and (unsuccessfully) tries to stop Wilbur from carrying out his plan.
* AlienBlood: Wilbur Whatley is described as having yellow-green "ichor."

* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: The Horror itself is described by Curtis Whatley as being the size of a barn. It grew bigger over time as it was fed cows by the Whatleys. While it is typically InvsibleToNormals, it does leave gigantic footprints the size of barrels.

** Also, some modern illustrators would portray Lavinia as [[ReiAyanamiExpy an elegant and tragic platinum-haired figure]]. The actual story describes her as ugly and deformed. Zig-zagged in the 1970 film: the intro shows her as a pretty young brunette, but it's later revealed that [[spoiler: being impregnated by Yog-Sothoth and giving birth to the titular horror]] did a number on her appearance, causing her to look like a wizened old crone despite her comparatively young age.

** Also, some modern illustrators would portray Lavinia as [[ReiAyanamiExpy an elegant and tragic platinum-haired figure]]. The actual story describes her as ugly and deformed. Zig-zagged in the 1970 film: the intro shows her as a pretty young brunette, but it's later revealed that [[spoiler: being impregnated by Yog-Sothoth and giving birth to the titular horror]] did a number on her appearance, causing her to look like a wizened old crone despite her relatively young age.

** Also, some modern illustrators would portray Lavinia as [[ReiAyanamiExpy an elegant and tragic platinum-haired figure]]. The actual story describes her as ugly and deformed.

* AlienBlood: Yellow-green "ichor."
* AlliterativeName: Wilbur Whateley.
* AnimalsHateHim: Dogs ''loathe'' Wilbur Whateley, to the point where he has to start carrying a gun to defend himself from them. [[spoiler:In fact, it's a dog that eventually kills him.]]

%%* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: The Horror itself. %% Zero Context Example

* CreepyChild: Wilbur Whateley is described to be very creepy (both visually, and from his behaviour; he actually is much much much younger than he looks) by all his neighbors and the people he meets. [[spoiler:When he dies, it is revealed from a quick look on his half naked corpse that he actually is an HumanoidAbomination which bottom part isn't even remotely human looking.]]

* EnemyToAllLivingThings: Wilbur Whateley. People are creeped out by him and animals can't stand him - dogs especially try to attack him on sight.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: For all their madness and apocalyptic designs, Wilbur and his grandfather seem to have been quite close, with Wilbur caring for the old man during his final illness.

* EvilSmellsBad: "''By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, . . . As a foulness shall ye know Them.''"
* EyesDoNotBelongThere: [[spoiler: Wilbur has a second pair of eyes on his hips]].

* HalfHumanHybrid: Wilbur himself. [[spoiler: And his twin, though decidedly less humanoid]].

* InvisibleMonster: [[spoiler:The titular horror, not existing fully in our reality, is corporeal for the most part, but also invisible]].
* IWantMyMommy: [[spoiler:Father variant with the titular horror, whose last words before being destroyed are desperately crying out for its father's help]].

* FunetikAksent: The dialect of the Dunwich residents is rendered this way.