Our dreams are a way to escape reality, but what happens when they become horrors that come true? ‘Dreams in the Witch House is the second episode of the anthology horror series ‘Master of Horrors,’ and is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s renowned short story of the same name. This episode, directed by Stuart Gordon, goes into a world of witchcraft, satanic sacrifices, frightening murders, creepy haunted mansions, and more. This episode is definitely worth a watch if you appreciate horror with a splash of otherworldly themes!
Where Nightmares Come to Life: Dreams in the Witch House
The episode opens with a young man, Walter Gilman [played by Ezra Godden], exploring an old boarding house as he looks for a cheap place to stay while working on a thesis. He decides to rent the room and settles into the place. As the movie opens, one can see a ‘Room for Rent’ sign outside the door that reappears yet again in the finale.
Walter begins to work on his thesis when he observes eerie disturbances and squeaky noises around the room’s corner. The voices seem to come from within a wall, and he ignores them as he continues with his work. However, a scream next door gets his attention and he approaches the door to find a single mother, Frances, with her newborn child, Danny.
It appears that there is a rat infestation, and the rat tried to attack Danny. Walter shoos the rat away and returns to his room when he is interrupted by his neighbor, Masurewicz. The neighbor asks Walter if the rat had a human face, and warns him that the witch is coming for him. ‘The rat with the face’ is just one of Lovecraft’s famous supernatural creatures and is brought to life in this episode of the series.
Later that night, Walter hears the rats in the walls as he dozes off. As he sleeps, a rat with a human face appears in his dreams as he hallucinates the rat appearing from within a lightning crack behind his room’s wall. He wakes up in terror, to find Frances at his door asking him if he is alright. He shares his dream with her, as the two talk over tea. Frances shares her concerns over his financial situation, and Walter offers her money to help her pay the rent and stay at the boarding house. It appears that he is infatuated with her, and wants her to stay.
While Walter gets back to studies, strange things keep occurring around the house as he finds Maurewicz chanting incantations and prayers. Walter approaches him and Maurewicz hands him a rosary for protection, warning him about the witch in his dreams that made him do terrible things.
The next morning, Frances requests Walter to look after Danny while she leaves for a job interview. As Walter takes care of Danny, he finds a similar rosary around Danny’s neck. He continues to work on the thesis, Walter dozes off and dreams about the witch, only it appears to have Frances’s face. He dreams of sleeping with her as strange incantations can be heard in the background. While the two sleep together, Frances scratches his back more aggressively minute by minute and Walter screeches in pain as her face morphs into an old lady’s face.
Terrified, he wakes up from the nightmare to find himself locked out of the room. Frances returns from the interview and finds Walter by the door while Danny cries inside. She unlocks the door, blames Walter for being so reckless; and even questions whether he is on drugs.
Walter shares his nightmare with Frances, who does not believe him and asks him to seek mental health assistance. As Walter returns to his room, he changes out of his clothes and we see that the scratches on his back have formed a bloody pentagram and are quite real.
While going to sleep, Walter sprinkles the floor with flour, in order to understand the reality of the situation. He dozes off and wakes up to find tiny footsteps that lead to his bed. As he checks below his bed, he gets attacked and finds himself in a strange chamber with an old witch.
He finds himself trapped, and the rat with the human face reappears along the witch’s side. The rat bites into his hand, and Walter screeches in pain while his blood spills on a book. Snapping out of the nightmare, Walter finds himself in a library as he examines his hand. The injuries appear to be real when a strange book in front of him catches his attention. The book depicts satanic sacrifices, witchcraft, and the same human rat; and Walter reads further to find that the book ends with a child’s sacrifice.
Meanwhile, the librarian reappears and questions Walter on how he got his hands on the ancient book. He rushes out of the library and returns to the house to warn Frances to leave. She refuses to believe him, despite his urges regarding Danny’s safety and the child’s sacrifice. Frances asks Walter to leave, and he runs into Masurewicz who once again warns him that the witch has returned. He asks Walter to leave, but he refuses and is determined to stop the witch.
Walter decides to break through the wall, while the manager threatens to call the cops. He ignores the threats and breaks the wall, making his way to the attic beyond the room. He looks around the place and finds strange skeletal figures and eerie whispers. He crawls through the dingy attic and finds himself in a chamber where Danny is held prisoner inside a cage.
While strange incantations turn intense in the background the witch approaches Walter and hands him a dagger. The rat with the human face cheers Walter on, as the witch puts him in a trance and asks him to stab Danny. Walter tries to control his movements but is helpless against the witch’s power. He ends up grazing the dagger against Danny’s skin but then manages to regain control. Walter uses all his might to attack the witch with the dagger. As the two struggle, Walter attacks the witch with the crucifix and manga to kill her.
He escapes with Danny and returns to his room while Frances looks around frantically for her child. Along with the manager and the police, Frances breaks open the door and emerges into the room. They find Walter sitting with bloody hands, with Danny’s lifeless body in his hand. The police arrest Walter, and he insists that he is innocent even when he is soon shifted to a psychiatric ward and is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
As the FBI recovers the skulls dated 300 years old, and that they were 300 years old. They also discover that DNA from the animal bites on Danny’s body was unclassified and that Walter was not responsible for it.
As the scene shifts, Masurewicz ends up killing himself by hanging himself. In a parallel scene, neon lights flash in Walter’s cell as he screeches in pain. While the guard calls for a doctor, blood gushes from his guts as the human rat erupts from his body and leaves. The doctor checks up on Walter, and he is pronounced dead due to a loss of blood. The neon lights also reference the movie ‘From Beyond’, which is yet another adaptation of Lovecraft’s stories.
As the episode comes to an end, the show returns to the opening scene of the boarding house, with the same ‘Room for Rent’ sign outside.
Why you should watch ‘Dreams in the Witch House’?
Dreams in the Witch House explores themes of witchcraft, and horrors beyond one’s imagination along with blood and gore and nightmarish dream sequences that are quite real. Commendable acting performances, plenty of suspense, and an excellent background score makes this episode a thrilling ride and with a runtime of 59 minutes, it is perfectly paced. The episode combines the genius of Lovecraft along with Stuart Gordon’s talent for bringing stories to life, and is a must-watch for fans of Lovecraft, or anthology horror!