H. P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House

Stuart Gordon directed "H. P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House," the second episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. It aired in North America on November 4, 2005, and adapts Lovecraft's 1933 short story "The Dreams in the Witch House." The episode updates the setting to the present day while keeping the core plot intact. Ezra Godden, who plays protagonist Walter Gilman, previously starred in Gordon's Lovecraft adaptation Dagon.

College student Walter Gilman rents a cheap room in an old boarding house. He hears screams and finds his neighbor Frances being chased by a large rat. The manager refuses to help, and another tenant, Masurewicz, asks if the rat had a human face. Over the next week, Walter grows close to Frances and lends her money so she can stay.

While studying, he finds Masurewicz praying and hitting his head on a chair. The old man warns Walter about a witch and a rat with a man's face, claiming the house is evil and that he, like Walter, moved into the same room young and has stayed only to pray against her. He offers Walter a crucifix, which Walter refuses. Frances asks Walter to watch her son Danny while she goes to a job interview.

Danny cries unless held. When Walter falls asleep, a cloaked witch appears as a nude Frances. He embraces her, but she claws his back. He becomes horrified as she transforms into an old witch, laughing, and he wakes up outside Frances's room.

He returns to find Danny crying. Frances suggests psychiatric help. In his room, Walter discovers a pentagram carved into his back. He lays flour on the floor to check for sleepwalking, but wakes to find tracks leading under his bed.

A hand snatches him, and he finds himself in a dark corridor with the rat on his shoulder. The rat tells him to "sign" and bites his wrist. Walter then sits before an open book in Miskatonic University's restricted library, having bled on diagrams of unearthly geometry and infant sacrifice rituals from the Necronomicon. He tries to warn Frances, but she repeats he needs help and asks him to stay away from Danny.

Masurewicz visits, saying Walter's soul is in peril. He admits he killed children for the witch, but no one believed him when he tried to confess. He gives Walter the crucifix and leaves. Walter breaks through his attic wall and finds skeletons of past sacrifices.