The Witches (1966)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Good start, but then it gets ruined

A lot of fun.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This should be one of Hammer's best. A strong cast led by Bona Fide Hollywood royalty who has top class support from some fine actors including Alec McCowen and Leonard Rossiter two of my favourite characters. With the normally reliable Nigel Kneale providing the screenplay this should be a classic. The film looks great- and the print quality is way up from the pretty much contemporary The Reptile which I also saw recently- and it is bursting with ideas but is still nothing more than quite good. The feel of the movie has touches of The Night of the Demon in that the pace is deceptively leisurely and it foreshadows the likes of Rosemary's Baby in that apparently down-to-earth, benevolent types are revealed to be devil worshippers and most obviously the Wicker Man in that a young girl is used as bait to tempt an apparently untouchable outsider into mayhem but it is vastly inferior to those three films and indeed the aforementioned Reptile which although cheap looking and bedevilled with laughable effects remains tense, disturbing and best of all unpredictable throughout. There are good bits in the Witches all right - the skinning of a hare by the apparently affable butcher (my excellent compatriot Duncan Lamont) and the scenes in which La Fontaine acts with children are small moments of real excellence- but it is not scary and the ending makes no sense even before the ludicrous, cheesy finale in which the deeply disturbed McCowen suddenly seems like a swell fellow. There are obvious weaknesses in the story- it has a happy ending for a start- which a better director would have been better at papering over, characters like Fontaine's fellow teacher played by Ann Bell go nowhere and above all that the lush, vaguely butch journalist sibling of McCowen (played by Kay Walsh) is so obviously a 'wrong un' destroys any possibility of suspense. And that is a pity because Ms Walsh was good and steals every scene she is in. Fontaine is also part of the problem. Uncharitably she may have been a touch old for her role but in the film's early scenes she is fine especially, as mentioned earlier, when she is acting with the little children. She suits the low key early scenes but as the film progresses her expression freezes as does her badly over lacquered hair. I gather she did not enjoy the experience of working on such a low budget film and most of the time it is hard not to avoid the impression that she thinks she is above the film she is in. Maybe she is but she is emphatically outperformed by Walsh, McCowen and Rossiter in the scenes she shares with these great actors. The Witches should be a classic but it is not- but it is not a total failure either.

Moving back to a small English village, a teacher learns her position in the school places her in jeopardy of the satanic cult of witches in the area looking to sacrifice one of the students to complete a pagan rite and tries to stop it before it's too late.This was quite an enjoyable and exceptionally fun old-school witchcraft horror that had a lot of fun about it. The slow-building mystery about the tribe slowly taking over the village is quite exceptional and just completely overwhelms with it's ability to utilize the Gothic atmosphere of the surroundings, with it's splendid outdoor landscapes, closed-off township and just off-kilter vibe of the residents who are harboring a grave secret in grandest Gothic tradition and making for a generally creepy time as it goes about it's paces. Though not really doing a whole lot in terms of action, the continuous references to the past troubles with the voodoo cult are just plain eerie and handled well, from the doll and the witch doctor in full costume appearing out of nowhere and the connection to the town as the small things begin piling up one-by-one where it becomes obvious that the whole town is witches. That culminates in the fun, chaotic finale of the interrupted ceremony that includes lavish decorations, a splendid Gothic dungeon and even a sacrifice that nearly comes through to fruition. All in all, there's a lot to like with this and it's inclusion of witchcraft powers and voodoo sorcery, yet this does tend to take a while to get going and really explore it's story. While it's never boring, a lot of the film is devoted to one of two scenes playing out: her freaking out by something that reminds her of the past battle or witnessing something horrific that no in town believes in since there's no evidence of what she saw, and those tend to repeat themselves throughout until it's all put together and really resolves everything, meaning this has quite a lot of repetition amongst the lack of action which can get old quite quickly. Nonetheless, this has a lot of good qualities to override that.Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence.

"The Witches" is an incredibly silly film. While it has some good moments and is oddly entertaining, the film certainly made me laugh when it shouldn't have! Not surprisingly, this was Joan Fontaine's final big-screen appearance--as she thoroughly embarrassed herself.The movie begins with Miss Mayfield (Fontaine) somewhere in Africa where she's being attacked by some witch doctor sort of fellow. Suddenly, the scene magically cuts away and Mayfield somehow escaped! She's now in England and is applying for a job as a teacher. In this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Mayfield is very happy and things seem rather ideal. However, after a while, she sees evidence of voodoo--and it reminds her of the evil that befell her in Africa. And, incidentally, Mayfield starts acting VERY nutty. Where does all this go? Well, see for yourself--but suffice to say it ends with a giant pagan orgy with dancing and gyrations--and also, interestingly, some hints at lesbianism.The film clearly has some spooky moments and sets the mood nicely. Unfortunately, it also abounds with silly overacting. Miss Mayfield either smiles and acts like Mary Poppins on goofballs or she acts rather nutty. But her performance pales in comparison of EVERYONE in the final scene--one which is unintentionally hilarious. It's also hilarious that the lady who seems VERY interested in Mayfield also told her about the only way to destroy her and the devil cult! This is much like Dr. No installing a self-destruct button on his nuclear power plant and marking it 'self-destruct' and then allowing James Bond to see it!!! Overall, overacted and full of silly plot holes BUT also oddly entertaining.By the way, perhaps I was a therapist and psychology teacher too long, but at the 5:40 mark, I laughed at the crude Freudian imagery. I am not sure if the filmmakers intended it--I think they did!!

A middle-aged Joan Fontaine, looking marvelous, lends a huge amount of class to this minor Hammer effort, about a woman with a troubled past who runs afoul of a witches' coven in an English village. Kay Walsh plays her employer at a small school, and several familiar faces (such as Leonard Rossiter as a kindly doctor) lend able support. The ending is unintentionally funny, as Walsh stalks around in a bizarre costume,including a giant head piece that holds lighted candles. What a time the prop department must have had keeping those lit and replaced as needed. Ingrid Boulting plays a young teenager the coven plans to sacrifice, and performs (within British censorship limits) a highly sensual dance near the end. The film looks like it was shot yesterday, except for the hairstyles and some outfits, and the soundtrack is first rate. Worth a look if you like witchcraft-themed movie.