Necromancy (1972)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Well...maybe not quite. First off there's more than one version of the film, i.e. there's the edited for television version and an x-rated version. The edited occult sex-parties weren't cut with quite the deft hand used for Eyes Wide Shut...although very little is done with a deft hand here.Welles is clearly sauced to the eye-balls throughout, and who can blame him? Super-cutie Pamela Franklin is a skilled enough actor to make this film lose much of its camp appeal (yes, there are extra scenes of her in the x-rated for those of you with less than honorable watching intentions). Her husband, Sheriff Truman from Twin Peaks, is a cardboard cutout of a person just like he is in Twin Peaks.While the plot is standard plug-and-play innocent wide-eyed girl being seduced into satanic cabal, it doesn't really do anything interesting with that and plods on clumsily throughout. There are multiple surreal hallucinatory scenes, some of which edge on the psychedelic. The satanic cult is, I will say, a more impressive representation than Rosemary's Baby has.I enjoyed it, frankly. But then I love Orson Welles, Pamela Franklin, hallucinatory dream shots, and 70's satanic cults so if you don't...well, the movie's kind of crap at the end of the day.Brotherhood of Satan is the same movie only campier and much much better. Legend of Hell House is a better Pamela Franklin movie and genuinely scary. Malpertuis is a better hallucinatory horror movie with a drunk Orson Welles.

Like most comments I saw this film under the name of The Witching which is the reissue title. Apparently Necromancy which is the original is better but I doubt it.Most scenes of the witching still include most necromancy scenes and these are still bad. In many ways I think the added nudity of the witching at least added some entertainment value! But don't be fooled -there's only 3 scenes with nudity and it's of the people standing around variety. No diabolique rumpy pumpy involved!This movie is so inherently awful it's difficult to know what to criticise first. The dialogue is awful and straight out of the Troma locker. At least Troma is tongue in cheek though. This is straight-faced boredom personified. The acting is variable with Pamela Franklin (Flora the possessed kid in The Innocents would you believe!) the worst with her high-pitched screechy voice. Welles seems merely waiting for his pay cheque. The other female lead has a creepy face so I don't know why Pamela thought she could trust her in the film! And the doctor is pretty bad too. He also looks worringly like Gene Wilder.It is ineptly filmed with scenes changing for no reason and editing is choppy. This is because the witching is a copy and paste job and not a subtle one at that. Only the lighting is OK. The sound is also dreadful and it's difficult to hear with the appalling new soundtrack which never shuts up. The 'ghost' mother is also equally rubbish but the actress is so hilariously bad at acting that at least it provides some unintentional laughs.Really this film (the witching at least) is only for the unwary. It can't have many sane fans as it's pretty unwatchable and I actually found it mind-numbingly dull! The best bit was when the credits rolled - enough said so simply better to this poor excuse for a movie LIKE THE PLAGUE!

A curious low budget horror film, it has two very talented performers at the head of the cast: Pamela Franklin, of 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' and Orson Welles, of many great films. The script does not give either of them the opportunity to maximise their acting potential though, and in fact, the whole story is fairly predictable, quite ordinary or worse. Still, there are a number of atmospheric segments in the film, with fitting music and camera-work setting the mood. It is excessively dark, the odd sound effects are jarring and the cheap special effects do it no good. However, there are some effective moments in the mix. It is not a very good film overall, but it does have some interesting elements. And, for what it is worth, Franklin's acting at times is quite natural.

I figured that any horror film with Orson Welles in it would be weird. Necromancy sure was but it was a little too weird for it's own good. The film does indeed have a creepy feel as it deals with a coven of satanists/witches in a small town and a young woman's attempt to escape them. The director though seems to be deliberately trying to confuse the audience by using flashbacks and dream sequences. By the finale, there are too many unanswered questions. What's worse, as the story is so confusing, it's pretty hard to root for any of the characters. It seems odd that Welles would agree to headline this film especially since he doesn't have that much to do. Maybe someday they will put out a tape of the outtakes and bloopers from this movie. Now that would really be fun!