Witchcraft

I remember this being on telly one Saturday night when I was 8 or 9 years old, we were being babysat, and had been allowed to stay up.

The appearance of the witch in the back of the car completely freaked me out then, and it's a memory that I carry with me 50 years later. While it's been completely superseded these days with CGI and a desire for much more in-your-face violence and gore, it's still got a gothic dread about it.

Hard to find these days, but worth watching if you do come across it.

When I finally caught up with it, this turned out to be a nice little mid-1960s thriller, made very much in the style of a Hammer Films production (indeed, as such it makes a suitable double-feature with the film it's paired with on DVD, DEVILS OF DARKNESS)- it makes good use of settings, has a decent script and quite adequate acting (especially a typically hammy late-career performance from Lon Chaney Jr), and evokes a very effective atmosphere of evil. What I was most surprised about (and impressed with) was the striking black-and-white photography and lighting, which really contributed to that atmosphere, particularly in its use of the reawakened witch. Definitely a fun, creepy movie for a rainy Saturday afternoon!

All the ingredients for a good story about witchcraft are assembled for this minor British entry, well photographed in low-key style with effective B&W photography and featuring a competent, but rather not well-known British cast, with the exception of LON CHANEY, JR. who has a minor role despite being top-billed.

JACK HEDLEY is the land developer who is too late in stopping the Lanier family from building a construction site that disturbs the Whitlock graveyard. The feuding families even have a "Romeo and Juliet" sub-plot going with Hedley's son, David WESTON, involved in a romance with Chaney's grand-daughter DIANE CLARE. The desecration of the grave site causes a 300-year-old woman buried alive as a witch to return from the grave to wreck havoc on the Lanier family.

It's a simple plot and it plays fairly well but there is nothing new to the material and it's been done before in a thousand different ways. The vengeance theme gets a workout with various members meeting untimely deaths and there's a big fire at the conclusion where the past is buried once and for all.

Biggest drawback is that Chaney doesn't fit into the proceedings with his American accent, so it's probably a good thing his role is a minor one. He was clearly not in the best of health at the time and it weakens even his subordinate role.

YVETTE REES as the vengeful, wordless witch who was buried alive gives the film's most chillingly sinister performance.

A modest but good British horror film that offers a decent part for aging star Lon Chaney. There has been a feud going on between the Whitlock family and the Lanier family ever since the 17th century when the Laniers denounced young Vanessa Whitlock as a witch and buried her alive. Now in modern day England, the Laniers are part of a land developing business that is running bulldozers over the ancient Whitlock graveyard and disturbing their headstones, much to the protest of head spokesman Morgan Whitlock (Chaney). To make matters worse, Morgan's niece Amy (Diane Claire) is in love with Bill Lanier (Jack Hedley). When the tomb of Vanessa Whitlock gets accidentally desecrated, the angered witch (Yvette Rees) rises to seek vengeance by placing curses on the Laniers. It's nice to see Lon Chaney amidst this devilish action, and he adds dignity to what was one of his last good horror movies. Director Don Sharp (Hammer's KISS OF THE VAMPIRE) sets up a few eerie shots and imbues these black and white proceedings with a haunting atmosphere. This movie would make a fine double feature with HORROR HOTEL (aka "The City of the Dead"). *** out of ****

In all honesty "Witchcraft" is just an average British horror accomplishment from the sixties, but I'm slightly biased and overenthusiastic because I'm a big admirer of the subject matter (witchery and family curses), the director (Don Sharp also made "Psychomania", "Dark Places" and many other overlooked genre movies) and the notorious cool guy who receives top billing even though he only sporadically appears in the film (Lon Chaney in finally another role that suits his grim appearance). Somewhere deep in the remote en rural British countryside, the centuries old feud between the Whitlock clan and the Lanier family sparks up again. For the big upcoming real estate project of the Laniers, a bulldozer ravages straight through the Whitlock family cemetery and destroys the grave of 17th Century ancestress Vanessa Whitlock, whom was accused of witchery and buried alive by the Lanier family. Well, the accusation wasn't false for sure, as Vanessa promptly rises from the tomb and teams up with the grumpy Morgan Whitlock in order to bring the entire Lanier family down. Several members of the Lanier family die in mysterious circumstances, but complications arise when it turns out that Morgan's little niece Amy is in love with a Lanier enemy. "Witchcraft" is a competent enough and well-paced occult thriller with gloomy black & white cinematography, a couple of original ideas in its screenplay and an extremely tense finale. Lon Chaney Jr. is naturally menacing, but the biggest creeps are provided by Yvette Rees as silent the hypnotically staring witch Vanessa Whitlock. If she would appear behind me on a flight of stairs, I would surely throw myself down from them as well! There are also two very nifty and imaginative fright scenes involving a car and its passenger(s) driving through a bumpy landfill and towards certain death, although in their minds it looks as if they're driving on a safe and cozy lane.