Grip Your Witch Deflector Tightly

'Witchcraft'  starts off with a bulldozer knocking down some ancient gravestones whilst Lon Chaney Junior bellows at the driver to stop, and ends with a resurrected 300 year old witch and some of her baby eating coven being incinerated. In between these two tasty slices, however, the sandwich filling is stodgy and generally bland, only sporadically seasoned by supernatural murder, miracle cures and a lot of bickering.

It isn't a bad film, especially considering how obviously cheap it is, but its problem is that after a quick burst of energy in the first fifteen minutes, nothing much happens very slowly, so the viewer makes their own amusement and, before you know it, everything seems funny, even the road signs.  

My favourite bit is when a wheelchair bound woman prays to Jesus for the ability to walk and, incredibly, is granted it. No sooner is she up on her feet than she has an unexpected visitor - no, not the DSS - but that bloody witch, who immediately pushes her down the stairs. I know Jesus is busy, but, you know, he could have hung around just a little bit longer.

Watch in the company of friends, with beer and cheese and onion Ringos. 

Witchcraft

Witchfinder Pastoral

Over the years, many people have noted that ‘Witchfinder General’ resembles a good old fashioned Western in its narrative structure and themes, and this argument is greatly enhanced by its extensive use of Britain’s wide open spaces as locations although, given that most of the shoot took place in Suffolk and Norfolk, it might be more appropriate to call it an ‘Eastern’.

It’s also a road movie, or rather a dirt track movie, as there are no motorways here, just bridleways and open country. It traverses an awful lot of ground for a film set in the seventeenth century, and it’s mostly done at breakneck speed, on horseback.

The use of Suffolk and Norfolk is a masterstroke, as these counties pastoral landscapes and pretty, unspoiled villages perfectly evoke the pre-industrial period. There’s also something about the empty, flat landscapes that suits the film perfectly – the isolation of people living in a rural setting where villages are miles apart and towns few and far between. It is perfectly redolent of an England with a population of under five million (it’s just under fifty five million today), a place where many people lived their whole lives in the same, isolated place, completely disconnected from the rest of the county, the country, the world. Ironically, of course, this insular way of life perfectly suited predators like Matthew Hopkins in that it allowed him to do awful things in relative safety, i.e. word was slow to spread and the authorities, caught up in the Civil War, weren’t particularly interested in his methods, only the results.Why am I thinking about Jimmy Savile again?

There are two common misconceptions about the end of Matthew Hopkins career as a Witchfinder. The first is that, eventually, he was put to death for, funnily enough, witchcraft; the second is that he escaped censure for his crimes and had a long and happy retirement. Both are incorrect: despite a year long reign of terror and the deaths of almost 300 women, Hopkins did escape prosecution, and he did retire (to Manningtree in Essex) but he died almost immediately afterwards. Astonishingly, he was only 27 years old.  

The Power Of The Witch

'The Power Of The Witch' is a typically grown up, intellectual, non prurient documentary about the dark arts from the glory days of the BBC. Here's the whole thing, courtesy of something called 'YouTube'.

Secret Rituals

Nice advert for 'Legend Of The Witches' (1970). If you like exposed flesh and genitalia, you're into the occult and you have a limitless attention span, this could be your 'Star Wars'.

Beasts: Baby

'Baby' is the fourth episode of Nigel Kneale's 1976 ITV series 'Beasts'. I also think it's the best.

When a young married couple move into an old cottage they are surprised to find a sealed pot in the chimney breast containing, well, no-one can really tell, not even the husband who is a vet. They both agree it's pretty horrible, though, especially the pregnant wife, who feels it is something unspeakably evil that must be destroyed.

Local yokels working on the cottage fill in the details: it's a witches familiar, a nasty creature conjured up by black magic - and it needs getting rid of, fast, before its owner comes to collect it...

The creepiest episode in the series, it does what Kneale does best: slowly and surely building tension and foreboding before providing a terrifying and chilling denouement. The first time I saw this I actually had to turn the light on before I went to bed. Luckily, when I did, there was nothing being suckled in the corner of the room. 

Burn, Witch, Burn

I'm generally of the opinion that if Peter Wyngarde is in something, then it surely must be, ipso flipping facto, great. Sometimes, as with 'Night Of The Eagle' ('Burn, Witch, Burn' in the US), that theory does actually stand up to closer scrutiny.

Peter plays Norman Taylor, a successful psychology professor and star of a prestigious college somewhere leafy and posh. Taylor’s specialist subject is what a lot of rubbish the supernatural is, so imagine his distaste when he finds out that his wife, Tansy, is a witch. Disgusted, he forces her to burn all of her magical charms and talismans, never stopping to wonder why they’re emitting sparks and puffs of glittery smoke. When a picture of Norman accidentally falls into the flames, it sets off a chain of inexplicable events, ranging from a near fatal car crash to an accusation of rape, and putting them both in mortal danger. In order to save his wife (and himself), Norman will not only have to recognise the power of the occult world, but to participate in its magic and ritual…

‘Night Of The Eagle’ is a cracking film: full of atmosphere, economical and believable, and with several sequences that rank with the best British horror has to offer.  The script, by genius American writers Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson is excellent, and the idea that that bastion of respectability, an exclusive college, should actually be a hotbed of sorcery aided social climbing is quite brilliant. All the wives are at it, burning effigies and pinning charms to their hapless husbands, hoping that burning some hair and nail will scupper their rival’s chances of promotion, and propel their spouses to the top.    

As for Peter Wyngarde -  he’s great – cocksure and arrogant at first, then increasingly panicked and desperate. It’s such a shame that he only ever made six (!) films (and one of those was ‘Flash Gordon’, where he had his face covered the whole time), as he could have done so much more: Dracula, Caligula, James Bond – the mind boggles at the possibilities.

Night Of The Eagle

Legend of the Witches

'Legend of The Witches’ is a documentary film from 1970. In its entirety, mainly due to virtually non-existent editing and a posh, slow, low voiceover, it’s incredibly boring, but short individual sequences are great.

Starting off with a load of old cobblers about the rising sun and a blindfolded nude bloke staggering around on his way to be initiated, we get to see several ceremonies presided over by UK Witchcraft superstars Maxine & Alex Sanders; get a potted history of superstition and the Devil; a long tour of the Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft and dozens of dimpled bottoms and swinging boobs, moobs and twinkles.

It’s not necessarily one to watch when you’re having your lunch, or in charge of heavy machinery. It’s a fascinating document, but it can cause drowsiness. Here’s a clip which sums it up: boring and brilliant. ‘The Island’ takes no liability for any viewer actually hypnotised by this footage, especially if you are naked.