Watch The Witches For Free

As Good As It Gets

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

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

A woman arrives at a rural English village to take up a role as a teacher at a school. She has not long recovered from the mental trauma of experiencing voodoo rituals close at hand when she had previously worked in deepest Africa and before long she finds that the inhabitants of her new home are acting in strange ways that serve as a reminder of the sinister encounters with black magic that haunt her past.The Witches is quite an unusual film from the British production company Hammer. While it did fall under their typical horror bracket, it was considerably more subtle in approach and starred an actress who had been on the Hollywood A-list, even winning an Oscar, namely Joan Fontaine. In fact, she owned the film rights to the novel 'The Devil's Own' by Peter Curtis on which this film was based and it was Hammer who she ultimately turned to in order to get it made. It was adapted for the screen by genre specialist Nigel Kneale who wrote the scripts for the three 'Quatermass' movies for Hammer. Despite the names involved it's a film which doesn't seem to have connected with audiences at the time and was unsuccessful at the box office. Nowadays, it seems to have a bit of a mixed reputation, with some finding it tame and poorly executed, while others liking its more atypical attributes. I've seen it twice now and have moved from being someone in the former category into one in the latter. At first I did find it underwhelming but I am glad I gave it a second chance as a further viewing made me realise that this one has an interesting ambiance and overall tone which I found to be nicely different from what Hammer normally went with.Being a story about witchcraft, it could be categorised alongside two other Hammer productions in The Devil Rides Out (1968) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976) but it has more in common with the non-Hammer British cult classic The Wicker Man (1973) on account of its sunny countryside setting populated with slightly oddball locals and occult sacrifice hovering in the background. I'm not going to pretend that this one is close to being as good as that stellar movie though, but it should be acknowledged that it was playing around with some similar ideas seven years before it. Whatever the case, this still has some good things about it. For one thing, I loved the tranquil setting, which was a nicely unusual location for a coven of witches to inhabit. It made for a change to play the events out in the sunny afternoon, as opposed to the more expected dead of night. The witch idea itself was one with a lot of merit too, with little clues and weird undercurrents being used to sign-post the occult as opposed to the less subtle approach that Hammer usually used. It could probably be said that the denouncement could have been better executed perhaps and there maybe could have been a little more suspense overall but I thought that on the whole this one's understated approach and sun-kissed English countryside setting had me intrigued and involved. Definitely one of the more unusual Hammer productions out there and that is not exactly a bad thing.

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.

Immediately, this movie reminded me of "The Wicker Man" in the sense it's about witches seeking a sacrifice for sicko reasons. However, the villagers in this movie are much creepier and more slave-like. Then, when you add religion (Black Magic) to the mix, they're obedient in a zombie-like way making them outright dangerous and psychotic.To me, nothing creeps me out more than crazy people who hurt and/or kill others for nutso and/or religious reasons...i.e. - "Rosemary's Baby;" "Bates Motel;" "Psycho;" "Wrong Turn;" "Seven;" "Friday The 13th;" "Halloween;" "Race With The Devil;" "The Wicker Man;" etc...and, of course, this movie.Then, to add 'funny' insult to injury...the lead witch wears a Scandinavian Saint Lucia-like headdress with burning candles (I'm part Swedish). I know that this was also a Germanic Pagan pre-Christian midwinter practice, but, it's still demented for the purpose that the characters in this movie use this for.This is a good movie with many Pagan rituals, and, although non-gory in its presentation, the murderous drone-like trances that the coven is in while they do their deeds is mockingly drug-induced and pathetic. The orgiastic witches' circle near the end of the movie is disturbing, too, but, all-too-real within cults and the subgroups of weirdo religious sects throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and, maybe even now (read about The Moonies and Jamestown, among others).Check it out. Not a bad movie, just a lot insane.

Joan Fontaine who is the only actor(male or female) to have won an Oscar in a Alfred Hitchcock film, is the lead star in this little Hammer horror movie. She plays Miss Gwen Mayfield who is appointed Headmistress of a small village school after recovering from a nervous breakdown in Africa. Upon taking up her position at the school, which is located in a pretty and charming looking English village, strange and unusual things begin to happen. Idyllic English villages are the perfect backdrop for sinister goings on involving witchcraft and this film delivers accordingly. Although the film is nothing really special, I enjoyed it and have watched it several times. There are quite a few well known British character actors popping up throughout the film playing small parts, such as Leonard Rossiter and Ann Bell. UK soap fans will also spot Rudolph Walker (who plays Patrick in EastEnders)appearing very briefly at the start of the film. You won't get too many shudders watching this movie but I think you will enjoy it.