Burn, Witch, Burn (1962)

Burn, Witch, Burn is a domestic thriller of an unmistakable vintage, armed with subject matter that would seem lurid and perhaps even sacrilegious in the decade in which it was born, but now feels almost playful, delightfully so. A husband suspects his wife may be up to something sinister when he discovers a number of odd, earthen trinkets lying around the house, and once he confronts her and has them all destroyed, he finds his life turning slowly to ruin as those around him either betray or abandon him one by one, threatening to take away everything he holds dear. Meanwhile, his poor wife will stop at nothing to scrape together something new to hold at bay the forces conspiring against her husband, even if it kills her.

The script's pacing and drawing of its characters is fairly top-notch. Our leads and their descent into hell is gripping enough to keep you from checking your watch, despite the film being every bit as talky as you might expect for a horror film from '62. At no point did I feel like I knew exactly what was going to happen next, never once was I bored like I was watching The Devil Rides Out, despite both films sharing a writer, and the final act put a nice bow on the whole thing. Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson do not disappoint.

Technically, everything is just right, and the performances of the actors fit the tone well. The story doesn't often call for elaborate special effects, but when it does, they're handled admirably well and I never felt taken out of the film by them. It may be dated in its approach overall, but it's important to note that sometimes you want things from entertainment that you just don't get as reliably anymore, and so might look to something from this era for a cross between a rich teleplay and a film, and if indeed this is you, then you will likely be pleased.

If there is a flaw in this film, it's that the particulars of its plot are tied up so neatly, and the characters treated so fairly as to make the whole thing a bit forgettable, but I enjoyed my time with this film overall, and was glad to follow up a disappointment like The Devil Rides Out from the same era with something that was even older but somehow leagues better and more agreeable to my tastes. While I can't really imagine what an audience viewing this back in the way would have thought of it, I imagine it works just as well now as it did then, with its schlocky subject matter being handled more maturely than even some modern films of recent memory. Audience members with short attention spans and little interest in anything more than a week old will likely struggle to stay awake, but dedicated scholars of horror cinema will find plenty of entertainment value in this old-fashioned chiller.