The Witches (1966)

When Ms. Mayfield, a schoolteacher, moves to a picturesque little village out in the British countryside for work, everything initially seems perfect. The scenery is wonderful, the people kind, and the living simple. Only our heroine becomes more than a little worried when she realizes that, gasp: Heddaby has no church. She becomes yet more alarmed when she begins to catch wind of horrible abuse being inflicted upon one of her students, putting her right in the middle of something awful brewing within the dark corners of this community. What is going on here, and what does it have to do with her ill-fated mission trip to Africa all those years ago?

The Witches is an unassuming sort of sixties horror film. Dealing with a dark topic long back when Hollywood was still prone to conservative sensationalism, it was immediately intriguing, but I still found myself with little faith in it. A Hammer horror film that even Hammer fans don't seem to love or bring up all that often, and an apparently very 'influential' one at that despite the fact that even finding evidence of its existence is kind of tough seeing as there are endless films with the same or similar titles. So, is this a hidden gem? Or just something that was buried for good reason?

I'll start with the positives. I enjoyed the strange opening, which took place in what conservatives in '66 thought Africa was like. It's spooky because of the long build-up, which piles on suspense and dread in a fashion that makes it feel like a genuine nightmare. We have so long to wonder about what's awaiting poor Ms. Mayfield just outside her front door, that when it finally shows itself and begins to suddenly march towards the camera, the effect is quite chilling. Although I'll admit the imagery here can be pretty silly if viewed in the right light.

But here's the thing: the imagery, or rather, the scenery is also one of its greatest draws. It exudes that look and feel of '60s British psychedelia in its colorful look and village green setting. It's quite reminiscent of, say, The Wicker Man, only years earlier, and the infamous 1967 series The Prisoner. Wonderful company to keep I'd say, as an intense lover of both works.

And best of all: it's entertaining. Despite a few issues with its dated script that seek to make what will happen next extremely obvious to the viewer, it's a breezy watch that never had me checking my watch. 

But while I liked the film, enjoyed my time with it, and certainly respect its prescience, I found myself a little at a loss of what to say about it. It has that classic problem with many older films, especially horror, where it seems fairly quaint to a modern viewer, and those with a keen eye can spot all the places where subversive content was glossed over or outright removed in order to keep it from offending audiences back in its day.

For example, one villainous character has a sudden change of heart at the very last second during the film's climax, in a way that feels like a screenwriter appeasing some executive who said "A grandmother would never kill her own grandchild. Cut that part out." No, she can't spill the child's blood, but a "career woman" aka unmarried lesbian totally can, right? Needless to say, it's a very conservative take on horror, in more ways than one. 

This becomes far more noticeable in the "orgy" scene. Now, is it brave to attempt to show something like this in '66? I don't think so. If you can't depict sex or violence or even much imply it, a satanic ritualistic orgy probably shouldn't be in the cards, but by god did they make the attempt anyway and it's a glorious misfire. Instead of spilling blood and boning one another, they do a sort of monkey-see, monkey-do interpretive dance, oil each other up, and kiss a little. Well, nearly kiss. And guess which Satanists this film chooses to focus on making out? Men with other men, that's who. So now we're perpetuating the old conservative belief that Satan and homosexuality are inherently linked on top of being generally milquetoast.

But the biggest misfire of all is the putrid ending, which nearly completely ruins the handsome-if-uneven hour and a half that came before. It has that spineless Hollywood quality of tying everything up far too neatly combined with a general abruptness: at the end of the ritual scene, everything fades to black, then we open on all the "good" characters sitting around a table explaining how everything is alright now. Yep, after killing the head witch, all the other witches either packed up and left town that very second without ever retaliating against our heroine (despite evidence that they can do so remotely.) Well, either that or they simply turned pure and good the moment the corrupting influence was gone, aka a strong independent woman with goals. Honestly, if you didn't think about it hard enough, it's possible that you might would completely forget about all the murder and ritualistic slaughter of children and your brain would summarize the whole thing as "and they lived happily ever after." Barf.

As I said, I guess I enjoyed everything well enough until towards the end, and even enjoyed the embarrassing orgy scene to an extent, but still, there are a million little nitpicks I could go into. Like, for example, the way the story feels the need to telegraph everything so blatantly. The first time you see her, you'll likely know exactly who the main villain will turn out to be, and when she's reading from an ancient tome later, it's obvious that she's doing it for the audience's benefit, so we can hear ahead of time exactly how Ms. Mayfield will defeat her in the climax.

The details of the ritual are also unclear. Is this a body swap thing, and if so, why are you going to skin the poor girl after killing her? Only thing is, the way the villain describes it later, it just sounds like she's going to bloodily execute the girl in order to summon Satan and I guess just ask to be young again. You know, like young children do with Santa Claus. So that was a little confusing, but you likely won't notice because you'll be too busy screaming at our protagonist to just get the hell out of town already! I know a child's life is in danger here, but come on! At one point, she is imprisoned, sedated, and held against her will in a sanitarium for months before she's able to make her escape (after a bizarre and jarring time skip.) But the moment she's out of that extremely worrying situation, she just goes straight back to Heddaby and insinuates herself ever deeper into its spooky happenings.

But the worst thing is, besides the weirdly creepy opening, it just isn't scary. And as previously stated, the quaint approach to this dark story kind of robs it of much of its nightmare fuel. Even though violence does technically occur, it's almost written over by the comically abrupt happy ending which will leave the modern horror viewer with a bad taste in their mouth. Technically, the film is a strange mix of lavish and cheap, with elaborate sets sitting right alongside the worst-looking optical effects I've seen since The Devil Rides Out. Still, the visuals are at least colorful, if a little too stately. Performances are strong, if one can get past how theatrical some of them can be. Oh, and would you look at that? It's Michele Dotrice from Blood on Satan's Claw, here again playing a pagan acolyte. Last but not least, shoutout to my boy Spy Cat. It's rare you see this much cat in a motion picture, but hey: you don't see me complaining. I especially love the dramatic snap zooms whenever the film wants us to know that Spy Cat is somewhere in the frame, watching... listening...

So yes, The Witches is quaint, and no, it probably wouldn't appeal to most modern horror viewers, especially those with a complex about new films versus old films. In many ways, this would just prove all of their preconceived notions exactly right. But, this also isn't quite another The Devil Rides Out, as I actually enjoyed this one overall. And it is, after all, a very early dry run for The Wicker Man, one of my favorite films of all time. It may be a bit old fashioned, but I can still recommend it to genre enthusiasts as a curiosity. Just don't expect to be on the edge of your seat the whole way through.