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The movie WITCHCRAFT certainly was never meant to be Shakespeare nor an episode of "Masterpiece Theater", so you can't expect it to be great intellectual entertainment. However, as a relatively low-budget horror film, it manages to deliver quite well.
While the film stars Lon Chaney, Jr., he doesn't seem to be the star and he's not a welcome addition to the film. All he seems to do is yell a lot and you wonder why everyone in the film has a nice British accent while Lon doesn't!! Still, it's a dandy tale about a couple greedy land brokers who accidentally unleash the spirit of a dead witch when they thoughtlessly bulldoze a graveyard. Considering that the witch was buried alive and had the powers of Hell at her disposal, it isn't surprised that she returns to seek vengeance on the family who buried her. Heck, maybe she's so angry because she was alive all that time (about 300 years) waiting to be released--gee that would be boring!!
The film has an intelligently written plot, good acting (apart from Chaney) and solid pacing--making you believe, somehow, that all this COULD be real! The only problem, and it's a small one, is that in one scene where a lady discovers a Satanic coven, she yells out to one of them as she recognizes her! If any SANE person saw these human sacrificing nuts, I doubt if their first impulse would be to yell out but instead would just leave....and very, very quietly!! Good low-budget entertainment that manages to be better than usual even with this one silly mistake.
score 7/10
MartinHafer 16 February 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2024267/ |
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3-3-2021 04:54:03