The writers really knew their craft.

mark.waltz

When horror movies are done right, they can have you riveted and frightened even knowing that it's fiction. This British horror film is one of the few English language horror films to represent the Italian style of the genre, participate those by Mario Bava. It has more than a passing resemblance to the 1960 gothic masterpiece "Black Sunday" although the story is fresh on its own. My only gripe is that some of the death sequences aren't really realistic in the sense of being realistic to cause death, particularly a car accident where the victim sees a completely different road than what they are on (that part is creepy!) and an old woman falling down a flight of stairs, although there, she is just seriously injured.

The hammy Lon Chaney Jr. is over the top as usual as the patriarch of a family of witches, going haywire over the destruction of a family plot in the local cemetery which unleashes the spirit of the long dead witch, Yvette Rees, buried alive 300 years before and able to control the final fates of her family's longtime enemies who have disrupted the final resting place to build upon it. The hatred between the families is made worse by the romance between two of the younger members of each, giving Chaney more scenery to chew to the fear that he might choke on the pieces.

The entire ensemble is very good with special recognition needed for Marie Ney, the matriarch of the family the witches have been battling for centuries. When she sees Rees at the top of the stairs, she appears to be daring her to push her down, or welcoming a fate that is delayed in happening. Rees appears in the oddest and creepiest of ways, not saying a word yet exhuding complete evil. She's a rival to Barbara Steele of "Black Sunday" as one of the creepiest onscreen witches outside of Shakespeare. Everything about this movie through the strong production values makes it an absolute grand guignol delight that is one of the best horror films of the 60's, perhaps the best of one that most fans have never heard of.

score 9/10

mark.waltz 10 January 2021

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6461815/