Rent The Witches (1966)

Effective - The Witches review by sb

FILM & SHOCKTOBER An oft overlooked entry in the Hammer canon which is a shame as it’s really good. Fontaine plays Gwen a missionary in Africa who falls foul of the local witch doctor and is attacked causing a breakdown. After recovering in England she is offered a post as school teacher in a village by the Reverend Bax (Mckowen) who lives with his sister Stephanie (Walsh). Gwen accepts and moves to the idyllic village but something isn’t quite right. Bax isn’t a real priest and there is only a ruined church and it’s not long before all manner of odd things happen. A local girl Linda (Brett) plays with dolls even though she is to old for them and romance with a local boy is discouraged as she must remain pure…..for the obvious reasons. Soon Gwen seems to have uncovered a witches coven but digs too deeply and events cause her to have a complete breakdown. She recovers and escapes the institution she is being held at and returns to the village…..where fate awaits her. It’s very played by all the cast with an excellent script by Nigel Kneal and uses the quaint English village hiding something far darker very well.It should really be a lot better known - 4/5

Horror/thriller (spoiler). - The Witches review by Steve

Droll supernatural suspense film which was scripted by Nigel Kneale as a comedy but eventually shot by Hammer as straight horror. Consequently the tone is quite uneven. It's genuinely spooky at times, but slips into farce towards the end.

Joan Fontaine stars in her final big screen performance. She doesn't create the kind of camp, gothic monster other female survivors of the studio system were conjuring up in the sixties, but conveys a sensitive, affecting impression of a vulnerable woman.

She plays a spinster taken on as the headmistress of a rural school after recovering from a mental collapse. The village church fell into disrepair years ago... and she suspects the locals are practicing witchcraft. But who would believe her? And what if the suspected sacrifice of a schoolchild was just a ruse to entrap the chaste newcomer?

Which is just as good a narrative as it was seven years later in The Wicker Man. Unfortunately, The Witches ultimately pulls up short of the horror potential of the climax. There's a splendid support cast playing the village of inscrutable/inbred oddballs, led by Kay Walsh as the completely nuts head witch. It's a minor genre picture given a touch of class by its star.