NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

TheLittleSongbird The Witches is a very watchable film, but also an uneven one, Hammer have done some very good to great films but this is not one of them. It's one of those cases where the first half, which was reasonably strong despite a few problems, fares far more strongly than the second half, which was incredibly problematic and awful at its worst.Visually, The Witches, as with most Hammer efforts, looks great. The scenery and sets are both beautiful and eerie, it's stylishly shot and the lighting helps give off an effectively creepy atmosphere. The music is resolutely haunting and has a thrilling intensity while also having the ability of being intimate when it calls for it.The script does lack horror and mystery, but flow-wise and structurally it flows well and is decently written, and while the film is reasonably tame by today's standards the atmosphere still has a creepiness and the first half interests and entertains mostly. The direction is very competent in the first half and shows great technical assurance but falls flat in the last thirty minutes. The cast are very good and are the best thing about the film aside from the visuals. Joan Fontaine has been better, but the vulnerability of her character is very deeply felt, Alex McCowan has a lot of fun with his role while Kay Walsh's excellent performance steals the film.As said, the first half is reasonably strong. It does have its flaws, it does move too slowly in places and the prologue was rather vague and somewhat irrelevant. It's always professionally made and well-acted on the whole, and is intriguing and entertaining, with a great creepy atmosphere and some decent suspense.However, the second half really disappoints. It gets really tedious, gets increasingly confused, suspense, mystery and horror are non-existent and it dissolves into camp, which I don't think was intended. The film's biggest flaw is the climax, which has to be the worst ever ending for a Hammer film with its inept choreography, even worse dancing and it was just too amateurish to even be considered unintentionally funny.Overall, good first half, but very bad second half. An uneven film, with a lot of strengths and some big flaws. 6/10 Bethany Cox

moonspinner55 Female schoolteacher in an English village senses something strange is afoot while observing the townspeople's cold reaction to the budding relationship between a local teenage boy and girl; turns out, they want to keep the lass a virgin, and soon the boy is mysteriously out of the picture. Hammer Films thriller, an adaptation of the novel "The Devil's Own" by Peter Curtis (aka Norah Lofts), begins promisingly but deteriorates in the final stretch. The prologue, with missionary teacher Joan Fontaine being run out of Africa by witch doctors, is rendered vague and nearly useless by it not being used as a proper bridge to the main story (she's shaken up, but the experience certainly hasn't taught the heroine anything about black magic). The fine location shooting and tidy production are both impressive, and the cast is nearly terrific (save for the two central students, who are wooden). The plot unfortunately derails at a critical juncture: the boy's father drowns, rampaging sheep spoil some evidence in the mud, Fontaine learns too much and vows to testify at an inquest...but then wakes up in a nursing home with amnesia! From this point on, "The Witches", which has heretofore built up a good amount of tension within its curious scenario, loses all credibility and finesse--and the supporting cast is made to hop around in the dirt, groping one another and gibbering like possessed fools. It's a letdown for Fontaine's fans, although she manages to retain her dignity even as the picture lapses into camp. **1/2 from ****

JLRMovieReviews Joan Fontaine, in her last theatrical film, stars as a teacher who has been on a sabbatical because on her previous job, she was traumatized by natives in some remote village who were practicing voodoo and witchcraft. To move forward and away from such things, she takes a new post working for Kay Walsh and her minister-brother. But he's no longer a man of the cloth. That's very mysterious. In fact, just when Joan was trying to not find trouble, it finds her. A young boy and girl in love are told to stay away from each other and its dramatic turn leads to turmoil for Joan. What started out as a somewhat interesting and promising little film seems to go awry with out-of-control antics. On the whole, I'm not much of a horror buff, but I do like the early black-and-white ones of the genre, like The Haunting, etc., where less is more. (In fact, I was only watching this because it was a Joan Fontaine film.) And, while it would have stayed on my to-watch list until I watched it, I still feel like it was essentially a waste of time, considering the disappointing and silly resolution. If you're a Joan Fontaine fan, this is one film that doesn't fit in with her usual roster of good films and could definitely be missed. Period.

wes-connors In an unintentionally hilarious opening, tightly-wound schoolteacher Joan Fontaine (as Gwen Mayfield) is sent to the nut-house after a giant voodoo doll storms unexpectedly onto the set. Out of Africa, Ms. Fontaine recovers her faculties and begins working in a British school run by writer Kay Walsh (as Stephanie Bax) and priestly brother Alec McCowen (as Alan). Eyebrows are raised when sexy student Ingrid Brett (as Linda Rigg) comes close to copulating with sensitive school peer Martin Stephens (as Ronnie Dowsett). Before they can consummate, Fontaine finds a voodoo doll in the fork of a tree...Not coincidently, the town coven's head witch needs a virgin sacrifice. During her saner moments, Fontaine tries to unravel the mystery of "The Witches" (also named, after the original novel, "The Devil's Own"). For most of the running time, the storyline bores; it ends in monumental silliness. Arching her left eyebrow above all others, Fontaine acts to the hilt, while Ms. Walsh saves herself for later. Gwen Ffrangcon Davies (as "Granny" Rigg) has fun making creepy faces at director Cyril Frankel. Also known as Ingrid Boulting, Ms. Britt wiggles around like she wants to rip her clothes off - but she never does.**** The Witches (11/21/66) Cyril Frankel ~ Joan Fontaine, Kay Walsh, Alec McCowen, Ingrid Brett