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FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

jimpayne1967 This should be one of Hammer's best. A strong cast led by Bona Fide Hollywood royalty who has top class support from some fine actors including Alec McCowen and Leonard Rossiter two of my favourite characters. With the normally reliable Nigel Kneale providing the screenplay this should be a classic. The film looks great- and the print quality is way up from the pretty much contemporary The Reptile which I also saw recently- and it is bursting with ideas but is still nothing more than quite good. The feel of the movie has touches of The Night of the Demon in that the pace is deceptively leisurely and it foreshadows the likes of Rosemary's Baby in that apparently down-to-earth, benevolent types are revealed to be devil worshippers and most obviously the Wicker Man in that a young girl is used as bait to tempt an apparently untouchable outsider into mayhem but it is vastly inferior to those three films and indeed the aforementioned Reptile which although cheap looking and bedevilled with laughable effects remains tense, disturbing and best of all unpredictable throughout. There are good bits in the Witches all right - the skinning of a hare by the apparently affable butcher (my excellent compatriot Duncan Lamont) and the scenes in which La Fontaine acts with children are small moments of real excellence- but it is not scary and the ending makes no sense even before the ludicrous, cheesy finale in which the deeply disturbed McCowen suddenly seems like a swell fellow. There are obvious weaknesses in the story- it has a happy ending for a start- which a better director would have been better at papering over, characters like Fontaine's fellow teacher played by Ann Bell go nowhere and above all that the lush, vaguely butch journalist sibling of McCowen (played by Kay Walsh) is so obviously a 'wrong un' destroys any possibility of suspense. And that is a pity because Ms Walsh was good and steals every scene she is in. Fontaine is also part of the problem. Uncharitably she may have been a touch old for her role but in the film's early scenes she is fine especially, as mentioned earlier, when she is acting with the little children. She suits the low key early scenes but as the film progresses her expression freezes as does her badly over lacquered hair. I gather she did not enjoy the experience of working on such a low budget film and most of the time it is hard not to avoid the impression that she thinks she is above the film she is in. Maybe she is but she is emphatically outperformed by Walsh, McCowen and Rossiter in the scenes she shares with these great actors. The Witches should be a classic but it is not- but it is not a total failure either.

Spikeopath The Witches is directed by Cyril Frankel and adapted to screenplay by Nigel Kneale from the novel The Devil's Own written by Nora Lofts. It stars Joan Fontaine, Alec McCowen, Kay Walsh, Ann Bell, Ingrid Boulting, Michele Dotrice and Gwen Ffrangcon Davies. Music is by Philip Martell and Technicolor cinematography by Arthur Grant.After suffering a breakdown in Africa when she was exposed to witchcraft, schoolteacher Gwen Mayfield (Fontaine) returns to England and takes up a position as headmistress at Heddaby School. All seems to be going swimmingly well in this idyllic village location, but it's not long before Gwen senses all is not as it seems here. Or is she just heading for another mental breakdown?Kneale wanted to make a satire of devil worshippers in rural England, Hammer Films big wigs and director Frankel wanted to make a chiller, the end result is neither, with each side blaming the other. The film flopped at the box office, Fontaine, who had great faith in the story, was deeply upset and went into practical retirement, and it stands today as an enjoyable enough misfire that isn't all it can be.The main problems are that it never serves as a horror film in spite of the source material suggesting as such, well that and the quite bizarre last quarter of film that pushes the boundaries of ridiculousness! Yet there's enough to enjoy here if accepting it as being more a safe creeper type of a film. In fact Fontaine preferred it to be known as a detective story with a black magic backdrop, so maybe that's exactly how it should be approached these days?The performances of Fontaine and Walsh are very much up to scratch, the former still beautiful at 51 and neatly imbuing Gwen with confused emotions, the latter firmly relishing a two fold role that calls for enigmatic dallying and hard nosed leadership. Davies holds the attention very well, McCowen is delightfully odd! While Martin Stephens (child star of The Innocents and Village of the Damned) and Boulting (daughter of Brit film legend Roy) add the requisite teen friendship under duress axis.When the production comes off the sound stage and out into the village locale (Hambleden in Buckinghamshire standing in for Heddaby), it's all rather splendid to look at, but it is conventional film making. Martell's music is a bit too aware of itself, trying hard to make us think horror exists when none is evident, and in a grand year for Hammer Film blood letting, The Witches is decidedly bloodless.A story of mental breakdowns and witchcraft shouldn't be a pleasant experience, yet that's exactly what The Witches is! For better and worse… 6/10

GL84 Moving back to a small English village, a teacher learns her position in the school places her in jeopardy of the satanic cult of witches in the area looking to sacrifice one of the students to complete a pagan rite and tries to stop it before it's too late.This was quite an enjoyable and exceptionally fun old-school witchcraft horror that had a lot of fun about it. The slow-building mystery about the tribe slowly taking over the village is quite exceptional and just completely overwhelms with it's ability to utilize the Gothic atmosphere of the surroundings, with it's splendid outdoor landscapes, closed-off township and just off-kilter vibe of the residents who are harboring a grave secret in grandest Gothic tradition and making for a generally creepy time as it goes about it's paces. Though not really doing a whole lot in terms of action, the continuous references to the past troubles with the voodoo cult are just plain eerie and handled well, from the doll and the witch doctor in full costume appearing out of nowhere and the connection to the town as the small things begin piling up one-by-one where it becomes obvious that the whole town is witches. That culminates in the fun, chaotic finale of the interrupted ceremony that includes lavish decorations, a splendid Gothic dungeon and even a sacrifice that nearly comes through to fruition. All in all, there's a lot to like with this and it's inclusion of witchcraft powers and voodoo sorcery, yet this does tend to take a while to get going and really explore it's story. While it's never boring, a lot of the film is devoted to one of two scenes playing out: her freaking out by something that reminds her of the past battle or witnessing something horrific that no in town believes in since there's no evidence of what she saw, and those tend to repeat themselves throughout until it's all put together and really resolves everything, meaning this has quite a lot of repetition amongst the lack of action which can get old quite quickly. Nonetheless, this has a lot of good qualities to override that.Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence.

Coventry When listing all the numerous horror/thriller successes that the legendary British Hammer studios brought forward, "The Witches" is a title that rarely ever – in fact NEVER – gets mentioned. It's also fairly easy to figure out why in this case, and it's not just because the film wasn't directed by one of the studio's most prominent directors (Terence Fisher, Val Guest, Freddie Francis…) and/or because it wasn't starring any of the regular genre icons (Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough…). "The Witches" is, simply put, a vastly inferior product and hardly even worthy of the Hammer quality label. The story, although nearly bursting with great potential and endless possibilities, is incoherent and dull. There nearly isn't enough action or suspense, the stupendous filming locations and scenery are sadly underused and the climax – which finally comes after an incredibly tedious middle section – is preposterous, dumb and makes you regret all the precious time you wasted until then. You know you're in trouble when the most exciting and horrific sequence of the entire movie deals with the lead actress being overrun by horde of sheep! The lovely and charismatic Joan Fontaine stars as Mrs. Mayfield; a schoolteacher who's still somewhat mentally unbalanced following a trauma she experienced whilst residing in a primitive African tribe. She's more than happy to accept a peaceful teaching job in the British countryside, but nightmares ensue when it gradually appears that nearly the entire community takes part in witchcraft rites. "The Witches" is insufferably talkative and predictable throughout. The only aspect that I didn't see coming was how ridiculous the climax sequences would be… The spastic dancing and imbecilic facial expressions of the people in the crowd make it one of the most pitiable endings I've ever seen. I feel sorry for Joan Fontaine, even more so because – reportedly – she personally approached Hammer Studios in order to turn the novel into a movie.