A tale of witchcraft and weirdness in the usually uneventful English countryside, The Witches has been restored as part of the continued HD-upgrading mission by StudioCanal and the resurrected British label (it’s not really a studio anymore). The film is not one of Hammer’s out-and-out classics, merely a curiosity item that shares with both John Gilling’s The Plague of the Zombies (also 1966) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) the vision of a malevolent side to the pastoral idyll.
This is achieved by the use of a rose-tinted locale as a secretive and conspiratorial place, where pagan beliefs hold sway over ‘traditional’ Christian values. The idea that such a staid environment can in fact be a hotbed for the dark arts and human sacrifice is amusing, but The Witches simply isn’t on par with the other films mentioned.
One of its more refreshing aspects is the use of a female antagonist, protagonist and victim (a young schoolgirl). Its portrayal of the fairer sex, however, isn’t exactly proto-feminist as they come across as manipulative, evil, emotionally weak and, yes, victimised. The men do not fair much better. Kneale, who kick-started Hammer’s glorious era with The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), was not happy with the final picture and intended it to be far more satirical than what we get on the screen. What is left is a vaguely kinky and wholly silly portrait of matriarchal figures and subservient men.
Hollywood legend Joan Fontaine, who made her name in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941), plays a traumatised former missionary returning to Blighty from Africa after her nervous breakdown due to terrible experiences at the hands of taunting witch doctors. Taking a new position as a school mistress in a village, Miss Gwen Mayfield (Fontaine), a rather matronly figure, is slowly drawn – and I do mean slowly – into a crackpot mystery involving a coven and an evil resurrection scheme.
Extras
The ‘Hammer Glamour’ featurette is a look at the formula used by the production outfit: taking models and turning them into cult icons. Some are more enamoured with their fortune than others and what is revealed is a rather sexist and sometimes exploitative method of cajoling and getting flesh on screen. After all, Hammer was famous for its buxom babies covered in blood.
Martyn has awarded The Witches two Torches of Truth
