Witchcraft [1988] [DVD]

Very good

The film steals from many other horror films but principally from Rosemary's Baby. It's pure Grande Guignol. Heads are sliced off, a priest is inflicted with boils and hangs himself,etc. Unfortunately, it plays its hand far too early. The steal from Rosemary's Baby of Satanists gloating around the newborn baby gives the game away and there are few surprises to follow. The demented mother is tortured by the evil couple posing as mother and son. The music skillfully underscores the action and there's some neat camera work. Incredibly there follows some dozen-plus sequels. It's certainly not as black as some half-witted critics have painted it.

Bought it for someone else who is very happy with it x

Good seller. The DVD arrived quickly and in the quality stated. The film itself is a sort of mishmash of The Omen and Rosemary's Baby with bad dialogue and corny acting thrown in for good measure. Despite this I couldn't help enjoying it. There's something about its unashamed corny-ness that is so endearing. A true B movie classic!

bargain and fairly entertaining

I've never been so bored watching a film it wasted part of my life didnt watch it all.

in the review guidelines it says not to write one word reviews, but you could about this film, and that would be DISMAL. I bought it on the off-chance of being entertained, and was very disappointed. So many basic and obvious techniques are used, like : Wind blowing at scary moments, or crackling thunder storms. It is also a horribly predictable storyline , and i would confidently say that a scooby doo show contains more mystery and suspense. The two main characters, john and elizabeth who had been mistreated hundreds of yrs ago (Rip-off of The Crucible methinks) are transparent and dull. I would only recomend buying this for a disliked relative at christmas.

Back in the 1980s I replaced most of my collection of 8mm movies with VHS and I have been going through a same process of upgrading to DVD for the last few years. This has given me the excuse to revisit many films that I have not seen for some time.I am not really sure why I bothered to replace the VHS with a DVD a few years back as this is not a film that I particularly liked the first time around.At best it is strange and at worst is disjointed and badly edited, one wonders if the correct out-takes ended on the cutting room floor. Certainly any signs of good acting or direction seem to have been removed from the film.The story itself is not bad, a witch and her warlock husband were burned at the stake in the 17th century and their souls return an inhabit the bodies of a modern couple to attempt to have the child that they were unable to bring into the world in their previous life.Unfortunately there were a further fifteen sequels which got progressively worse between 1990 and 2015 and should be avoided at all costs.

Je n'ai pas apprécié ce film

I remember this movie when I was a kid, was thrilled when I seen it was on DVD. I still like this movie.The picture quality was not as bad as some had said, I guess it didn't bother me as much though..But yes they are right when it comes to the blurb on the back of the case, it's not Linda it's Leslie.. But other than that I am glad that I can add this movie to my collection!

I sometimes wonder if the hacks who write copy for DVD companies actually watch the films. Here's the Plot Synopsis as quoted by Amazon:"A pregnant woman is taken back to the house of her husband's mother."NOT! Linda Blair is pregnant, but she's entirely unconnected to the house. And her step mother just now bought house as an investment. So Blair is not "taken back" anywhere; she was never there to begin with."There she begins to have strange nightmare about her child and step-family."No she doesn't. She falls through a portal in the bathtub and sees a baby being tortured. Only Leslie Cumming's character has a nightmare, and that concerns being raped by a demon."For the husband and mother are actually reincarnated lovers who were burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft."NOT! No reincarnation in this film. A present day couple are killed, but they're not related to Blair's character. And only the guy (he's single, not anyone's husband) is burned -- on a cross, not a stake. Neither is the witch who's haunting the island burned at the stake -- she jumped out a window to avoid being burned at the stake."She must soon escape from their clutches or have her child sacrificed to Satan."It would be more accurate to say that the witch wants the souls of the island's visitors, so she may live again.That said, this is a gem of a horror film. Eight people trapped on an island, whereupon the witch haunting it starts killing them, using their own Greed and Lust against them (kind of like how the seven deadly sins dispated people in the Euro-horror film, THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE, aka, THE DEVIL WALKS AT MIGHTNIGHT.) Several of the people fall through portals and die grisly deaths in a medieval setting.Some interesting notes:* This is a rare horror film in that there are TWO "good girls," the virgin Leslie Cumming, and the pregnant Linda Blair. Although this is not a slasher film, even so, with two Good Girls, the horror fan is left in suspense as to who will be the last to survive.* This film has perhaps the worst day-for-night scenes I've ever seen. Some scenes are shot in pitch black, other scenes shot at dawn or dusk, still others with daylight pouring through the windows -- yet it's all supposed to happen at night, and we cut back and forth with the lighting switching from shot to shot. At one point the characters rush in from the pitch black night outside, and Cumming points to a bright window saying, "Look, it's no longer broken!" And we're not supposed to notice how bright it suddenly is outside!* The boy has a Sesame Street tape recorder, and another character reads The Godfather. Yet neither Sesame Street nor The Godfather's publisher is listed in the film credits. This is refreshing, albeit rare because Hollywood studios are so paranoid that any item caught in a shot gets credited. GHOST DOG credited Tor Books because that film showed a cover of the Tor edition of Frankenstein (a public domain work). THE CAVEMAN'S VALENTINE credited the Chrysler Building for depicting the building, which is apparently a registered trademark.WITCHERY has some cute actresses, grisly deaths (especially the chimney death -- look for it!), and spooky atmosphere. Film's a bit confusing and nonsensical (such as the link between the witch and the "Norma Desmond type" actress), but it's highly entertaining. Hard-core horror fans should love it.

CASE WAS SPLIT IN 2 PIECES... This was a gift for a friend.. I bought her something else and kept the movie for myself

I saw this movie years ago and enjoyed it just as I did then. Linda Blair was excellent just as remembered.