Witchcraft (1964 film)

Witchcraft (also known as Witches and Warlocks) is a 1964 British horror film directed by Don Sharp and starring Lon Chaney Jr., Jack Hedley and Jill Dixon. The script was written by Harry Spalding.

Plot
In the 17th century, in order to take over the Whitlock family's properties, the rival Lanier family accused Vanessa Whitlock of witchcraft and had her buried alive. As a consequence, the Whitlocks still maintain a bitter hatred of the Laniers to the present day. However, two young descendants, Amy Whitlock and Todd Lanier, fall in love with each other regardless of the objections of Amy's stern uncle, Morgan Whitlock.

Todd is a business associate of his older brother Bill Lanier. They are building developers who plan to transform and renovate the old Whitlock estate. Without their knowledge, their business partner Myles Forrester instructs his workers to bulldoze over headstones and graves in the old Whitlock Cemetery, enraging Morgan Whitlock. From an exhumed grave emerges Vanessa Whitlock, still alive after three centuries. The Whitlocks still practice the old religion, and Morgan leads a coven that soon embraces Vanessa's return. Using her hex powers, they caused the mysterious deaths of Myles Forrester, as well as Bill and Todd's aunt, Helen. Morgan is arrested as a suspect in the Forrester case, and the Laniers take Amy in while her uncle is in custody. More incidents nearly take the life of Bill, Todd and their grandmother Malvina.

One night, Bill's wife Tracy follows Amy into the Whitlock family crypt, which is located near the old Whitlock mansion, now residence of the Laniers. In a secret chamber deep inside the crypt, Tracy witnesses Amy, Morgan and the rest the coven perform magic rites which include sacrificing an infant. Tracy is captured and tied up, to be used as a human sacrifice. Looking for Tracy, Bill and Todd enter the Whitlock crypt, where they find and rescue her. Once Bill has taken Tracy back in the house, Todd goes back in the crypt to look for Amy, who was participating in the rituals with her family. When her uncle gets ready to kill Todd, Amy is pushed past her breaking point and tips over a giant brazier that sets Vanessa and the entire room on fire. Todd tries to reach Amy, but the entire crypt has turned into a raging inferno, which soon extends to the adjoining mansion. Screaming her name, he can only watch as the flames consume everything and everyone.

Later, a broken Todd joins his family outside and watches the Whitlock estate burn to the ground, ending the 300-year-old feud.

Cast

 * Lon Chaney Jr. as Morgan Whitlock (as Lon Chaney)
 * Jack Hedley as Bill Lanier
 * Jill Dixon as Tracy Lanier
 * Viola Keats as Helen Lanier
 * Marie Ney as Malvina Lanier
 * David Weston as Todd Lanier
 * Diane Clare as Amy Whitlock
 * Yvette Rees as Vanessa Whitlock
 * Barry Linehan as Myles Forrester
 * Victor Brooks as Inspector Baldwin
 * Marianne Stone as Forrester's secretary
 * John Dunbar as doctor
 * Hilda Fenemore as nurse (as Hilda Fennemore)

Production
Writer Harry Spalding says he got the idea to make a film from an incident that happened in San Francisco when an old cemetery was converted into a real estate development.

Don Sharp had received good notices for his direction of Kiss of the Vampire (1963) and was receiving lots of offers to do horror movies. He says Milton Subotsky wanted to work with Sharp and offered him a choice of three scripts to make but Sharp liked neither. He wound up making Witchcraft.

Sharp liked the script for Witchcraft, calling it "a damn good story" although he felt it suffered credibility problems being set in the present day.

According to one account the film was shot over 14 days, which was twice what Robert L. Lippert productions had back in the US. Sharp said in an interview it took twenty days. Filming took place in January 1964 at Shepperton Studios just after 110 technicians had been fired from the studio.

Spalding says that director Don Sharp "realized the thing very well" and burnt down an actual house for the climax.

Release
Witchcraft was released in the UK in March 1964 and in the U.S. the same year.

Don Sharp says the film received "marvellous notices" and claimed because the film was so cheap to make it made its cost back in "the first two weeks in California".

Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This is an unpretentious and uncommonly gripping horror film, directed by Don Sharp rather after the style of the Val Lewton films. The backgrounds are quietly realistic, with grey, atmospheric photography, matter-of-fact underplaying from Jack Hedley and Jill Dixon, and a more tormented, grander style of acting from the ambiguous Malvina (Marie Ney. ... [Lon Chaney] huffs and puffs to a degree where he seems not only out of place but completely out of his own control and everybody's else's."

Variety wrote: "Eerie music, low-key photography, competent acting and a gimmick-filled plot combine to make the horror-feature Witchcraft a good example of its kind. The Robert Lippert-Jack Parsons production has the added feature of a plastic 'witch deflector' for each viewer. This, along with heavy sell-promotion should attract audiences addicted to horror films. ...Chaney tended to overact, but others in cast handled chores in workmanlike fashion, with Diane Clare particularly appealing as the ingénue. Arthur Lavis' photography was competent for a horror story, with murky shots of church steeples and graveyards through ever-present fog."

Leslie Halliwell said: "Spasmodically arresting horror film spoiled by too complex a plot line and some variable aciing."

Home media
Witchcraft was released on Region 1 DVD, along with Devils of Darkness as part of the Midnite Movies range of classic and cult horror films, in 2007.