Witchcraft

My review was written in January 1989 after watching the film on Academy video cassette.

"Witchcraft" is an underwhelming supernatural horror piece, released direct-to-video (with video post-production and credits).

Unrelated to another new (Italian-backed) scream pic named "Witchcraft" and toplining Linda Blair, this film adds a dash of "Rosemary's Baby" to the hoary formula of a new mother's fears and the oppressive move to a gothic mansion.

Pretty Anat Topol-Barzilai is the new mother of a bouncing baby boy who haplessly finds herself moved in with a decidedly evil-seeming mother-in-law (Mary Shelley is the actress' gothic stage name) in an ancient house. She starts seeing visions, particularly in mirrors, and wisely fears for her newborn's safety. Following a burn-at-the-stake prolog, it's finally revealed that Shelley and Anat's huband Gary Sloan are reincarnated witches and they're definitely after the kid.

Pert Deborah Scott adds some life as the heroine's best pal, but pic is mainly a string of genre cliches executed by helmer Robert Spera with very little imagination. Pace slows to a crawl in the second half.

Topol-Barzilai is pleasant to look at, with her ample figure kept under wraps here even in scenes (such as human sacrifice climax) when a bit bolder approach is in order. Shelley, despite her apt name, fails at achieving a transition from menacing to out-and-out evil.

Witchcraft (1988)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A mother (Anat Topol) brings her newborn son to her mother-in-law's house and sure enough the husband (Gary Sloan) and his mommy (Mary Shelley) are actually Satan worshipers wanting to make the newborn the next Antichrist. Believe it or not but WITCHCRAFT was actually a huge hit when it was released to video back in 1988 but I do wonder how many people rented this thing and could have guessed that twelve sequels would follow. Obviously, the film is just another rip-off of ROSEMARY'S BABY but we get a funny little goof in the opening credits when a title reads "Origional Screenplay by" but perhaps this error was done on purpose since the film certainly wasn't original. The film itself makes a few major mistakes in regards to a made-for-video exploitation film. The biggest is that it's pretty dull from start to finish with not much happening anywhere in the first hour. The film isn't shy about ripping off other devil-child movies so horror fans might get a few kicks out of spotting the various rips. The film really doesn't contain too much violence or blood and the real sin is that it doesn't even offer up any nudity making it quite tame all around and there's really nothing here we haven't seen much better many times before. Even those awful rip-offs from the 70s at least offered up violence, gore or nudity. The performances aren't too bad for this type of film and I'll at least give director Rob Spera credit by turning in a professional looking picture, which is something a lot of the made-for-VHS films from this era couldn't say. The film does offer up some campy moments including a priest whose face starts to mutate after entering the mother-in-law's house. Another campy moment happens with "visions" coming from a mirror, which is bound to get several laughs. Still, WITCHCRAFT doesn't have anything really going for it that separates it from the pact so there's no real need to see it.

How many Witchcraft films were there? 13? 14? I don't know, but this, the first, is not like the others.

It is a repackaged Rosemary's Baby. and doesn't have the sex scenes of the later films in the Witchcraft series.

This film has all the elements you would expect in a Gothic horror film: a creaky old house, mood music, a scary butler, strange dreams, and lots of screaming and blood. And, we need to mention the creepiest of them all, the Mother-in-Law.

It may have been low budget, but it still was interesting and worth the time spent.

So the time has come for me to finally watch and review the WITCHCRAFT series that incredibly has created count 'em 15 sequels. After watching the original I am not sure why it deserved even one.

Its the story of new mother Grace Churchill (Anat Topal-Barzilai) who with hubby (Gary Sloan under the name Edward Ross) and new baby William go to her mother-in-law's (Mary Shelley...sadly, not the one who wrote Frankenstein) house to recover and regain her strength. Problem is the mother-in-law might be hiding some dark secrets.

In the end a slow-moving, not very original horror movie. Mixed with at times shaky acting (although mother-in-law Shelley does well in her role) and sub-par delivery. Maybe try ROSEMARY'S BABY or if wanting a witch movie try THE WIZARD OF OZ.

As Grace Churchill (Anat Topal-Barzilai) gives birth to her son William, images of a pair of witches being burnt at the stake flash through her mind. On leaving hospital, Grace's husband John (Gary Sloan) informs her that she will be staying at his mother's home for a while until she is ready to cope by herself. Before long, Grace starts to experience strange occurrences that eventually lead her to believe that John and his mother, Elizabeth (Mary Shelley), are up to something strange.

Rather unbelievably, this tepid supernatural thriller, which clearly takes its cues from Rosemary's Baby, has spawned fifteen sequels to date, apparently finding an appreciative audience by including plenty of nudity and soft-core sex. This first film, however, offers nothing in that department: it's dull, uneventful drivel for most of the running time, only coming to life in the final ten minutes where extremely patient viewers are rewarded with a spot of much needed gore, including a decapitation and an impalement.

As a horror movie completist, I now feel compelled to watch the rest in the series, no matter how bad they get: wish me luck… I get the feeling I will need it.