Necromancy

Writer/producer/director Bert I. Gordon, known best for his various '50's giant-monster-on-the-loose sci-fi epics, does his rendition of ROSEMARY'S BABY. The action takes place in a small, sinister village that specializes in the manufacturing of occult toys. Orson Welles is the madman at the center of the terror who is plotting to give his dead son life again. Pamela Franklin is the pert and pretty young woman gradually being lured into the dark and mysterious world of the supernatural. Despite prominent billing, Welles makes a fairly brief appearance. The cast handles the tiresome material well, and this is probably the closest Gordon has come to making a good film. But, keep in mind, it's not really a good film, but an absurdly entertaining diversion for those who think they can take it. A slightly longer version of the movie called THE WITCHING contains several minutes worth of frontal nudity, and contains an early appearance by scream queen Brinke Stevens.

I have a copy of "The Witching", but i'm not sure if it's the same as "Necromancy". The film is very strange itself. It has a bunch of mumbling in the film. When Orson Welles talks, his voice is all mumbly and really is terrible. It also has a lot of nudity, and I don't know how it had a PG rating. It also has a lot of Satanism in the film.

It has rituals and a bunch of strange, wicked things. For me, I think it's okay, but not the best horror film to see. Very odd with the story and really is messed up. It's about a woman and her husband go to a town called Lilith, and no children are allowed there. Because Mr. Cato(Orson Welles) wants it that way.

You better watch the film if it sounds interesting to you. But it contains a lot of nudity and satanism, witchcraft, bringing the dead to the living and the living to the dead, and just messed up.

When you're making a thriller about witchcraft, I believe you should do everything you can to help the audience suspend its disbelief in order for the movie to work. Some pictures ("Rosemary's Baby", for example) have accomplished this; others (like "Necromancy") haven't and the potentially scary material comes across as corny and goofy. This film does have some atmospheric moments, but about half the dialogue is hard to make out (sometimes it's poorly recorded, at other times just incomprehensible) and Orson Welles, who gets top billing, has a role that is so BENEATH him that you have to assume he was desperate for the work. Or maybe he was simply having fun.....(*1/2)

This drive-in schlockfest has Pamela Franklin starring as a Los Angeles woman who moves to a bizarre small town in Northern California with her husband (Michael Ontkean) where he is to be employed for a toy company. The longer she spends there, the more disconcerted she becomes over the influence his boss, Mr. Cato (Orson Welles), has on the townspeople, which consist exclusively of young, fresh-faced hippies with a taste for all things occult.

"Necromancy" had a troubled release history and was apparently re-edited to some degree in the early 1980s and re-released as a softcore film under the title "The Witching Hour"; the cut of the film I saw was apparently an early R-rated cut under the "Necromancy" title that is allegedly close to writer-director Burt Gordon's original vision, if you want to call it that. "Necromancy" as a whole feels like a "vision" of sorts-a hazy, drugged-out romp through Manson family-era California, with a supernatural twist. It suffers terribly from disjointed editing and a general lack of cohesion, which is disappointing given that the narrative is actually quite straightforward.

The film will remain an eternal curiosity for Welles's involvement, though his role is minimal and his presence generally underwhelming. The lovely Pamela Franklin (who many genre fans know and love from "The Innocents" and "Legend of Hell House") is a formidable lead and does what she can with the material; a strappingly handsome Michael Ontkean plays her husband and is less impressive but still has a likable screen presence; and Lee Purcell (later of Wes Craven's TV schlocker "Summer of Fear") is aptly doe-eyed and dead-faced as a distant member of the town/coven trying to revive Welles's dead son.

The film has a clever albeit rather standard twist that gives it a fun bite considering most of it is rather straightforward despite its acid-trip aesthetics. In the end, the film suffers greatly from serious disjointedness (presumably because it is so badly edited), but there are some ominous, utterly bizarre (and sometimes eerie) visuals throughout that are distinct to the era. Ultimately, what we have here is a drive-in-calibre occult flick, which, depending on who you are, may or may not be a complete delight. For visuals alone, I feel it's worth watching, though it does present itself as a serious case of "what might have been." 7/10.

A young couple from Los Angeles (Pamela Franklin & Michael Ontkean) gets an offer they can't refuse and move to a town several hours up north. But why does the dubious mogul of the exclusive community (Orson Welles) want them so bad? Something sinister is going on.

"Necromancy" was made in 1970, but not released until 1972 (although copyrighted 1971). It combines elements of "Carnival of Souls" (1962), "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) and "The Devil Rides Out" (1968); plus it would influence the future "Satan's School for Girls" (1973).

In some ways it's better than those films and in others worse. For one thing, the editing is sometimes off-kilter or inconsistent, especially in the first half, which I don't know if it was done intentionally or if it's simply sloppy filmmaking. A good example is the girl's lighthearted disposition in the car after just being involved in an accident and witnessing firsthand an unconscious person burning alive.

Due to Welles' involvement, the flick was reissued in 1983 under the title "The Witching" with added scenes of full frontal nudity during a ritual featuring Brinke Stevens, plus other changes and a tacked-on ending.

I've seen Pamela Franklin in about six films and she easily looks her best here with a full brunette mane. She was 20 during shooting and would meet her near-future husband on set, the young doctor played by Harvey Jason. They remain married today, over fifty years later.

Pamela didn't speak well of working with Welles, who obviously took the gig for easy cash (and tries unsuccessfully to hide behind a prosthetic nose and fake beard). She said he was dismissive of other actors, summing up her feelings with: "He was not a nice person." By contrast, she worked with Marlon Brando two years earlier on "The Night of the Following Day" and said he treated everyone equal.

Director Bert I. Gordon (known for 1965's entertaining "Village of the Giants") was concerned that he'd have serious issues with Welles when his secretary informed him that he didn't work before 10:00 or after 4:00. So Gordon assuaged Welles with a decadent chef and all his preferred foods & drinks; thus the imposing thespian was quite agreeable, yet this didn't eliminate Pamela's criticisms.

The flick scores well in the feminine department. Besides Franklin in her prime, there's Lee Purcell, who was 23 during shooting, and petite redhead Sue Bernard, best known for her role as the winsome bikini girl in "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1965).

The movie runs 1 hour, 23 minutes, and was shot at Los Gatos, California, which is about 35 miles southeast of San Francisco; as well as Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood.

GRADE: B-/C+