York Witches' Society

I've watched a lot of movies. And I have never felt compelled to write a review... until now. Wow, this movie was spectacularly awful.

I find it shocking that it got made at all. Who green lit this? This film is comprised of A super thin plot line, with SO MANY holes - zero character development, wooden performances from the entire cast... and, SO. MUCH. FOG. You can't see anything for around 70% of this film! It's literally just swirling mist and really low light.

This is a movie about witches, and the actors spend more time trying to get a generator to work, than actual witching. Seriously, the generator should have its own credit.

Please, do yourself an enormous favour, and give this movie a hard pass. Unless fog is your thing.... In which case, have at it!

Honestly, this film is pretty decent. It gets better as it progresses. The low ratings are probably from viewers that don't appreciate lower budget offerings.

Two of my top three movies of all time are Dario Argento's Suspiria and Inferno, so anytime a movie involving witches and witchcraft pops up and looks half decent I'll give it a try.

I have to say, for the first 15 minutes I was looking at my phone and contemplating switching the film off as I initially thought it looked uber cheap and was going to be crap. Thankfully I didn't, as I ended up enjoying York Witches' Society quite a bit.

The film leans more into horror in the second half and would have benefited from a tad more blood and guts I feel. Going a bit balls-to-the-wall with gore would have drawn in more of the horror crowd.

I got vibes of The Craft, Evil Dead, and Demon Wind while watching this movie, which was nice.

There are complaints about the fog in the movie but I rationalised it as an effect of the shift in reality in the area surrounding the pub. The fog highlighted this state of high strangeness that the girls found themselves in. The British Ufologist Jenny Randles referred to this state of high strangeness as the 'Oz Factor'.

Corn dolls, rituals, the rule of three etc. There is Witchy stuff in the film that is entertaining and satisfying.

York Witches' Society would have probably done really well on the Horror Channel or the Sci-Fi channel if they still existed. It's a perfect movie to introduce horror to your younger family members if they are that way inclined.

With some tweaking of the script (especially the dialogue), a bigger budget, and more gore, I believe this movie could have been a cult hit.

As it is, I enjoyed the movie. A great effort by all involved. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available on dvd or blu ray, which is a bummer.

P. S If someone involved with this film sees this glowing review please send me a dvd 😁.

This film was a dissappointment. The major problem was honestly the script, everything felt like a first draft.

There is perhaps some potential to be wrung out of this concept, a college 'secret society' that is in actuality a coven. But the conversations throughout the entire first half are stitled and strange. The people don't quite talk like people, there's a scene where one character berates a professor that doesn't connect, and the driving incident that puts our protagonist into the coven deeply contrived. The writing here feels like the worst of 80s sitcoms, only without the jokes.

Yet somehow the second half is worse. The tone shifts, and suddenly the movie wants to be a ghostly slasher film. But it's just so...dull. There are admittedly a few creative kills, but the pacing is so slow and the characters have been so poorly fleshed out that these kills don't carry any emotional weight. As other reviewers have said, it feels like you spend 40 minutes watching people run around in the mist. It felt endless, and yet somehow this movie is under 90 minutes long. And the coven is not so much a coven here as it is a collection of cowering college students. Who wants to see a witch movie where the "witches" don't really do magic?

This movie, more than anything, was boring. It's a real achievement to make magic and witch hunts and slasher kills boring. This script needed serious revisions.

I have no idea why this wasn't set in the US and acted by Americans!

English Universities generally do not have shared rooms, nor are Deans responsible for student discipline or communication; neither do they have sorority style societies ruling the roost.

Add that to an excruciating script, appalling direction, amateur acting and a baffling storyline, the premise of which seems to be hinting at a complex battle of misdirected evils but ends up being an excuse for mediocre special effects.

All interspersed with American sayings and not a Yorkshire accent to be heard!

If your thing is to watch moderately attractive girls wear hideous (truly revolting) white dresses and get picked off one by one in yawn-makingly boring ways, then go ahead and watch this film.

I'm off to watch some paint dry instead!

After arriving at a prestigious university, a woman falls in with a secretive society on campus that initiates her into their witch family like them, only to find that she's inadvertently released a powerful demonic entity on the group and has to use her powers to stop it and keep them safe.

Overall, this was a pretty decent genre effort. One of the finer aspects to be had here is the rather fine setup to be had with the whole affair taking place alongside some solid storylines. The usual rhetoric of the former accused witch burned at the stake and placing a curse over the area is a serviceable enough starting point, which carries over into the new girl arriving at the college and bringing about immediate interest from the others on campus and put through the initiation rites that puts them in danger once they realize what's going on by inducting her and her powers into their society. This is done quite well and manages to have a lot to like with this going alongside the various interactions around the campus. That starting point allows the film to come off rather nicely when dealing with the escaped witch and the trials that ensue. Focusing on the idea that she's inadvertently released the figure during the numerous initiation rituals that take place, it finally allows for the stellar final half where the sinister entity arrives. While this is a rather underwhelming motive with a lackluster motivation for everything, that still manages to generate some truly effective and chilling stalking scenes as it changes rather nicely into a slasher film during this part. Utilizing the stealth of the killer striking unexpectedly within the nearly impenetrable darkness of a heavy fog around the area, the tortures and action here are genuinely exciting which not only keep the excitement going but also feature some solid gore in the brutal kills to go along with a clever trick to stop it. These elements bring about a lot to like overall as there aren't too many issues here, but it does have some minor flaws. One of the bigger drawbacks is the films' laid-back pacing that focuses more on their sisterhood and bonding that it doesn't have a lot of time to really enjoy the witch's rampage. With this mainly relegated to the final half once it's been released, the time until then focuses on the group going through their ordeals bringing them into the fold which doesn't have a lot of action for the most part. It's really for the better since the majority of the scenes here are so badly illuminated with scores of fog around the woods where they're staying that it's nearly impossible to make out what's happening in a way that makes it just as frustrating as suspenseful for the characters. These factors are what tend to bring this one down the most.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.