This starts off with a good old fashioned Massachusetts witch burning then jumps forward to the present day when Christopher Lee (alright!) is teaching a course in witchcraft. A blonde student seems to have a crush on him and is determined to study witches further despite the tut-tutting of her boyfriend and brother.
At this stage the movie was a bit iffy - the boyfriend and brother were too know-it-all-sie and the blonde not a very good actress. Then the blonde heads off to a mysterious small town where witches once lived and things improve - not her acting, but the mood of the piece, and there's some strong character actors. Blondie steps into a negligee and then - holy crap - half way through the movie she's killed, just like in Psycho (made at the same time as this movie so not necessarily a rip off). So then, like Psycho her brother and another girl turn up into town looking to investigate what happened to her.
Occasionally this feels like the episode of a TV series and the weak acting of the leads does hurt it. It also, when all's said and done, had a repetitive structure: Part 1 someone investigates, Part 2 someone investigates (Psycho changed point of view giving the second half to Anthony Perkins). But for the most part this was an enjoyable thriller. It was an early effort from the producing team of Rosenberg and Subotsky, making this the first Amicus horror flick.
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