WITCHCRAFT - Carlo Martelli - "Pact With The Devil" (1964)

Well, it ought to be pretty obvious by now that the fun never stops around here, and tonight's Saturday Special feature is no exception! Welcome to this tale of "Witchcraft" down in The Dungeon!

Besides your 'Witch Deflector,' You might want to break out 13 cloves of garlic too, just to feel comfortable!!!

"Witchcraft" is the basic tale of the Hatfield's and the McCoy's, or Why Can't We Just All Get Along? These two families, the Whitlocks and the Laniers have been at each other's throats for like 150 years! Now it's come down to leveling an ancient Whitlock unoccupied graveyard to build a new Lanier housing complex that has got Lon Chaney Jr. so upset! Most people talk crap about Lon Chaney Jr. in his waning years, but for me, he puts in a credible performance as the elder Morgan Whitlock! Jack (How I Won The Door, The New York Ripper) Hedley as Bill Lanier is on the other side of the fence!

Naturally, or probably in reality, unnaturally, the umteenth generation Laniers and McCoys have a different take on the whole scene, and David (The Masque Of The Red Death, Dr. Who) Weston as Todd Lanier, and Diane (The Haunting, The Plague Of The Zombies) Clare as Amy Whitlock are desperately in love!

This was a rare film performance by Barry Linehan, who did a ton of British TV from 1961 to 1993 on shows like "Big Breadwinner Hog," and  "The Bass Player And The Blonde!" Here he's Myles Forrester, the unscrupulous labor contractor who authorized the destruction of the ancient Whitlock graveyard! I'm not quite sure what transition I captured here, but it sure is weird!

Bill Lanier goes to the site of the Whitlock graveyard to survey the damage! The deal was that the bodies had been moved years before, and the gravestones etc were supposed to be salvaged before land leveling commenced! Then the bulldozers moved in, and that's what really pissed off Morgan Whitlock!

It just so happens that the Lanier Family also reside in an olde home formerly owned by the Whitlock family! When Bill was at the graveyard, he heard some noises and he salvaged this small piece off a grave that had some symbology that was exactly the same as the one in the Lanier's living room fireplace!

It's starting to get kind of freaky! Time to ask Grandma Lanier some questions! Marie Ney has the role of Malvina Lanier! Marie was a trooper! Her acting career started way back in 1919, and she had a total of 35 acting credits over the course of 50 years! She had one more TV appearance, but "Witchcraft" was her last film performance!

 

Amy Whitlock lives with Uncle Myles, and while he's out of town, it's kind of scary, so she's invited to spend the night at the Laniers! No Whitlock has stayed in the house for decades, but it's the closest thing there is for a reason for somebody to take off some of their clothes, and spice it up just a tad!

Here she is! Presenting the long dead Vanessa Whitlock as portrayed by Yvette Rees! Here's the deal! That Whitlock graveyard was supposed to be empty, but one body was left behind, that of Vanessa Whitlock, who was supposed to be burned at the stake years and years earlier by the Laniers, but was buried alive instead! Uh, Oh! Bad move! Spooky Yvette Rees only has 22 credits, but she's got some good ones like "Curse Of The Fly," "Man With Two Faces," and "A Severed Head!"

The first victim is Myles Forrester! Okay he deserved it, what else do you got? There's quite a bit of Voodoo type stuff going on, like there was a Myles primitive doll that was pushed down to the bottom of a pan full of water, and this was the result!

Next, Vanessa pays a nocturnal visit to Bill's Sister Helen Lanier as played by Viola (The Witches) Keats! The terrific lighting in this shot commands me to acknowledge the work of Cinematographer Arthur Lavis who worked on everything from "Making Electricity: Sources and Applications of Power," to "Catweazle," with stops at "Hold On: It's the Dave Clark Five," "The Penthouse," "The Horror Of It All," and "The Earth Dies Screaming" in between! "Witchcraft" was made in 1964, but it has a much stronger 40's and 50's vibe to it!

Not convinced it was only a dream, Helen Lanier decides to bail on the whole scene and get out of town! Unfortunately Vanessa Whitlock joins her on her journey, and mentally makes her drive off the edge of a cliff in a landfill to her death!  Later in the movie, Vanessa unsuccessfully tries this same stunt on Bill and Todd Lanier, but Bill snaps out of it just in the nick of time!

The one thing I did find odd was that the Whitlocks have been having their devil worshiping meetings in this mausoleum for years that is only a stone's throw away from the Lanier home, and nobody ever heard or noticed anything before!

 The composer for the music in "Witchcraft" was a gentleman named Carlo Martelli, who only has 9 composing credits to his name, but those 9 include "The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb," "Catacombs," "Prehistoric Women," and "It!" "Witchcraft" was Carlo's first film!

With Vanessa's help, the coven led by Myles Whitlock seeks to reek more havoc on the Lanier Family!

Meanwhile, Vanessa pays a visit to Grandma Lanier, and gives her a little push down the stairs!

The coven was all prepared to sacrifice Bill's wife, Jill Dixon as Tracy Lanier to the devil, but Bill and Todd made it back from their ordel just in time to rescue her! Undeterred, Jill went on to have a very successful career on British TV during the 60's and 70's!

Here's the kicker! Sorry Todd, your sweet and unassuming girlfriend Amy is also one of them! As it turns out, blood is thicker than water or love!

Not exactly a blockbuster on it's own, "Witchcraft" was often only half of a double feature back in the day that was coupled up with flicks like "The Horror Of It All" or "House Of The Damned" to sweeten the deal! Here's a little piece of information that I wish I had known six months ago, not as a double feature, but "Witchcraft" alone can be found streaming on Amazon for $2.99! What could be more convenient than that?

HAXAN: Witchcraft Through The Ages / Aljosha Production Company, Svensk Filmindustri - 1922

So, like, Happy Halloween Everbloody!! We'll end our October adventure with this amazing bit of Swedish/Danish silent film making from 1922! This story is part history lesson followed by re-enactments with actors depicting the history of witchcraft from its earliest days through to the present day. The result is this documentary-like film that's among the first to use re-enactments as a visual and narrative tool. From pagan worship to satanic rites to hysteria, the film takes us on a journey through the ages of witchcraft with very effective visual imagery...

Images in the movie include witches kissing the ass of Satan, boiling non-baptized babies and giving birth to demons, not to mention getting a full tour of the state-of-the-art in medieval torture devices, none of that is shown here though!

Nymphs were considered witches because they liked to run around naked in nature with their little animal friends surrounding them!

Stocks were a useful device to subdue witches while trying to figure out what the Hell to do with them!

Even the church has its problems, no place is safe from witches and even the devil hisself!

Oh boy, it's time for all the little (and big) demons to come out and play! These scenes have such a magical, surreal quality to them!

Here's the amazing entrance to the devilish underground play land where all the demons can go have a ball...

In order to get in, one must get past the greeter pigs!

Okay, so like... Let the freak show begin!!

First up is this fine piece of... err.. tail, for all the demons to drool over!

Here's the devil's platter, large enough to accommodate a nice, succulent, naked female body!.. Dinner is served!!

Oh, what the Hell.. Let's dance!!

Anyway, the scenes are all devilishly appealing, making for one very interesting flicker. The original movie was 122 minutes long! So, kids, that's all of our Halloween Countdown 2016! We're back on the regular track on Wednesday, see you then!

CATACOMBS - Carlo Martelli - "The Woman Who Wouldn't Die" (1965)

To kick off 2015, tonight's feature is a twisted little tale of almost pre-code comics style from 1965 called "The Woman Who Wouldn't Die," which is a pretty descriptive title!

The original title was "Catacombs," but that's a much more obscure reference that you would really have to see the movie to understand since I'm not going to take the time to explain it! When I put this movie on and saw this title card, I thought this movie would probably be a real sleeper, but I was quite surprised! This is a portrait of Georgina Cookson as the lean and mean shrewd businesswoman Ellen Garth!! Not much else horrific in Georgina's résumé, she spent most of her time on dramatic TV shows, but she was on two episodes of "The Prisoner!"

Gary Merrill is Ellen Garth's husband Raymond! His job is mostly just to do whatever she tells him, and she likes to tell him what to do a lot, so it's a full time job!

The lovely Jane (Island Of The Burning Damned) Merrow is Ellen Garth's niece Alice Taylor! She has no parents and has just come home after being away at school for a couple of years! She's a lot more grown up than Raymond remembers! One of Jane's earliest roles was one of the chorus girls in the 1962 Herbert Lom version of "Phantom Of The Opera! Never to far away from the camera, Jane's in a film scheduled to come out some time this year!

This is a nice cast ensemble shot that includes that fourth main member of this story, Neil McCallum as Richard Corbett, Ellen Garth's secretary! Neil was in "Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors," and was the voice of Dr. Ray Pierce in "Thunderbirds Are Go!" Neil's career was cut way too short at the age of 46 when he died from a brain Hemorrhage! What the Heck!?

Despite Ellen Garth's pleas that Alice move in with them, she gets her own flat
 instead! Alice is also an aspiring artiste, and thinks she'd like to do a bust of Raymond!

Ellen Garth's got a bad wheel, and when the pain gets too bad, she is able to put herself into a trance!

Working on that bust has caused Raymond and Alice to spend a little too much time together, so after coming home from a late drinking and eating bout one night, things start to heat up between the two of them!

BUSTED!!!

"Raymond, I've got soap in my eye, and I can't find a towel."

Well, Raymond has had enough! As hairy and demonic looking as Gary Merrill can be, I think he would have been a good candidate for the role of  Dr. Jekyll at some point!

I rest my case!! Gary Merrill had a great career that included 5 episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," a stint on "Twilight Zone" in the episode called "Still Valley," and the "The Outer Limits" episode titled "The Human Factor!"

So here's the deal! Raymond and Richard Corbett had a plan to kill Ellen Garth, and split the inheritance money between them, but when Raymond lost it, and killed Ellen prematurely, he screwed up the whole deal! Richard found an out of work actress who was a ringer for Ellen! She is to go on vacation to Italy, and as a known bad driver, she is going to have an accident on some curvy country road! I don't think this gal got paid enough for this role!

Richard brutally murders the actress, douses the car in petrol and sets in on fire, and it's all set to the only swingin' music in the whole movie! The composer here is Carlo Martelli, who out of a career of ten credits, six had titles like "Witchcraft," "The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb,""Who Killed The Cat?," "Prehistoric Women," and "IT!"

Raymond is terribly distraught when he gets the news about Ellen's car crash!!

Now that Ellen is dead, Ramond and Alice are equal partners as far as the inheritance is concerned, and then everything starts to go haywire! The electricity goes out and there's something creeping around outside!

Left to himself, Raymond sees that the body of his dead wife has become re-animated!

He backs up while at the same time emptying his pistol into the apparition, goes too far and falls out the window to a certain death!

Now it's up to you to figure out the who & why? "Catacombs!" Why wouldn't this damn woman die?