1966’s The Witch is the last of the four titles I watched in Arrow Video’s blu-ray box set Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror. Two of the movies were duds, while Lady Morgan’s Vengeance was shockingly good. The Witch is probably the second best, though at some distance behind Vengeance.
The plot concerns Richard Johnson as an arrogant womanizer who is annoyed by an old woman (Sarah Ferrati) who has been stalking him. This guy needs to grow some thicker skin, as seeing her spoils his entire day. Guess he just hates old people that much.
He then ends up stalking her, trailing her to a mansion which looks like it should be in the countryside, and yet it is in central Rome. She has placed a newspaper ad for which he could be the only possible applicant, though she almost had to clip it out and shove it right in his face before he’d notice it. The job is to organize and transcribe manuscripts her deceased husband had written, all about how amazing she is. You know somebody has a very healthy ego when they hire somebody to organize their deceased’s love letters to themselves.
From this setup (and the title), I suspected the plot would unfold along the lines of Polanski’s The Ninth Gate. That isn’t the direction it moves in, though it does have some mildly unnerving moments similar to my favorite bits from that film.
The plot will not involve Satanism, though it will still involve the supernatural. There is a beautiful young woman at the house (Rosanna Schiaffino) Ferrati claims is her daughter, though they are much closer than mother and daughter.
These two share one soul, or it might be better to say the younger is a kind of puppet for the elder. The guidelines for this are not explained, but I noticed how only one of them can talk at a given time. At first, I thought one could only move if the other couldn’t, but then there were scenes where they do so independently or, quite eerily, in unison.
Real locations are beautifully lit throughout this picture, and the lighting is subtly and masterfully adjusted in those eerie moments I alluded to. In moments reminiscent of The Haunting, the light on a figure will dim, as if a cloud had just passed in front of the sun. This doesn’t sound like much, but the ways the shots are composed in these moments strongly suggests this was intentional, and that something supernatural is occurring.
Speaking of The Haunting, I was astonished to later learn our protagonist here was also the male lead in that picture. Admittedly, he was wearing a mustache there and playing a significantly different character. Even so, I couldn’t believe I watched the entirety of this movie without realizing he was one of the key characters in one of my all-time favorite horror films.
The Witch is a gorgeous-looking film, which makes a rather slight story seem more substantial than I believe it is. Light and shadow are masterfully used here, even if the old woman says at one point, “I consider sunlight the worst enemy of old things.” To me, this pushed some of the same buttons as Last Year at Marienbad, but without nearly putting me to sleep. Recommended for fans of gothic horror or simply excellent photography.
Dir: Damiano Damiani
Starring Richard Johnson, Sarah Ferrati, Rosanna Schiaffino
Watched as part of Arrow Video’s blu-ray box set Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror