Brittish witchcraft

The Witches (1966)

Seventh movie from the Hammer Collection is Joan Fontaine's last big screen film and quite an ok thriller despite it's few flaws. It's a story about a teacher who suffers a nervous breakdown in Africa after being terrorized by local witch doctors. She returns to England and gets a job at a small village private school. There she finds out that the witchcraft has not left her alone and that one of her students is about to be sacrificed. The story, as in many cases with Hammer, isn't the strongest part of the movie, the strongest part is again the feel of it. I loved how at start the village and the people living there seemed very idyllic and how the atmosphere there was very pleasant, but towards the end it became quite spooky. It has a very nice contrast to it. The cast is fairly ok, nothing to complain on that department. The look and the sound of the movie are quite great. Even though the style is very straight forward, there are some quite brilliant shots in there as well. Too bad that the story was so dull as this had the feel right but lacked the depth of it. The picture quality on the DVD is pretty good and again there are no subtitles and only a trailer of the film as an extra.
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