Witching, The (1983)

... aka: Magia negra (Black Magic)
... aka: Noituus (Witchcraft)
... aka: Rosemary's Disciples
... aka: Witching

Directed by:
Bert I. Gordon

When it came time to bring his 1972 film NECROMANCY to VHS, Gordon decided it wouldn't quite be up to snuff for the exploitation-hungry home viewing audience who'd likely be renting it. After all, the original film was quite slow and bland, didn't have much violence and, even though it had a few flashes of nudity, you can never have too much nudity, amiright? So Mr. Gordon was kind enough to cut out some of the duller parts of the original, reinstate some of the nudity cut from the original PG-rated theatrical print and film brand new scenes of a more sleazy nature to splice into the works. I won't be rehashing the plot of the first film here in detail as I've already reviewed it so here I will be detailing the differences between this and the original film, starting with the fact this version runs 77 minutes, which is seven minutes shorter than Necromancy. Right off the bat you'll notice we have new credits, which just feature the original stars plus the new title (the closing credits include the newer cast and crew members). Also noticeable right away is that the original Fred Karger score has been replaced with a new synthesizer-heavy one by Rob Walsh.

We begin with five minutes of the new footage. A blonde high priestess (Anna Berglund) in a white robe is first seen making a voodoo doll with Pamela Franklin's head on it before she joins the rest of her cult of devil worshipers for a black mass. The leader, decked out in a fluffy white sheep's head, gives out orders in a deep echo voice as new initiate Jennie (Barbara Peckinpaugh) prepares to join "the family of witchcraft." She's placed in a circle containing a pentagram drawn on the floor, has her shirt opened, her breasts fondled and then rubbed with oil and is then given the voodoo doll and ordered to stab it by the high priest (Stephen Knight - The Black Room). Doing so will make Pamela's character Lori lose her baby.

As all of that's going on, male and female black sabbath members strip completely naked and do circles around the room. When Jennie refuses to stab the doll ("No! That's murder!"), another topless female cult member is given the dagger and gladly does it for her. As an added note, the character "Jennie" is mentioned in the 1972 film but all we get to see is her arm sticking out of a flaming car after it crashes and explodes.

After we briefly meet Lori and her husband Frank (Michael Ontkean), some more new footage is superimposed over Lori sleeping. In this bit, a spirit (Anne Gaybis) informs her that "you have the power!" in regards to her ESP abilities. The conversations between Lori and Frank have been greatly shortened to where it now looks like all they do is argue. Once they arrive to the small town of Lilith, the spirit is superimposed over their new house to warn Lori that Mr. Cato (Orson Welles) is "a vile slime of spit." The spirit will return several more times in scenes that are pointless as the ghost merely reiterates what we've already seen or shouts out "Beware!" like she's in some Ed Wood movie.

The next big change occurs when Lori and Frank go to the party at Jay (Harvey Shane) and Nancy's (Sue Bernard) place. Originally we see a bunch of female witches garbed in white robes sitting there staring at them while Jay tries to coerce the couple into joining their cult. The shots of the witches have mostly been replaced here by a room full of male and female partiers. Future Scream Queen extraordinaire "Berinka" / Brinke Stevens can be spotted sitting on the edge of a couch with a martini in one hand hugging a guy. Another woman whose face is obscured but tits aren't gets several close-ups. A double for Frank is then seen from behind following another topless woman into another room. There, things get a little kinkier. The white goat demon leader guy smokes a hookah while topless women dance and another woman in leather whips a bare-assed guy sprawled out over a fireplace mantle (!)

There are no other major new scenes included after the party, just more of the spirit talking and some additional fx added to the finale to make it look like it's taking place during a thunderstorm. However, some scenes from the original have been shuffled around or removed entirely to create a slightly different narrative. A dream sequence in the original where Lori accidentally stabs her husband as he's hidden under the goat mask at the time, has been moved to the ending and presented as "real." A fire effect superimposed over a scene in the original has also been removed and the original's (awful) ending is thankfully scrapped and replaced with a more grim finale. There are also a few bits from the original 1972 shoot that didn't make that final cut that are included here, including more footage of a topless Franklin burning at the stake and lying in bed. Some of these alterations are actually for the better, which at least justifies this, even if the movie as a whole isn't great.

The Magnum reissue of this title (under the new moniker Rosemary's Disciples) is the same "new" version of the film and includes the names of new cast members Knight and Peckinpaugh on the VHS box. The Finnish VHS release, which uses the title Noituus / "Witchcraft," the Argentinian VHS titled Magia negra / "Black Magic" and the Japanese VHS from Showa, which also uses the Witching title, were also this new spiced up version. The latter really plays up the nudity on both the front and back covers, so you can see exactly why they added this stuff.

★★

Necromancy (1972)

... aka: El hechicero (The Wizard)
... aka: Horror Attack
... aka: Il potere di Satana (The Power of Satan)
... aka: L'uomo che fa rivivere i morti (The Man Who Revives the Dead)
... aka: Nec'ro·man'cy
... aka: Necromancy - A Life for a Life
... aka: Rosemary's Disciples (new footage added)
... aka: Toy Factory, The
... aka: Vida por vida (A Life for a Life)
... aka: Witching, The (new footage added)

Directed by:
Bert I. Gordon

"Witchcraft is the only honest religion that makes things happen now; in this life."

Lori Brandon (Pamela Franklin) wakes up in the hospital in hysterics and discovers she's just lost her baby. Her doctor recommends she leave hectic Los Angeles and go somewhere a little more laid back and quiet so she can get over her trauma. Coincidentally (well, maybe) her husband Frank (Michael Ontkean) has just accepted a new advertising executive job that will relocate them to Lilith; a small community located four hours away. Though Lori doesn't really want to go, and is perplexed about some of the job interview questions her husband had to answer to even get the position (like whether or not they were atheists), Frank promises that once they get settled they can try to have another baby. On the drive there, the two are nearly run off the road by a speeding car that ends up going over a guardrail, explodes and kills the driver. Lori finds a doll at the scene of the crash and decides to take it along with them; later discovering it has fingernail clippings tucked away in one of its pockets. After their car mysteriously runs out of gas on a desolate road and Frank has to walk to town, Lori hears voices, follows them up a hill and then has a vision of a funeral taking place up there and of her inside the coffin.

Upon arriving in Lilith, Frank meets his new boss Mr. Cato (Orson Welles), who owns the local toy factory, seems to have great power and influence over the entire town and has an unusual interest in black magic and the occult. He gives disbeliever Lori a book called The Grand Guimoire, a text of invocations, and asks her to read through it. She is immediately wary of him, especially since he keep eyeing her up. The more Lori learns about Lilith and all of its strange rules, the less she wants to be there. For starters, outsiders must pass a checkpoint with an armed guard to even enter the town. Second, no new construction is allowed there and all of the homes are old. And then there is a local law that forbids women from becoming pregnant and giving birth there that Lori learns about after running into another young woman named Georgette (Lisa James) who's just learned she's expecting. Lori also discovers that the car crash victim they encountered on their way over used to live in the same house she and her husband have been put up in.

Cato's personal assistant Priscilla (Lee Purcell), who runs a local toy shop (which is bizarre in itself since there are no children there) informs Lori that her boss not only owns the factory and all of the real estate in town, but also all of the people. Cato is also the only person there over age 30 as he wants nothing to "belong to the past." Priscilla believes it has something to do with Cato having lost his beloved young son Timothy (Teddy Quinn), whom Lori keeps having visions of, years earlier. Lori talks Frank into leaving the town but he keeps putting her off. In the meantime, they attend a party at Mr. Cato's full of astrology charts, tarot cards and far out young folk, where she has visions of blood drinking, her husband taking up a lover, a Satanist wearing a goat headdress and Mr. Cato as the devil himself (seen as a vision superimposed over a tarot card). Later, local doctor Jay (Harvey Jason) and his wife Nancy (Sue Bernard) try to get the new couple to join their religious group, which they dub "the true religion" and "the mother of all beliefs." Fancy talk for a Satanic cult.

As we soon discover, Lori's been lured there for a specific purpose. She was born with a veil, which means en caul, which means born still completely encased in the amniotic sac. Though, physiologically speaking, this is perfectly fine (though rare), old legend has it that a baby born this way will be blessed with psychic abilities and other supernatural gifts. During a flashback to her youth, we see that Lori has already revived a dead girl who's drowned simply by power of mind. Cato knows all of this and is hoping to blend her natural-born gifts with necromancy, "a ceremony dating back to the pre-Christian era that is the art of reviving the dead." The catch to the ceremony is that the one who successfully performs it must die so that the other may live. Or as the ancient rule states, a life for a life.

This is one of a number of occult / Satanic chillers made in between the two touchstones of this genre: ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) and The Exorcist (1973). Unfortunately, it doesn't stack up to many of the other, more interesting films from this same time like THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN (1971), THE MEPHISTO WALTZ (1971) or George Romero's Season of the Witch (1972). Though blandly competent, the biggest issue here is the general lack of creativity coupled with direction that does little visually to perk things up. There are next to no surprises plot-wise, suspense and shocks are virtually nonexistent, the editing is awful and Lori's endless "visions" become tiresome. Incorporating voodoo dolls (to cause a car accident and make a woman have a miscarriage) into the plot and including a weird magic mushroom trip sequence don't even help matters and the "here we go again" ending is terrible.

The wide-eyed Franklin is perfectly cast in the central role though and does her best to keep things chugging along; even appearing topless a number of times. She and future husband Jason (who are still married to this day) met on the set and I did get some amusement out of seeing her attacked by rats in the cellar, seeing how a few years after this she'd face off giant rats in Gordon's FOOD OF THE GODS (1976). Bernard, a 1966 Playboy Playmate, also provides some nudity here and, fittingly enough, went on to marry Exorcist star Jason Miller a few years later. This isn't a very good showcase for two of its other appealing stars: the beautiful Purcell, who got to play another witchcraft-practicing teen in the TV movie SUMMER OF FEAR (1978), and the handsome Ontkean, as the characters they're stuck playing lack dynamics. As for Welles, he's, uh, big, but not on screen enough to make an impression one way or another. We also never even get to see his damn toy factory!

There are a number of alternate cuts for this title. It was initially rated R but the nudity was removed so it could be released theatrically with a PG rating instead. There was a third alternate cut of this prepped specifically for the home video market as well. Gordon himself re-cut the original film, reinserted previously cut bits and shot brand new scenes, including a lot more nudity, and then wedged those in. This "new" version, which runs eight minutes shorter despite the newly added stuff, was first issued on home video by Paragon in 1983 reusing the theatrical re-release title THE WITCHING. This same cut was later re-released on VHS under yet another new title (Rosemary's Disciples) by Magnum.

★★