In all honesty "Witchcraft" is just an average British horror accomplishment from the sixties, but I'm slightly biased and overenthusiastic because I'm a big admirer of the subject matter (witchery and family curses),the director (Don Sharp also made "Psychomania", "Dark Places" and many other overlooked genre movies) and the notorious cool guy who receives top billing even though he only sporadically appears in the film (Lon Chaney in finally another role that suits his grim appearance). Somewhere deep in the remote en rural British countryside, the centuries old feud between the Whitlock clan and the Lanier family sparks up again. For the big upcoming real estate project of the Laniers, a bulldozer ravages straight through the Whitlock family cemetery and destroys the grave of 17th Century ancestress Vanessa Whitlock, whom was accused of witchery and buried alive by the Lanier family. Well, the accusation wasn't false for sure, as Vanessa promptly rises from the tomb and teams up with the grumpy Morgan Whitlock in order to bring the entire Lanier family down. Several members of the Lanier family die in mysterious circumstances, but complications arise when it turns out that Morgan's little niece Amy is in love with a Lanier enemy. "Witchcraft" is a competent enough and well-paced occult thriller with gloomy black & white cinematography, a couple of original ideas in its screenplay and an extremely tense finale. Lon Chaney Jr. is naturally menacing, but the biggest creeps are provided by Yvette Rees as silent the hypnotically staring witch Vanessa Whitlock. If she would appear behind me on a flight of stairs, I would surely throw myself down from them as well! There are also two very nifty and imaginative fright scenes involving a car and its passenger(s) driving through a bumpy landfill and towards certain death, although in their minds it looks as if they're driving on a safe and cozy lane.

Having watched horror movies from the age of four, and still going strong today in my 40s. Two films that spring to mind that scared me as a kid were "The Night Walker", and "Witchcraft". unfortunately neither are shown anymore on TV,which to me is a great pity as films like this do give you the creeps and certain scenes from these movies still stand firmly in my memory after all this time. Forget all the gallons of blood and gory mutilation that movies today seem to rely on. Give the audience the old traditional things that go bump in the night, the dark shadows flashing across the walls, eerie sounds etc... With the movie Witchcraft, I can remember a couple of sheer terror moments as a child watching this at my Nans house. One being a woman gets into her car in the morning, she checks into the rear view mirror everything fine.She glances a second time, only this time the witch is sitting in the back seat staring at her. This then results in her crashing the vehicle down an embankment. The second scene is a man taking a bath,and in another part of town the witch is holding a voodoo doll of the man, then submerges the doll into a water vat, thus drowning him. Hope this film will become available on DVD someday.. after all its been 35yrs since I last saw it..

Vengeful witch Vanessa Whitlock (strikingly played by the slim, sharp-featured Yvette Rees, who looks like Barbara Steele) gets resurrected in the present day after her grave is desecrated by land developers. Vanessa, assisted by angry warlock Morgan Whitlock (a fine, forceful performance by Lon Chaney, Jr.),exacts a harsh revenge on the Lanier family, whose ancestors buried her alive 300 years ago. Director Don Sharp, working from a compact script by Harry Spalding, relates the absorbing story at a steady pace. Moreover, Sharp does an expert job of creating an eerie, misty, midnight-in-the-cemetery gloom-doom atmosphere, stages the shock scenes with commendable gusto, and delivers a few nice murder set pieces. The sturdy acting from a solid cast qualifies as another significant asset: Jack Hadley as the smart, rationale Bill Lanier, Jill Dixon as Bill's charming wife Tracy, David Weston as Bill's likable son Todd, Diane Clare as the fetching Amy Whitlock, Marie Ney as the fragile, elderly Malvina Lanier, Viola Keats as the scared, superstitious Helen Lanier, and Victor Brooks as the puzzled Inspector Baldwin. Arthur Lewis' crisp, agile black and white cinematography, the grimly serious tone, Carlo Martelli's spooky'n'shuddery score and the thrilling fiery conclusion are all likewise up to speed. A worthy and rewarding fright flick.