Review of Witchcraft

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.