Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

mark.waltz Don't go into this Italian film expecting anything resembling a Hammer horror movie. It is deliberately slow, erotic, moody and gripping. Once you get past the pacing, you will find this an interesting piece of foreign cinema that is more a subtle erotic thriller than a masterpiece of horror. The luscious looking Rosanna Schiaffino is the subject of lust by Richard Johnson, hired to work at the mysterious castle by her mother, the aging beauty Sarah Ferrati in archiving the erotic works of her late husband. It appears that Ferrati has a secret, and as Johnson becomes more involved in their world, he is consumed by his passions that are other worldly in their obsession for Schiaffino. Along the way, there's a battle to the death with Gian Maria Volontè, Schiaffino's obsessive paramour, and claims from an aging female art collector about Ferrati that creates more mystery. I don't watch many foreign films, but the dubbed copy of this I was able to locate made it easy for me to get into, and I found it compelling once certain aspects of the characters were revealed. As it reaches its spell binding conclusion, I was all the more intrigued, especially with the final few minutes where everything from before that was slow and confusing literally had my mind bursting metaphorically into flames. Horror doesn't always need to be scary or spooky or gross. This works on its own merits and is as intriguing as a stranger's wink, although after seeing this, a stranger's wink might make me think twice before responding to it.

Bezenby This is a strange one. Richard Johnson (whom you might know from Martin Clunes' Doc Martin) is a lover of many women in Rome (a fanny rat, as they say). The thing is, he's getting the feeling that there's this creepy old woman following him around the place. After trying to track her down several times he responds to an ultra specific advert in a magazine looking for a librarian who exactly fits his description - you guessed it -the library is in a creepy old mansion in the middle of Rome and the old lady is seemingly the only inhabitant.The old lady wants him to transcribe all her dead husband's writing and sort the library out and even live in the house. Richard thinks she's full of crap and is halfway out the door when the old lady's daughter Aura makes an appearance, which coincides with Richard reconsidering the job while making eyes at Aura (and she seems up for it!).Aura's up for it only if Richard takes the job, moves in, doesn't mind all the dead cats lying about, ignores the dead husband in the casket and gets rid of the previous transcriber who appears to have gone mad. That sounds like a good idea to Richard, who seems to be thinking with his 'lower brain' as it were.But this is also where things start getting really weird, because Aura also seems to be stringing along the other transcriber, playing mind games with Richard, and Richard's also having to put up with the old lady seemingly spying on him all the time.Is this film sufficiently coffee table? It seems to want to be a horror and an art-house film and some sort of serious battle of the sexes type film, but the only character you can really care about is the other transcriber, Fabrizio, played by Volonte as a very broken man. Richard is too much of a jerk to like, and even gives Aura a good punching at one point. There's rather a lot of blah in this film, but Damiano does through in a lot of strange shots and images too which keeps things from bogging down to much in dialogue. Much stuff involving shadows, darkness, and a very strange interaction between Aura and the old lady too.Don't get me wrong though, it's an okay film, but lacking in the more cerebral aspects, like boobs and gore. This is a long long way from Richard Johnson's late eighties Italian film Ratman, that's for sure!

bensonmum2 Sergio (Richard Johnson) responds to a "Help Wanted" ad for a librarian that seems to have been written just for him. When he arrives at the rambling villa, he meets an old woman who has been following him. At first, he writes her off as a nutty old broad and wants nothing to do with her or her job. But then he meets the old woman's daughter, Aura (Rosanna Schiaffino), and decides the job might have a few more perks than he at first imagined. But is Aura for real and to what lengths will he go to get her.The Witch is a very slow moving, but incredibly intriguing film. The movie takes its time in building the suspense and ultimate horror. And while many of the plot points and twists along the way are surely obvious to most anyone, the fun is watching these plot points and twists unfold. I generally don't put much emphasis on things like this, but the relationship Sergio and Aura is as erotic as I've seen. The passion is all but palatable. And when Aura disappears, it's easy to feel Sergio's pain. The final scenes present a more than satisfying conclusion to the film. Although most viewers will have guessed that the old woman and Aura are really one and the same, the whole notion and the way it's presented in The Witch makes for a nice ending.The acting in The Witch is easily its highpoint. Richard Johnson is outstanding as the love-stricken librarian slowly going insane. As for Rosanna Schiaffino, I don't know where these Italian producers found these incredible women. It's not a stretch of the imagination to believe Schiaffino could force any man to fall for her. Finally, Gian Maria Volonte is tremendous as Aura's former lover. I've only seen Volonte in his crazed, over-the-top roles in Spaghetti Western roles, so it was a nice to see him in a more subdued, yet just as crazed, role.In the end, if you're a fan of Italian horror, The Witch is definitely worth seeking out.

goblinhairedguy This is an absolute masterpiece of extravagant, sensuous Continental 60s art cinema, and provides an "incendiary" Gothic femme fatale to rival the Hayworths and Gardners of film noir. Nominally a horror film (which only becomes completely apparent during the last reel), it actually fits nicely into that 60s subgenre of manipulative mind games and metaphysical character duality, not unlike Losey's "The Servant" (though it's closer in execution to his elegiac "Eva"). Although it's constantly threatening to unravel under the stress of its own pretensions (as was the fate of many international art films of the time), Damiani is firmly in control as he continues to up the ante with a bacchanalia of outrageously stylish devices, visual metaphors and tactile atmospherics. Schiaffino is one of those classic beauties who seemed to fall out of Italian poplar trees at the time, Johnson is suitably arrogant in his machismo, and the exotic flute-and-bongo score is a retro dream driving the erotic game-playing. Many will find its excesses over-the-top or campy, and it's startlingly misogynist at times, but for those tuned in to the excesses of the 60s, this is a mindbending treat right up to the astonishing but fitting conclusion. (As a footnote, it's now plain that Bertolucci's "Last Tango" was not the first to play the make-love-without-touching game.) If you enjoyed this one, try to find the obscure "Death on the Four Poster", which plays with similar themes on a much more transparent, but enjoyable, level.