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Lorna Webster (Nancy Kelly) is a young woman returning by bus to her home town of Eben Rock. Just outside of town, the driver swerves to avoid hitting an old woman and her dog. The woman boards the bus and sits next to Lorna, claiming she is a 300 year old witch and knows the Webster family history. Lorna, who has descended from a judge notorious for burning innocent women at the cross hundreds of years ago, understandably freaks out. The bus goes over a cliff and Lorna is the only survivor. She goes back to the empty house she inherited, and gets back in touch with the lover she walked out on two years ago. The townspeople don't take well to Lorna's presence, as she is a woman who both left and returned under mysterious circumstances. Strange things start to happen to around her, and Lorna convinces herself that she has been possessed by the spirit of the woman who sat next to her on the bus. Before long, others in town start to believe she is a witch and mass hysteria ensues.

I had never heard of this movie until I watched "The Bad Seed" last month. I was impressed with Kelly's performance as the tortured mother of the fiendish child. I decided to check to see if she did any other work in the genre and stumbled across this interesting film. Her performance is just as strong and believable as the confused and tormented Lorna Webster.

The film is rather eerie and beautifully filmed. There are creepy scenes with excellent lighting and shadow play, where Lorna is alone in her family's dark mansion, thinking about her ancestors' history, haunted by nighttime sounds and shadows. The dog that belonged to the woman on the bus seems to follow her wherever she goes and has a very ominous presence. Is Lorna going crazy, or is she really possessed by a witch? While the movie tries to straddle this line between psychological and supernatural, and is effective part of the time, it works best as a statement about mass panic and judgment. The townsfolk know that Lorna is descendant from a judge who condemned innocent women as witches, yet are quickly thrust into the 17th century themselves as soon as Lorna shows that she's a little off-kilter. The movie works on another level, as Lorna is a small-town woman in the 40s who asserts her independence by leaving her home and her lover without explanation. She is secretly reviled by everyone upon her return for these reasons, as well as being the only survivor of the bus accident, which is probably why they are so quick to jump to conclusions about her presence.

The film is rather short and the ending is sort of a groaner that in that it is wrapped up too easily and makes some of the earlier scenes seem questionable. But overall, this is a good, eerie film with a strong lead performance.

The Woman Who Came Back is a largely unknown little forties horror film; but it's a rather good one also. The film focuses on witchcraft, and in particular the idea of a witch coming back to avenge her death. This idea would of course go on to be used in many, many films after 1945; but this is one of the earlier examples. The Woman Who Came Back is an eerie horror film that mostly relies on its atmosphere and inventiveness in order to deliver the chills, and this works quite effectively. The plot focuses on a young woman named Lorna Webster who catches a bus back home to Eben Rock. She finds herself sitting next to a cackling old woman, and before she knows it; the bus has been involved in an accident and Lorna is the only survivor. She then goes back to her old house and is reacquainted with her old lover; but she's haunted by the old woman on the bus who told Lorna of an old town legend regarding a witch that swore vengeance on her executioner. One thing leads to another, and Lorna comes to believe she is the reincarnation of that witch...

The film is very short at just sixty eight minutes, but this time is used very well and the film doesn't feel rushed or underdone for most of the duration. The plot flows very well too and director Walter Colmes keeps his audience interested by constantly feeding us with new ideas and pieces of information. There isn't a great deal of films about witchcraft (compared to other subgenres) and that's a shame really because it certainly is very interesting. This film manages to get most of things that most people would associate with witchcraft into it; including spells and the witch's familiar, which helps to make the proceedings more interesting. The performances are all very strong; with Nancy Kelly giving a particularly convincing performance in the central role. It's the atmosphere that is the real star, however, and a sequence midway through with a storm is a real standout. The film is good for about the first hour but unfortunately it's let down more than just a little bit by the ending; which does wrap things up a bit too quickly. However, this is still a very good little film and one that I'm sure will please most people with a mind to see it.

"Woman Who Came Back" is an okay film made by one of the best 'poverty row' studios, Republic. It's a little better than average for one of their films but the ending just left me very cold and unsatisfied.

The film begins with a weird old lady and her dog stopping a bus. The lady climbs aboard and begins regaling a young lady (Nancy Kelly) with stories about how she is the spirit of a centuries-old witch! Soon, the bus plunges over an embankment and everyone aboard, aside from the young lady, is killed. Soon, strange thing happen around town (such as the dog appearing to the lady and refusing to leave her side) and slowly the idiots in the town and the lady begin to wonder if she is the reincarnation of the witch who was burned so long ago.

So far, the film is a bit silly but well done and entertaining. But the studio insisted on explaining away everything at the end--so much so that I felt it undermined the story. Still, it was mildly enjoyable and I always like seeing Otto Kruger in any film. Not great but a decent time-passer.

THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK stars Nancy Kelly (THE BAD SEED) as Lorna Webster, direct descendent of the 17th Century magistrate responsible for "sending eighteen women to their fiery deaths," in the infamous Massachusetts town of Eben Rock. Coming back by bus, Lorna shares her seat with a black-veiled hag (THE OLD DARK HOUSE's Elspeth Dudgeon) who claims to be Jezebel Trister, Judge Elijah Webster's most famous victim. When the bus plunges into Shadow Lake, Lorna is the sole survivor - with the body of the strange woman nowhere to be found. So begins a series of strange encounters that threaten to plunge modern Eben Rock back into the dark ages.

THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK is a neat little Lewtonian drama about Old Country superstitions festering in the New World. Eben Rock is a town unable to rest comfortably on its own foundations (the Webster family tree hangs heavy with the kind of scoundrels that found nations), making less a story about the supernatural than of how superstition drives the sensitive and marginal away from reason and true faith (embodied here by the friendship between John Loder's town doctor and Otto Kruger's sage minister).

Although THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK seems influenced by the psychological horror films being produced by Val Lewton at RKO around the same time, the film also anticipates a key bit of business in the later CARNIVAL OF SOULS (the survivor of an aquatic auto accident later coming to doubt her sanity). Highly recommended.

Extremely atmospheric at times... eerie, dark and suspenseful. I loved all the film minus the ending. Eerie Halloween costumes, creepy dolls, a very protective - almost evil - German Shepard, strange happenings in the town of Eden Rock, Massachusetts, dead roses, a scary old lady, a witch in town - yea this film has everything needed for a great horror film if they would have kept it that way in the ending.

I really liked Rev. Jim Stevens he's a really good character and his church sermon was scene was great - if you have seen this film you know the scene I'm speaking of - really outstanding.

The dead roses scene at the beginning of the film would have been good IF John Loder, who plays Dr. Matt Adams, would have acted shocked about the fresh roses being dead when he gave them to Nancy Kelly (who plays Lorna Webster). He almost ruined that scene with his wooden performance - at least Nancy Kelly continued with grace.

I would have rated this film 9/10 if it wasn't for the ending - the film is great but I was disappointed with the ending.

7/10

THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK is a 1940s-era spook fest with much in line with the Val Lewton horrors of the era. It's a low-key, atmospheric production about a woman who arrives at a small town in Massachusetts and is the only survivor of a bus crash (shades of UNBREAKABLE). Once she settles down in the town, the superstitious locals begin to suspect that she's possessed by the spirit of a vengeful witch.

It's fair to say that not much really happens in this movie, and nor does it need to. THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK is a short, thinly-plotted story that's more about building a sense of mood and place than anything else. It's quite expressionistic in style, with lots of shadowy scenes and spooky, half-explained moments. The cast are certainly adroit and the only thing that really lets it down is the ending, but until that point? Lewton himself would be proud.

After a two-year absence Lorna Webster (Nancy Kelly) is returning to her hometown. Beside her on the bus is a crone looking woman, Jezebel Trister (Elspeth Dudgeon,) who is also traveling to the town to get revenge on the descendent of the Webster that burned her as a witch 300 years ago. The bus veers off the road in crashes into the lake. Only Lorna survives and the body of the old lady is not found.

Was there an old lady? Or was it an imaginary figment? This and other strange coincidences are convincing Lorna that she is being possessed with whtchyness and the town is going along with her.?

Will she and her little dog too, dispatch the town's people one by one or will they have the courage to do unto her first?

As a psychological thriller, some may want to compare this film to Val Lewton. I think more in the line of She-Wolf of London (1946) with June Lockhart.

Very old Elspeth Dudgeon flags down a bus and sits next to Nancy Kelly the descendant of an old hanging judge, or maybe burning judge would be better of the town she's headed for. Right after the bus crashes and everybody dies except for Kelly and the fierce German Shepherd dog who was Dudgeon's companion.

When she gets back all kinds of things start happening to make Kelly thinks she's possessed by the spirit of one of those women that was burned as a witch who threatened to come back and get even. For one thing the old woman's body was not accounted for. It's all a puzzle to the town doctor John Loder and the town preacher Otto Kruger.

In the words of that old Fred Astaire song, this film builds you up to an awful let down. Some compare it to a Val Lewton type thriller. I think if Lewton had anything to do with it he was right to keep his name off.

Everyone looks so earnest in this film though. A shame for some talented players to waste their time.

The Woman Who Came Back is one of the many low budget horror movies made in the 1940's. Of the ones I've seen, this is one of the best.

After surviving a bus crash, a young woman comes back to her home town of Eben Rock and thinks she is a 300 year old witch and blames herself for a series of strange happenings in the town which include the bus crash and making a little girl become ill.

This movie is rather creepy at times and includes a thunderstorm and some good photography.

The cast includes Nancy Kelly (Tarzan's Desert Mystery, Bad Seed) as the "Witch", Otto Kruger (The Colossus of New York) and John Loder (Now, Voyager).

The Woman Who Came Back is a must for old horror fans. See it if you get the chance.

Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.

Nancy Kelly (Lorna) returns to her small town after a 2 year absence. She is on the bus into town when cackling hag Elspeth Dudgeon (Jezebel) gets on and sits next to her. This old lady seems to know Nancy and claims to be 300 years old. The next thing that happens is the bus crashes into a lake and there are no survivors. Except Nancy. What is eerier is that there is no body of the old woman, she has just disappeared and no-one believes Nancy that she even ever existed. Well, she did exist. And Nancy seems to now possess some kind of evil spirit and be in tune with the darker forces of nature. There is a reason as foretold by a curse that tells of the revenge of an innocent woman burnt at the stake after being accused of a witch - she will return after a 300 year period and take over the body of a young woman to exact revenge. Uh-oh, guess who Nancy has just had an encounter with…..

This film has great potential and a good beginning but just sort of meanders until a real let-down of an ending that doesn't make sense. Shame. And why is John Loder (Matt) topping the bill in this film? It's Nancy Kelly's film – she's even in the goddam title, folks! There are some nice touches and spooky sequences but the film lacks that "kerpow!" factor, especially with the let-down of an ending. Could have been a strong, spooky witch film. As it is, it's OK as something different to watch.

For Woman Who Came Back, director Walter Colmes takes a leaf out of Val Lewton's book, suggesting the horror and building atmosphere rather than being too blatant. But Colmes ain't Lewton, and the majority of his film is a colossal bore.

It's a shame, because it starts off well enough: an old woman boards a bus bound for Eben, Massachusetts, and sits next to Lorna Webster (Nancy Kelly), who is returning to her home town after two years away. The old woman tells Lorna she is Jezebel Trister, a 300 year old witch who was condemned to be burnt alive by Lorna's great great grandfather; the bus then plunges over a cliff and into a lake.

Lorna is the only survivor of the accident, and she slowly comes to believe that she has been possessed by the spirit of Jezebel, despite her fiancé Dr. Matt Adams (John Loder) trying to get her to see sense. Unfortunately, the superstitious locals also think that Lorna is a witch, blaming her for the sudden sickness of Matt's niece Peggy.

What follows the crash is extremely slow and not very eventful, which makes it hard to remain focussed on the film, even with a relatively short runtime of sixty-eight minutes. Colmes most obvious Lewton-inspired scene is when Peggy's mother Ruth walks home from church, followed by a large dog that may or may not be a witch's familiar, but he fails to achieve the desired sense of menace.

After much ambiguity, the viewer never sure whether Lorna is actually possessed or going crazy, the film wraps up matters far too neatly with a weak ending (imposed by the studio?) that proves that the woman is neither a witch nor losing her mind. The creepiest thing about the whole film are those children's Halloween costumes.

1945's "Woman Who Came Back" was an independent feature filmed as simply "The Web" before being picked up for release by Poverty Row Republic, among the few directorial outings for little known producer Walter Colmes. The Massachusetts town of Eben Rock is the setting, 300 years after the fabled Judge Elijah Webster condemned 15 women to death for practicing witchcraft in league with the devil. Nancy Kelly stars as Lorna Webster, descendant of the judge, who is engaged to wed prominent physician Matt Adams (John Loder), only to vanish for two years to get away from the town's morbid talk of witches. On her way home by bus, she is accosted by a mysterious old lady (Elspeth Dudgeon) with a dog who claims to be a witch that knew Judge Webster 300 years earlier, an encounter that ends abruptly and tragically with the driver losing control and skidding into a nearby lake. Curiously, Lorna is the sole survivor, while everyone else is accounted for except the old witch, leaving behind the supposed hound from hell, literally dogging our distraught protagonist for the rest of the picture. All the locals continue to wallow in the past, treating poor Lorna like an outcast to be feared in working up a frenzy for mob violence after a young child comes down with pneumonia from walking in the rain, a malady laid at Lorna's feet out of sheer ignorance. The ingredients are there for a genuine Val Lewton chiller, but the clunky script is so heavily burdened with coincidence that unexplained events produce fits of laughter as the screen repeatedly fades to black, no one behaving in believable or even likable fashion. Otto Kruger's minister comes off as the only rational resident, while Nancy Kelly is such an easily deluded milksop that no man would be smitten with the likes of her, steadfastly refusing to be honest about her bewildering actions so that Loder's doctor even resorts to shaking her in mild fury. This film has received a number of accolades over the years by people who likely encountered it in younger days, but beware the unwary adult indulging in its exacerbating, overwrought, and undernourished plotline, no witchcraft involved for its beleaguered heroine, who collapses like a house of cards with every turn of the screw. Not the most legendary cheat that audiences endured at the time, that honor earned by THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS and its waste of a Peter Lorre performance, blatantly exploiting the supernatural while relentlessly beating down a hysterical neurotic who earns not a whiff of sympathy.

Lorna Webster (Nancy Kelly) finds herself in the town of Eben Rock, as the sole survivor of a bus accident. Lorna is haunted by visions of a mysterious woman in black whom she remembers from the bus. This is impossible since the woman Lorna is seeing has been dead for 300 years!

THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK is a foreboding, supernatural mystery. The New England setting is effective, as is the church and its crypt beneath.

Unfortunately, this movie is almost ruined by a rushed, all-too-convenient ending that seems tacked on. Still, the rest of it is good enough to recommend...