User reviews

A curious low budget horror film, it has two very talented performers at the head of the cast: Pamela Franklin, of 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' and Orson Welles, of many great films. The script does not give either of them the opportunity to maximise their acting potential though, and in fact, the whole story is fairly predictable, quite ordinary or worse. Still, there are a number of atmospheric segments in the film, with fitting music and camera-work setting the mood. It is excessively dark, the odd sound effects are jarring and the cheap special effects do it no good. However, there are some effective moments in the mix. It is not a very good film overall, but it does have some interesting elements. And, for what it is worth, Franklin's acting at times is quite natural.

When you're making a thriller about witchcraft, I believe you should do everything you can to help the audience suspend its disbelief in order for the movie to work. Some pictures ("Rosemary's Baby", for example) have accomplished this; others (like "Necromancy") haven't and the potentially scary material comes across as corny and goofy. This film does have some atmospheric moments, but about half the dialogue is hard to make out (sometimes it's poorly recorded, at other times just incomprehensible) and Orson Welles, who gets top billing, has a role that is so BENEATH him that you have to assume he was desperate for the work. Or maybe he was simply having fun.....(*1/2)

Writer/producer/director Bert I. Gordon, known best for his various '50's giant-monster-on-the-loose sci-fi epics, does his rendition of ROSEMARY'S BABY. The action takes place in a small, sinister village that specializes in the manufacturing of occult toys. Orson Welles is the madman at the center of the terror who is plotting to give his dead son life again. Pamela Franklin is the pert and pretty young woman gradually being lured into the dark and mysterious world of the supernatural. Despite prominent billing, Welles makes a fairly brief appearance. The cast handles the tiresome material well, and this is probably the closest Gordon has come to making a good film. But, keep in mind, it's not really a good film, but an absurdly entertaining diversion for those who think they can take it. A slightly longer version of the movie called THE WITCHING contains several minutes worth of frontal nudity, and contains an early appearance by scream queen Brinke Stevens.

I watched this film under the title "Necromancy" it aka "The Witching". I do not know the differences between the two titles. I do know that watching this one as "Necromancy" was a pretty good, not great but not awful.

Little things will happen from the start of the film but really won't get going until about 25 minutes into it - as far as lots of actual witchcraft going on or is Lori Brandon going mad, dreaming up the witchcraft? I won't ruin the film for first time viewers, but I can tell you it's a bizarre film that will have you wondering if it's real or all in Lori's head.

It's a surreal film that I found worth the hour watch - not great but a fun watch! 5/10

I saw an extended version of "Necromancy" that is available to watch on YouTube. The introduction claims that deleted footage was restored in this version--making the film more complete and coherent. So, when you see some reviews that hated the movie, it is possible they saw the shorter version. As for me, the film I saw was MUCH better than the current 4.2 and this could be because it's more the director or writer's original vision.

Pamela Franklin stars as Lori. While Orson Welles gets top billing, she was clearly the focus of the film...and I assume they billed Welles first to improve marketing or as part of the contract to get Welles to appear in the movie. Lori recently had a miscarriage and her husband Frank (Michael Ontkean) has taken a job near the town of Lillith. However, the folks offering the job had a lot of strange questions--questions about his and his wife's religious beliefs. While these sort of questions are illegal to ask, he responds that they are both atheists and that seemed to make the employer happy...or so Frank says.

When they get to Lillith, they find the place is a hellhole....and that really isn't an exaggeration! The folks are all members of a Satanic cult led by Mr. Cato (Welles) and Lori naturally wants to leave. But Frank inexplicably blows off her worries and seems to like the place and the strange people. So why did they REALLY come here and why are the folks so interested in Lori?

This movie is above all, creepy...with a dark, brooding atmosphere throughout. The story, though sometimes confusing, was also pretty interesting...but suffers some because of its close similarity to "Rosemary's Baby". In other words, if you've already seen this earlier film it's pretty easy to guess what's going on in "Necromancy". Not a great film but food if you would like a few chills.

Cheapjack shocker has Los Angeles couple pulling up stakes after the wife suffers a miscarriage; her husband has been offered a lucrative job in the rural town of Lilith, but her freaky premonitions foretell an unhappy experience, especially with fat cat Orson Welles overseeing the community and its devil-worshipping residents (all under 30). Pamela Franklin has the central role, and she's an interesting presence even if she's been directed to stare at the other actors (and into the camera) as if under a spell. Writer-producer-director Bert I. Gordon should have taken his cue from William Castle after Castle bought the rights to "Rosemary's Baby" but allowed outsiders to take the reins. Gordon's plot, despite its familiar occult trappings, does have some interest, but the presentation is inept. *1/2 from ****

The film "Necromancy" (1972) was considerably altered for a re-released version which I'm not sure was ever shown in theaters (it may have been a straight-to-video release). This altered version, re-titled "The Witching"(1981, if I'm not mistaken) is apparently only one of several such versions. Since they are under other titles ("A Life For A Life", "Rosemary's Disciples", etc.), I'm assuming (though I'm not certain) that these have been altered further. However, I have seen both "Necromancy" & "The Witching". While the original film (which is next to impossible to find anywhere-though I was able to track down a copy) is a suspenseful, gothic horror film, various key elements were removed for "The Witching", including: the final scene, which clears up some plot points while adding a final twist to the story; both the opening & closing titles, which were replaced with painfully ordinary sequences; & the original music score, which included a memorable song entitled "The Morning After" (not to be confused with the Oscar-winning song of the same title used in "The Poseidon Adventure", released the same year).The new (completely different) music score is horribly, embarassingly cheesy. The sequence of scenes, in some places, was also changed slightly & there was additional (& badly misplaced) footage added. I can only imagine what liberties have been taken with the more recent altered versions, since seeing for myself what else has been done to the original film would be much scarier than "Necromancy" itself.

This drive-in schlockfest has Pamela Franklin starring as a Los Angeles woman who moves to a bizarre small town in Northern California with her husband (Michael Ontkean) where he is to be employed for a toy company. The longer she spends there, the more disconcerted she becomes over the influence his boss, Mr. Cato (Orson Welles), has on the townspeople, which consist exclusively of young, fresh-faced hippies with a taste for all things occult.

"Necromancy" had a troubled release history and was apparently re-edited to some degree in the early 1980s and re-released as a softcore film under the title "The Witching Hour"; the cut of the film I saw was apparently an early R-rated cut under the "Necromancy" title that is allegedly close to writer-director Burt Gordon's original vision, if you want to call it that. "Necromancy" as a whole feels like a "vision" of sorts-a hazy, drugged-out romp through Manson family-era California, with a supernatural twist. It suffers terribly from disjointed editing and a general lack of cohesion, which is disappointing given that the narrative is actually quite straightforward.

The film will remain an eternal curiosity for Welles's involvement, though his role is minimal and his presence generally underwhelming. The lovely Pamela Franklin (who many genre fans know and love from "The Innocents" and "Legend of Hell House") is a formidable lead and does what she can with the material; a strappingly handsome Michael Ontkean plays her husband and is less impressive but still has a likable screen presence; and Lee Purcell (later of Wes Craven's TV schlocker "Summer of Fear") is aptly doe-eyed and dead-faced as a distant member of the town/coven trying to revive Welles's dead son.

The film has a clever albeit rather standard twist that gives it a fun bite considering most of it is rather straightforward despite its acid-trip aesthetics. In the end, the film suffers greatly from serious disjointedness (presumably because it is so badly edited), but there are some ominous, utterly bizarre (and sometimes eerie) visuals throughout that are distinct to the era. Ultimately, what we have here is a drive-in-calibre occult flick, which, depending on who you are, may or may not be a complete delight. For visuals alone, I feel it's worth watching, though it does present itself as a serious case of "what might have been." 7/10.

If you go to a town named Lilith to live, you should not be surprised that the town is run by devil worshippers. If Orson Welles comes to you in a robe and his name is Mr. Cato, you should not be shocked to learn that he wants to use you to raise his son from the grave. What is surprising is that for a movie promising rituals and raising the dead, Necromancy isn't all that exciting.

Directed by Bert I. Gordon (War of the Colossal Beast, Picture Mommy Dead), the master of rear projection, this film is all about Lori Brandon (Pamela Franklin, The Legend of Hell House, And Soon the Darkness), a woman who has recently lost a child. She moves with her husband, Richard (Michael Ontkean, Sheriff Harry S. Truman from Twin Peaks) to the aforementioned town of Lilith to start over again.

On the way there, they get in an accident and kill a woman, but it's totally glossed over because this is 1972. Life was cheap. At least Lori gets a baby doll out of this accident.

There used to be a sign in my hometown that said, "What Ellwood City makes, makes Ellwood City." The town of Lilith makes one thing: the world's finest occult paraphernalia. There's one great scene here with Lori sees her image inside a tarot card, a really evocative scene thrown away in a film that is otherwise less than memorable.

If you've seen Rosemary's Baby, you know exactly how this is all gonna turn out. If you are the star of a 1970's horror movie — especially if you are Donald Sutherland — expect to die. Horribly.

Much like the devil, Necromancy goes by many names, such as The Witching, A Life for a Life, Horror-Attack, Rosemary's Disciples and The Toy Factory. When Paragon Video re-released it on VHS in 1982, they chopped out tons of story and dialogue to insert scenes of nude witches like Brinke Stevens and even more Satanic rituals.

As much as I love Orson Welles — we'll have a whole month of his films at some point, I'm certain — this is not his finest hour. He has some fine speeches, but the material is Mrs. Paul's level. Beneath him.

I figured that any horror film with Orson Welles in it would be weird. Necromancy sure was but it was a little too weird for it's own good. The film does indeed have a creepy feel as it deals with a coven of satanists/witches in a small town and a young woman's attempt to escape them. The director though seems to be deliberately trying to confuse the audience by using flashbacks and dream sequences. By the finale, there are too many unanswered questions. What's worse, as the story is so confusing, it's pretty hard to root for any of the characters. It seems odd that Welles would agree to headline this film especially since he doesn't have that much to do. Maybe someday they will put out a tape of the outtakes and bloopers from this movie. Now that would really be fun!

A young marriage (Pamela Franklyn , Michael Ontkean) go to a little town when the husband has got a job at a toy enterprise . There Mr. Cato (Orson Welles) is the head of a community whose one enterprise is the the manufacture of occult toys. Cato runs a witches' coven in the town of Lilith, where he needs the powers of Lori Brandon to raise his son from the dead. Cato, as it turns out , takes his witchcraft seriously and attempts to use to bring his dead son back to life . To do so, he needs a willing sacrifice Life to the Dead and Death to the Living. Enter the Occult World of 'Necromancy"

Poorly made tale of the misadventures of a young marriage and man's continuity quest for supernatural power , as Welles as the high priest out to get victim Franklyn . It displays ordinary elements of the witchery subgenre : Devil worship, witchcraft , diabolic possession and adding some scenes of fully nude coven worship . The picture displays lots of creepy , eerie and nonsense moments. Bizarre, tense, controversial and with chilling scenes about practices of devil worship and satanism ritual . Production values and set design are highlighted by the usual cool scenarios, as exterior , as colorful interior. Make-up and visual effects provide some much needed jolts . Some of the effects are little dated now, but director Bert I Gordon builds intrigue and tension enough through a stately pace. Top-notch casting , in this otherwise average production , as Orson Welles stands out playing his showy role. Orson's acting , is one of his strongest in an unconventionally nasty role. Whenever he was making a movie just for money , Orson would disguise himself . In this piece of horror trash from filmmaker Bert I. Gordon , Welles wears both a fake nose and a false beard . While Pamela Franklyn -still haunted by debuting in the successful The Innocents- is cool a as the unfortunate victim . Main and support cast are acceptable , such as : Pamela Franklin , Orson Welles , Lee Purcell , Michael Ontkean , Sue Bernard and Harvey Jason who married Pamela Franklyn . Rare and frightening musical score Rob Walsh and Karger . As well as atmospheric cinematography by Winton C. Hoch , John Ford's regular cameraman , and shooting took place in Los Gatos, California.

The motion picture was regularly directed by Bert I Gordon. He is a good artisan working from the 50s to 2000s , making passable films in low budget. He's directed movies of all kinds of genres as children films : The Magic Sword, The boy and the pirates. About witchery and necromancy : The Witching, Burning at the stake, Satan's princess. Erotic : The Big Bet, Let's do it. And Bert has a penchant for fantasy with giant beings and huge animals : The Cyclops, King Dinosaur, Earth vs the Spider. Beginning of the end, War of the Colossal beast, Village of the giants, Attack of the Puppet people, Empire of the ants, The food of the goods, among others . Rating : 4,5/10, so-so , but acceptable and passable . The tale will appeal to horror pictures harcore enthusiasts and Orson Welles/Pamela Franklyn fans.

Like most comments I saw this film under the name of The Witching which is the reissue title. Apparently Necromancy which is the original is better but I doubt it.

Most scenes of the witching still include most necromancy scenes and these are still bad. In many ways I think the added nudity of the witching at least added some entertainment value! But don't be fooled -there's only 3 scenes with nudity and it's of the people standing around variety. No diabolique rumpy pumpy involved!

This movie is so inherently awful it's difficult to know what to criticise first. The dialogue is awful and straight out of the Troma locker. At least Troma is tongue in cheek though. This is straight-faced boredom personified. The acting is variable with Pamela Franklin (Flora the possessed kid in The Innocents would you believe!) the worst with her high-pitched screechy voice. Welles seems merely waiting for his pay cheque. The other female lead has a creepy face so I don't know why Pamela thought she could trust her in the film! And the doctor is pretty bad too. He also looks worringly like Gene Wilder.

It is ineptly filmed with scenes changing for no reason and editing is choppy. This is because the witching is a copy and paste job and not a subtle one at that. Only the lighting is OK. The sound is also dreadful and it's difficult to hear with the appalling new soundtrack which never shuts up. The 'ghost' mother is also equally rubbish but the actress is so hilariously bad at acting that at least it provides some unintentional laughs.

Really this film (the witching at least) is only for the unwary. It can't have many sane fans as it's pretty unwatchable and I actually found it mind-numbingly dull!

The best bit was when the credits rolled - enough said so simply better to this poor excuse for a movie LIKE THE PLAGUE!

When a film has no fewer than FIVE different titles, it usually means several things and almost always means that the film has major flaws somewhere. Necromancy has major flaws and is just out and out bad. I saw the version on video called Rosemary's Disciples. Yes, I am sure it differs from other versions, but I am not inclined to think that in any way is any other version and the few more minutes it might have - going to be really any better. The story is perhaps the biggest problem: the film opens with Laurie waking up and her husband taking her to a town where he has a new job at a toy factory for occultists(yep, it gets bad this early!). The town is called Lillith and has some guy with a rifle on the bridge to make sure only those selected by the "owner" of the town are allowed in. Soon we find that everyone living in Lillith is a witch and all follow the directives of Mr. Cato - the head of this municipal coven who wants his dead son back(hence the name Necromancy). The people in the town do witch kind of stuff - have ceremonies, some like wearing a goat's head, and promiscuity abounds(not much really shown in this area), but none of these people are very good actors. Mr. Cato is played robustly by the figuratively and literally larger-than-life movie maverick Orson Welles. Welles is misused, but, make no mistake, he is the best thing in this movie. And that is really the saddest part of Necromancy as Welles gives a pretty poor and pedestrian performance with little directorial guidance. In one scene at a party, director Bert I Gordon keeps going back to Welles watching the action of the party using the exact same frames! It looked ridiculous. As did the scene that was repeatedly seen over and over again of a woman's arm centered in swirling flames after a car crash. It looked like the arm of a shop mannequin. The story is never fully utilized as we never really know what happens: many scenes are shot like dreams or hallucinations and never confirmed. This also applies to the corny, hokey ending. The lead Pamela Franklin is pert and pretty and has some talent. Other than her performance, real slim pickings from the rest of the cast sans Welles. The direction and story were both done by Gordon who obviously had little gas left in the engine. This is not a good movie in any way under any name.

It's surprising to see the genius Orson Welles accepting parts in what must be considered less than mediocre films, and this one must have been one of his very worst. He actually doesn't act much, which doesn't help the film, which gets messed up in an affected efforts at expressionism, in which all the intended horror gets lost - the story could have been made something truly horrible of, but instead it gets drowned in mannerisms of mumbo-jumbo. Sorry, Orson Welles, you oftentimes made better, but you seldom made worse.

There are two versions of this movie: the original (1971) and a 1983 version ("The Witching"), the latter of which is not worth watching. If you stick to the original, you will find a flawed, but surprisingly effective and dark, horror movie.

While some of the writing and editing is a bit heavy-handed and, frankly, clumsy at points, Pamela Franklin manages to carry this movie admirably. Frankly, the director could have cast just about anyone in the other parts, and I'm not certain it would have mattered. She is at all points the focal point of this film. As such, Welles is just an audience draw. He was by no means essential.

In terms of subject matter, I would put it in the class of movies that came out immediately after "Rosemary's Baby." It is not that movie's equal by any standard. (Stylistically, it is perhaps closer to Romero's "Season of the Witch.") There are many of the same themes: child-birth used for "unnatural" or potentially evil ends; secretive societies within "normal" settings; an alternately naive, sweet/doe-eyed female who is also intelligent, strong-willed and quite perceptive; the often "absent" and not entirely trustworthy husband.

In the end, while this film is not nearly as focused and sharp as RB, the choppy, low-budget feel to the camera work and editing in Necromancy actually works to keep it somewhat phantasmagoric and nightmarish. The ending sequences, with the twist, are actually quite good.

As an aside, the film does appear to have been filmed in part in Los Gatos, California. The funeral scenes appear to have been shot near the Lexington Reservoir, and the exterior shots are likely of houses near the downtown that still stand unchanged, as Los Gatos has retained its "preserve the past" zoning standards --a not unimportant point given the theme of the movie.

I imagine that the young people involved in the making of "Necromancy" (aka "The Witching" plus a bunch of other titles) must have felt a little weird being on the set of a horror movie with the man who: participated with John Houseman in the production of a proletarian play ("The Cradle Will Rock"); scared people into thinking that aliens were invading ("The War of the Worlds"); and directed and starred in the greatest movie of all time ("Citizen Kane"). And now Orson Welles was starring in a third-rate flick about a satanic cult.

There's basically nothing creative about this movie. Lots of nudity, but the background music always proves really distracting. Even if the movie wasn't particularly predictable, it still wasn't worth seeing. How low Welles had sunk. Fortunately, over the final thirteen years of his life, he narrated the documentary "Bugs Bunny Superstar" (about the Warner Bros. cartoons of the 1940s) and hosted the documentary "The Man who Saw Tomorrow" (about Nostradamus). I recommend those two, but not this one. Just avoid it.

Also starring Pamela Franklin and Michael Ontkean.

Now this is weirddddd. Sheriff Harry S. Truman from Twin Peaks gets himself a job at a toy factory in a town called Lillith and tells his wife they are packing up and going. The wife (played by Pamela Franklin) is reluctant to go. Then starts the shenanigans... we soon learn Orson Welles is an occult leader in the town made up of witches and he is looking to raise his son from the dead.

I'm not a huge fan of the late 60s early 70s aesthetic but there is something sort of oddly appealing about the occult films like this and Rosemary's Baby that came out during this time. The first two thirds are relatively slow with some good atmosphere, and not-so-great acting (unless you like the extra cheese) but turns pretty damn great in the final 30 minutes.

Director Bert I. Gordon (who is still with us God bless his soul) gives us some nice subtle shots throughout (like the birdcage shot, and a few of the editing sequences). Looks like I'll need to check out the rest of his filmography and take a dive into the cheese fest.

Ok, I've seen plenty of movies dealing with witches and the occult but this one was just plain weird. This movie starts out as this cult of witches led by a really bad Orson Wells playing the staring role (couldn't they have gotten somebody that looked and acted more like a Satanist) he just did not belong in this movie at all. But anyhow, the coven takes a new member and stabs a doll that resembles somebody and makes her have a miscarrage. The lady that had the miscarrage and her husband go off to a place called Lillith on busness and the lady meanwhile is seeing an image of her sister or whoever it is calling to her and warning her to stay away from there and to never use her powers there or she will die. The couple after they get settled down in the strange town discover that all the inhabitants are all witches and she becomes nosey and afraid of all of her neighbors and friends. Then strange things start to happen as the lady discovers a funeral taking place on a hill that suddenly disapears (that was creepy) as well as seeing the little boy belonging to Orson Wells at the playgroud that he later asks the lady to help him bring back to life. The lady soon tries to escape the town but only to find herself traped by it's inhabitants and powers and finds herself ignoring all of what the spirit tries to warn her about. This movie is ok, it's has it's moments of suspense but it really could have done much better than to have Orson in there.