October Movie Challenge: Carrie (2013)

I have had the new Carrie Blu-Ray since it came out but only watched it last night. I enjoyed it, Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore are pretty much fantastic in everything they do, this was no exception.  Julianne Moore gave a stellar performance as Carrie's mother Margaret White, much better than Piper Laurie was in fact.

Chloë Grace Moretz was fantastic of course, but the trouble I have with her in this movie is she is just too good looking.  Sure Carrie is supposed to be an outcast, but she is no Sissy Spacek.

The story is what we all know at this point; enjoyable yes but not really needed.










Stats
4 Watched / 2 New

New Movie: The Witch

Oh.   This looks good.



From the press release:

In this exquisitely-made and terrifying new horror film, the age-old concepts of witchcraft, black magic and possession are innovatively brought together to tell the intimate and riveting story of one family’s frightful unraveling.

Set in New England circa 1630, The Witch follows a farmer who get cast out of his colonial plantation and is forced to move his family to a remote plot of land on the edge of an ominous forest rumored to be controlled by witches. Almost immediately, strange and unsettling things begin to happen-the animals turn violent, the crops fail, and one of the children disappears, only to return seemingly possessed by an evil spirit. As suspicion and paranoia mount, everyone begins to point the finger at teenage daughter Thomasin. They accuse her of witchcraft, which she adamantly denies…but as circumstances become more and more treacherous, each family member’s faith, loyalty, and love will be tested in shocking and unforgettable ways.

Writer/director Robert Eggers’ debut feature, which premiered to great acclaim at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival (and won the Best Director Prize in the U.S. Narrative Competition), painstakingly recreates a God-fearing New England decades before the 1692 Salem witch trials, in which religious convictions and pagan folklore famously clashed. Told through the eyes of the adolescent Thomasin – in a star-making turn by newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy – and supported by mesmerizing camera work and a powerful musical score, THE WITCH is a chilling and groundbreaking new take on the genre.

Yeah. This is going to be fun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witch_(2015_film)
http://thewitch-movie.com/

Blood, Boobs, and Carnage! Blogfest: The Films of Hammer

Today I am participating in the "Blood, Boobs and Carnage" Blogfest hosted by Heather Gardner and Alex J. Cavanaugh.

http://hmgardner.blogspot.com/2015/04/q-atozchallenge-re-opening-of-x-files.html
http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-to-z-challenge-q-cult-classics.html

A lot of gamers talk about their "Appendix N", a list of fantasy or pulp-era books (sometimes movies and TV shows) that influenced their games.

Not me.
My Appendix N is full of Hammer Films.

My earliest memories are of horror movies.  Specifically Hammer Horror and the old Universal Monsters. I could not have been much older than 4 and my first memories are of Dracula.  I used (and still do) love old Dracula movies.  At one point in time I could claim I had owned every movie that featured Dracula. It should be no big surprise then that my games all had a horror bent to them.

Every October I participate in the Horror Film  Marathon.  I have taken it upon myself to watch (and rewatch in many cases) all Hammer Dracula films.  They all fit today's theme of Blood, Boobs and Carnage.

I have not seen all of the Hammer films and a few I have not seen in maybe 20+ years but they have always had a profound effect on the games I write.   Ghosts of Albion in particular is overflowing with my love for Hammer, as are most of my adventures.   My vampires are not modern mopey emos.  They are blood thirsty killers in the suave exterior of Christopher Lee.

Even in Eldritch Witchery I have tried t tap into that same vibe of Hammer Horror.  Even though most of their moveis were made in the late 50s and 60's, there is something very 70's about them to me.  Maybe that is when I watched most of them (then and the early 80's).

Sex and horror were the bread and butter of Hammer films.   In fact one of the books that sits proudly with my game book collection is Hammer Glamour; a glossy coffee table book of all the women that appeared in the Hammer films.

Here are some of reviews of Hammer Films I have posted here.  IF I had had the time I would posted a body count.

Dracula (1958)
Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966)
Dracula has Risen From His Grave (1968)
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
The Vampire Lovers (1970)
Countess Dracula (1970/1971)
Lust for a Vampire (1971)
Twins of Evil (1971) and on Blu-Ray
Dracula AD 1972 (1972)
Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974)
To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

That was the end of the "Classic" Hammer.
It "rose from the grave" more recently to give us some newer movies.  Less "Blood, Boobs, and Carnage" than before, but still solid horror.

Let Me In (2010)
The Woman in Black (2012) (Daniel Radcliffe blew me away in this!)

Even ones I have seen but not got around to reviewing, like the various Frankenstein movies or the Quatermass ones.

Check out the feature, Hammer for Dummies to learn more.

October Movie Challenge: Mad Scientist Marathon

I have a mini marathon of movies I have watched in the last few hours.  All dealing with Vampires and Mad Scientists (give or take)

The Vampire Bat (1933)
This one turns some of the vampire tropes into plot fodder and features a mad scientist that needs human blood to keep his new creation alive.  An older flick but fun.  It features the ever impressive Faye Wray and Dwight Frye.  Frye of course played one of the first ever Renfields in 1931's Dracula.  I am struck by how good his range was and his performances reminds me of Andy Serkis.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
This of course features a song about Faye Wray and a mad scientist.  No real vampire, but they do come from Transylvania. I have seen this one hundreds of times of course, but I still enjoy it.  It is though no where near as fun on TV as it is in the theaters.
I have to admit I have always wanted to write a Buffy RPG adventure based on this.  Have players play the original cast.  Great for an adult themed Con game I am sure.  Gotta get worked down to 4 hours.

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009)
Man. I have no idea where to start with this one.  Dracula and Frankenstein's monster battle it out.  IF they were both super cute Japanese school girls.  There is so much blood and gore in this movie. but it is comical and beyond over the top. Plus stereotypes of all sorts of Japanese cultural fads.  It's insane.  The big battle on top of Tokyo Tower is the climax of the movie.
The interesting bit is the mad scientist (who is related to Frankenstein) uses vampire blood to animate the corpses.

Might get to more tonight.
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Tally so far:  39 Total Watched / 26 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Vampire Happening (1971)

October Movie Challenge: Vampire Happening (1971)

Vampire Happening or Gebissen wird nur nachts came up in my searches for a Countess Bathory like figure.  I saw it and noticed that it was directed by Freddie Francis. The same that gave us Dracula Has Risen from His Grave, Tales that Witness Madness and one of my all time favorites, The Creeping Flesh.
So I was not expecting a lot when I saw that it was a "horror/comedy" but certainly more than I got.

The basic plot is simple. American Actress inherited a castle in Transylvania.  Here she discovers that she is a dead ringer for her Great-Grandmother the former Countess.  Not only was she notoriously lascivious she was also believed to be a vampire (of course).

The Countess does come back and causes a lot of Benny Hill-quality hijinks when she is thought to be the Actress and visa versa.  Meanwhile the entire village has been transformed into vampires by the Countess.

The plot is thin and the acting is for the most part terrible save for Pia Degermark who pulls double duty as American Betty Williams and Vampire Countess Clarimonde.

There was also a surprising amount of nudity and sex in this movie for the time.  It was released in 1971, but feels more late 60s.  Some of the posters refer to it as an "Adult" vampire movie.
I am guess it is because it was made in West Germany at the time.

I can't help but feel there is a better story here somewhere.

Since I am still working through the Vampire Queen module I am thinking that a human descendant of Lady Neeblack running around the dungeon might be fun.

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Tally so far:  35 Total Watched / 23 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Nochnoy dozor / Night Watch (2004)

October Movie Challenge: Nochnoy dozor / Night Watch (2004)

Nochnoy dozor (Ночной дозор) or "Night Watch" is a kick-ass Russian film about vampires, monsters and things that go bump in the night.  It was subtitled, which I prefer over dubing, but it was not a big deal.

In the movie the forces of Light and Darkness waged a war back in the Middle Ages. They soon realized that the war would destroy everyone on both sides. They made a truce that would not interfere with each other unless required to keep the balance.  The side of Light became known as Night Watch and the darkness became Day Watch.  Otherkin could choose which ever side they wanted.

The movie deals with the mostly now bureaucratic Night Watch as the hunt down a vampire feeding without a license.  They hunt him down, but in the process discover two things. The hunter, a recently turned vampire himself named Anton discovers a woman under a terrible dark curse and a boy being drawn to the vampires.

I don't want to ruin it because it is worth watching.
There is a bleakness mixed with decadence here that I think you could only get in Moscow. Maybe Bangkok or Hong Kong too, or Detroit in 10 more years.  There is something very, very Russian to this that gives the movie such a great vibe.
I never knew if Anton was just going to up and die at any point or not, that's how bad he looked through it all.

There is a sequel, Day Watch.  I really need to see that one now too.


Tally so far:  34 Total Watched / 22 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Báthory: Countess of Blood (2008)

October Movie Challenge: Báthory: Countess of Blood (2008)

I am a sucker for a good Bathory movie.  Or even a bad one.  This is not a bad one, but it is an odd one.  There are some genuine horrific scenes, but nor really enough to really be called horror.

Much like the Julie Delpy movie The Countess, this is a retelling of the Bathory tale to put the countess in a better light.  I think The Countess is a better overall movie, but Anna Friel from Báthory: Countess of Blood is a better Bathory.

I think if both movies and casts had pooled their resources together one really great movie could have been made.

There are few things about the movie I didn't care for.  The monks with the "roller skates" (no. really) annoyed me.  The whole absinthe bit was way over done.  In fact I pretty have never seen an absinthe scene in a vampire movie and wasn't pretty crappy.  I blame the Bram Stoker's Dracula movie.

Not an unenjoyable movie, but at 2 hours and 21 minutes it is a bit too long.


Tally so far:  32 Total Watched / 21 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

Also known as "Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride" this is one I was supposed to watch in 2010 when I did mini-Dracula thon.  My disk was a piece of junk and the movie never worked.  No big deal really, I had seen it back in the 70s or 80s. But I always wanted to re-watch it.  I loved the scenes of Satanic Black Mass combined with vampire mythos.

Plus I really liked (then and now) the idea that the descendants of Van Helsing keep popping up to fight Dracula.   This time we are treated to "Lorrimer Van Helsing" and his granddaughter Jessica.  Ah the mental gymnastics I went through to figure out modern Hammer canon and Marvel Comics Dracula Canon; Jessica Van Helsing vs. Rachel Van Helsing. Rachel was either Jessica's daughter or her niece.  But that is just my crazy head-canon.

Additionally there was the high tech/medical science aspect of this.  It is takes a lot of influences from James Bond (which also had Christopher Lee as a bad guy). This movie is also so in tune with the 70s occult revival it is hard to know nearly 40 years later which influenced which.

There really is a lot I love about this movie.  Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing and Van Helsing, really it is the best team up in the history of the genre.

The bit about the "Undead Sabbat" is a little silly, but the bubonic plague is a nice way to up the ante a bit.

I used this movie as a basis for my introduction of Dracula to Mutants & Masterminds.

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Tally so far:  20 Total Watched / 13 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Vampire Diary (2006)

Not to be confused with the teen soap on the WB, this movie is a 2006 "found footage" movie about vampires. But don't go into it expecting "Blair Witch" or "Paranormal Activity".

The star of the movie is Holly and she is making a documentary on "weekend vampires" or people that dress up as vampires to go to clubs.  In the process she finds Vicki (a pre-Hellboy Anna Walton) recording her and she is recording the crowd.  Vicki tries to seduce Holly, but Holly instead just lets her sleep on the couch.  Eventually Vicki worms her way into Holly's life. And that is when the bodies start showing up.

Vicki and Holly eventually do have sex and we discover that Vicki is a "real" vampire.  She has been feeding on people close to Holly and the club scene.  We learn that Vicki had been raped by a male vampire and left to die. Now she was pregnant and needs to feed more and more.

The interesting facet of this movie is guessing whether or not Vicki is in fact a vampire or just insane. She uses a bolt gun, like what you use to kill animals for slaughter, and you never see fangs.  Holly is dragged right on down with her and you are left guessing till the end.

The "found footage" aspect is very interesting. Giving it a good solid indie feel but also a very intimate one.  You really can see Vicki and Holly's downward spiral into madness and depravity.

There are some notes missing, but the acting is top notch and the direction is great.

I won't spoil the ending for you since I feel this one I would recommend.  


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Tally so far:  19 Total Watched / 13 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Billy the Kid vs Dracula (1966)

Well I am going to start out by saying that this movie was no where near as bad as I remembered it.
Ok.  The bat is still crappy. And the "night" scenes are more like afternoon scenes.

Let's start with some of the good points.
The timing is about right really.  Dracula could have left England to visit America.  And John Carradine does a good Dracula.
I could see Billy the Kid/William Bonny deciding to play it legit too.  It makes as much sense as a vampire really.

All in all it is pretty much a typical Dracula plot.  Dracula sees a pretty girl, decides he wants her, goes after her, killing dozens along the way.  Hero protects girl.

I do like the change of the typical Victorian England or even the "Hammer Hamlet" to the American West.
There are plenty of differences in setting a horror film in the American west rather than say Victorian era Europe. For starters everyone (well not really...) has a gun. And the Americans generally don't believe the old superstitions.  This was something I always felt was done well in George Hamilton's "Love at First Bite".

If anything there are a lot of wasted potential here, but I can't say if that is just my take on it looking at nearly 50 years later or if it is an actual defect of the movie.

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Tally so far:  18 Total Watched / 12 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Blood + Roses (2010)

Not to be confused with Blood and Roses, this movie focuses on the transformation of a human victim to a vampire.

Jane is some sort of depression and she her husband are going to country to get a away for a bit.  All the while she is dreaming of being raped and of vampire Seth.
We later find out that Jane was raped and that is the cause of her depression.  Of course she finds out because Seth has bitten her and she is transforming into a vampire.

Overtly that is what the movie is about, Jane's transformation.  It could have been more horrific, but I think the cast was doing the best they could (which admittedly wasn't much) with the material they had.  The script is not great and neither are the production values, but the story kept my attention.

Still. It was interesting to see the transformation from the "last girl's" point of view.  The ending was not typical for a vampire movie.

In has the feel of an indie movie or even a student movie which I liked, but there was still something off.  The acting is not great and there is no real passion.  Even when Jane discovers she was drugged and raped by her husband's best friend for money she still doesn't react like you might think.  Plus the husband in this is a huge asshole.  So it was difficult to buy into the characters at all really.


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Tally so far:  17 Total Watched / 12 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Count Yorga (1970)

Count Yorga aka The Loves of Count Iorga was something on my list forever but for some reason just never got to it.

It is a 70s retelling of the Dracula story set in America.  Pretty straight-forward really. There are some twists though.  Yorga's ability to hypnotize is played up more.  And of course since this is the 70s there is more of an occult connection.

I thought I had watched this one a long time ago, but now I am not so sure.  The ending is not at all what I remembered.  So I think I am going to need to watch the Return of Count Yorga as well.

There was not as much sex as I suspected, but I also think the version I watched was an edited one.

Count Yorga does make a dashing vampire and there was a great 70s vibe to it.

I am going to call this one new even though I would have sworn I had seen before.  I am going to wait till after I watch the Return of Count Yorga first.


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Tally so far:  9 Total Watched / 8 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Mario Salieri's Dracula (1994)

Ok. Not sure whether this one should count or not.  Not really scary enough to be horror, not sexy enough to be porn. The version I have is under an hour, softcore and edited rather poorly.  Given the cast and what I can find on the internet there is a hardcore version as well.

I should point out that this movie pretty much takes all it's cues from the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula inducing copying the title font for "Dracula".

The plot deals with the fall of Vlad the Impaler and his transformation to Dracula.  It even gets to England of the 1880s.  But beyond that it doesn't make much sense either has a horror movie or as an erotic one.  There are vampires running about but we don't really see much of Dracula.  Also is Ron Jeremy supposed to be something like Jack the Ripper? No idea.

Pity really.
Ok, not really, I went in with pretty low expectations and it still managed not to hit even those.

Thankfully I have some better ones coming up.

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Tally so far:  8 Total Watched / 7 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

October Movie Challenge: Vampire Academy (2014)

Well this one was forced on me because my youngest wanted to watch it.  I am calling it horror...cause...well have you seen it?

Oh it is not good.

The plot is basically Vampires and their half-vampire/dhampir body guards all go to highschool together.  So vampires here age.  Ok.

And they go to High School.

Now to be fair this is based on a YA series and I don't think it translated well to the screen.  Sure. Harry Potter did (are there vampires in Harry Potter?) but not everything will.

There are plenty of horror elements and the vampires did remind me of the living and undead
vampires from the Hollows series. So I can at least get behind that.

The idea of a training ground for vampires has it's roots in the Scholomance.

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Tally so far:  2 Total Watched / 1 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

Zatannurday: Zatanna and Scarlet Witch Again!

X-Men Days of Future Past is out and supposed to introduce us to the Cinematic Scarlet Witch. Well, one of them anyway.  But it looked like a lot of her scenes may have been cut.  Maybe to put her more in line with the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver we saw at the end of Captain America Winter Soldier.

So in any case, here she is once again with The Other Side's resident superhero Zatanna!


Zatanna + Scarlet Witch by HaphazardMachine on deviantART


Zatanna and Scarlet Witch Beach Bikinis by justinprime on deviantART


Zatanna Vs. Scarlet Witch by DarthTerry on deviantART


Scarlet Zatanna by SamwiseTheAwesome on deviantART


Zatanna VS Scarlet Witch by Broken-Endings on deviantART


Zatanna Vs Scarlet Witch by Wonder-Heroics on deviantART


Counterparts: Zatanna Zatara and The Scarlet Witch by nhiaphengthao on deviantART


Zatanna Vs Scarlet Witch by VitamineJJC on deviantART


Magic DC Vs. Magic Marvel by olybear on deviantART

I had wings once...

They were strong


But they were stolen from me.

Yeah I am a geek.  Get off my cloud man.

October Movie: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Of course I had to see this one.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is a problematic movie.  For starters it really can't make up it's mind on what kind of movie it wants to be. Horror, action, comedy, camp.  It has it all, but unlike say Army of Darkness the mix here isn't quite right.

Hansel & Gretel are brother and sister like the Grimm Fairy tale, but they are now all grown up and hunting witches.  The seem to be immune to powers of witches, but not the power of candy.  Hansel is diabetic.

The film mixes a historical setting (never quite sure when it is supposed to be taking place) and modern sensibilities. The guns seem bigger for the time for example.

The story though itself is kind of neat.  A gathering of witches of various types is cool.  Two former victims immune to witch magic has a TON of potential.  Even mixing a couple of good witches and troll for good measure is nice.  So all the elements are there, but they never quite jell for me.  Though I won't lie, I had a lot of fun with this one.

Tally: Watched 25,  New 21

What are you watching?

hosted by Krell Laboratories

October Movie: Les deux orphelines vampires (1997)

You would think I had nothing left to say about Jean Rollin or he would have nothing left to say about vampires.
You would be wrong on both counts!

Les deux orphelines vampires or The Two Orphan Vampires surprised me on a number of levels.

For starters it was much newer that I thought it was.  It was also bigger budget, though not by much.  It also gave us another twist on the vampire story.
In this one two girls, Henriette and Louise, are blind orphans living in a Catholic orphanage.  But these girls have a secret, they are only blind during the day.  But at night they can see and they hunt for food.

The girls seem to recall past lives, of being in New York and other places, and they are the same; blind vampires.

They get adopted. They meet what we suppose is a werewolf woman and later another, but different sort of vampire.  The girls imply, but never really confirm, that they are Aztec Goddess that remember great blood sacrifice.

I like the link to the Aztecs and being blind during the day, really neat touch.

Rollin regular Brigette Lahaie makes a cameo appearance which is cool.
All in all I rather liked this one.

Tally: Watched 24,  New 20

What are you watching?

hosted by Krell Laboratories

October Movie: Subspecies (1991 - 1998)

I remember seeing the first Subspecies movie while in grad school.  It was great fun even if it wasn't very good.  What set it apart from other Dracula-related vampire movies was this one actually was shot in Romania, which I felt gave it an air of authenticity. Or at least atmosphere.  While no big now, back then the Iron Curtain was still recently fallen and growing up in the midst of the 80s and nuclear war fear it was a big deal.

The other interesting twist to this movie is the stop-motion animation of Radu's minions.  I always felt I Was watching two different movies with this.  One was a vampire movie about a family of vampires and the other was a movie about these puppets from the same folks that gave us Puppet Master.  I liked the little dudes, but they seemed under used or at best ill used.

Subspecies 2 came along and there were some cast changes, but we still got Anders Hove as the evil Radu. The myths are turned up a bit, but I always felt it was half the movie it should have been. By the end I found out why. Subspecies 3 continued the story of Michelle, Radu and the Bloodstone.  Except I never got to see the third movie till just this past weekend.

Subspecies 3 continues right where #2 left of.  All three movies when watched as the proper trilogy are more enjoyable.  I did rewatch #1 and #2 since they came on the same DVD set with #3.  There are a lot of call backs to the old Nosferatu movie and Radu and Michelle are no Edward and Bella. Michelle even kills a few people even though she obviously doesn't want too.  Radu is just evil through out the whole thing and it is nice to know that someone out there still remembers that vampires are supposed to be monsters.

Taken as a Trilogy, Subspecies is not a bad time.
There is a Subspecies 4 as well.  This one ties in with another movie from Full Moon, Vampire Journals, not to be confused with The Vampire Diaries.  As myth building it is fun, but there is precious little of Michelle in this one.  There are interesting twists on the nature of Michelle's and Radu's love/hate relationship.  Michelle does hate Radu, but she needs him and she is becoming more like him.  Radu on the other hand loves Michelle. So much so that he kills his entire family to have her.  Vampire love is fucked up.

Vampire Journals is not a sequel to Subspecies, but it is a spin off.  I didn't enjoy it as much, and you don't need to watch it to enjoy Subspecies 4, but it helps.

The first two movies had an undue influence on my then Gothic Earth game.  I included both Radu and Stephan as sons of Dracula in my game.  I also had a few Daughters thrown in for good measure.

So for this weekend that in 5 with 3 new.

My wife wants to know if I am vampired out yet.

Tally: Watched 17,  New 13

What are you watching?

hosted by Krell Laboratories

October Movie: Virgin Witch (1971)

So this movie begins by going through the cast in the nude scenes. Interestingly enough sisters Vicki and Ann Michelle (playing sisters) never mention this movie on their own websites. Well Ann does, but only as an "experience she doesn't want to remember".
The girls play aspiring models in 70s London and they get caught up in a coven of witches.
Pretty much all the tropes and stereotypes are here. Copious amounts of nudity. Bizzare ritual sex scenes, predatory older lesbian/high priestess.  Virgin sacrifice.  Just a trippy sort of movie

For me it really captures my memories of  what the 70s occult craze was about. Mind you that is my memories, not how it actually was (to my knowledge  anyway).
Movies like this really formed some of the ideas that still live on in my witch game books today.
It's not a great movie, but it is a fun one.

Tally: Watched 12,  New 10

What are you watching?

hosted by Krell Laboratories