I want to get in some Witchcraft documentaries from the 70s. These really cover what formed some of my earliest thoughts on witchcraft and the occult.
These movies are not really horror, but they good supporting movies for all the horror movies I typically watch. All these titles received an X rating when they were released but are really all pretty tame.
An interesting note that all these films feature Alex Sanders and Maxine Sanders.
This is a nice weird one and It is part of a larger DVD/Blu-Collection I grabbed from Amazon. The first part is a slow narration over scenes of the moon and sun rising and setting in glorious black & white. It reminds me a little of the start of Aradia, Gospel of the Witches. We get to the creation of man and we see a number of neolithic shamanistic cave paintings.
We get to the part about witches with prerequisite naked dancing under the moon.
We get to see a witchcraft initiation, which looks a bit Gardenarian or Alexandrian (checked it is Alex Sanders, so Alexandrian). We get some history of England including the notion that William the Conqueror was the son of a Witch, and Robin Hood had a coven. This leads to a bunch of material about witches including the witch hunts.
Different witch rituals are shown from wicca to Luciferian with copious amounts of nudity (likely the source for the X ratings) but nothing even remotely shocking really.
Secret Rites (1971)
This one starts off with a "witches orgy" and a woman being dragged to "unspeakable obscenities" but fear not! Her lover "John Goodfellow" has come to rescue her brandishing a cross and rebuke witches as if they were vampires. The scene freezes and our narrator continues in saying that this has been the perception of witches for years. We cut to Alex Sanders who tells us it is complete rubbish.
This covers the initiation of a new witch into Alex's coven. As well as a very brief look at his discussion group (likely brief since there is no nudity), a Wiccan handfasting, and even a Great Rite.
The following were included on the same DVD.
The Witch's Fiddle (1924)
A man gets a fiddle from a witch that can make anyone dance.
Out of Step (1957)
A documentary series that covers witchcraft in this episode. Interviewed are Margaret Murry, Gerald Gardner, and Alastair Crowley's friend, Louis Wilkinson.
The Judgement of Albion (1968)
From Robert Wynne-Simmons, the director of Blood on Satan's Claw. Based on the poems of William Blake. It is a trippy little flick where faeries, in the guise of young college students, still roam "A Green and Pleasant Land" amid modern troubles. Completely experimental and yet so utterly British.
All of these movies and shorts reveal an interesting look at Britain at the end of the 60's. While in the US we were moving headlong into the excess of the 70s and "left-over hippie shit", England seemed to be two different places at the same time. A country aware that it is slowing down even as new prospects are on the horizon and a country whose Pagan past was just a little bit below the surface. These two are likely related to each other.
This Italian "documentary" follows the lives of various real witches in England. I say "documentary" because it only details the most salacious elements of the neo-pagan movement in England. It also conflates all witchcraft with satanism. Now a few of the people they profile like Alex Sanders dabbled in "the Left-Hand Path" decades before and Anton LeVey who was a Satanist, others like Eleanor Bone and Maxine Sanders were Wiccans. The Sanders in fact developed the Alexandrian Tradition of Wicca. In fact, there are many times that what is depicted on screen and what the narrator is telling us is happening are complete conflict. There is a hand-fasting between Alex and Maxine Sanders which is described as Maxine marrying the Devil in the guise of Alex. They imply that in all of these "Satanic Weddings" that Alex, as the Devil, gets to have sex with the women first. A lot of criticism has been laid at the feet of Alex Sanders and Alexandrian Wicca, but this is not one of them.
Oh there is the implication too that Brazilian witches engage in incest. If that feels like it came out of nowhere then yeah, I thought so too. In the middle of talking about proper British witchcraft we get this side trip to Brazil.
Another unforgivable sin (if that word can be used) is that the Narrator (Alberto Bevilacqua) quotes Jacob Sprenger of the Malleus Maleficarum as an authority.
Finnish witchcraft is shown to have a nubile nude witch submit to a cult leader as her future husband, chosen by the high priestess.
It is all very Mondo with plenty of blood sacrifices. There is a bit on Ted Serios and his psychic photography. Mediums. Krishna Consciousness (which is entrapping all of America's youth!) and some more on Brazil. Oh. and they spend some time on LaVey. Plenty of nude women hanging around including LaVey's own daughter and future high priestess of her own sect. There are a few scenes in the LaVey piece that I am sure got in front of some of the artists of White Dwarf.
And it ends with Cryonics, or the freezing your body after death. Cause why not. Even the start of the 70s was weird. I guess their issue was the artificial extension of life.
It feels like some Christian scare tract/documentary. Better watch out those English witches will get you!
It has an X rating, but there is nothing here that I have not seen in a "TV-MA" series on Amazon or Netflix.
Reading other reviews online I just watched the Italian version "Angeli Bianchi... Angeli Neri" (White Angel ...Black Angel), not the redubbed, re-edited "American" version.
NIGHT SHIFT and Old-school Content: A few notes.
I have had this game idea for a while now, Spirit of '76, that takes place in the summer of 1976. It has a solid Americana feel to it and it is inspired as much by movies like "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Convoy" as it is "The Omen" and "It's Alive". But this got me thinking of a similar idea, only maybe set in England during the end of the 60s, 1968 to 1972 in particular. Something very Mod but with horror and supernatural elements. I'd love to set it in London.
Watched: 55New: 39
