THE WITCHMAKER (1969)

We see a young woman bathing in her bra and panties in a swamp in the Louisiana bayou. As she gets out, a man attacks her; he rips open her bra, hangs her upside down from a tree, paints an upside-down ankh symbol on her stomach, then slices her throat open and catches the blood in a bucket. It seems this is only the latest in a string of ritualistic murders in the area, as an old-timer cabin caretaker tells the group of folks he has escorted into the bayou by boat. The group leader, Ralph Hayes (Alvy Moore), says they are movie location scouts, but we soon find out that Hayes is actually a researcher of the paranormal, staying for a week in an isolated cabin (with no phone) with some grad students, a reporter, and a psychic "sensitive" named Tasha. Hayes has a theory about witches and hopes to discover the genuine one he thinks is behind the recent slayings. We know that the murderer is indeed a witch (or warlock) who calls himself Luther the Berserk (John Lodge); he is the head of a coven of witches who are hundreds of years old and they use the blood they've collected for rites to communicate with Satan—they rub the blood on the teeth of a fairly creepy demonic statue to which they pay homage. Luther's coven is one short, so he asks the immortal witch Jessie of Coventry for help to gain a convert: Tasha. Jessie agrees if Luther will tell Satan to give her back her youth. That is indeed arranged, and soon our vulnerable group is whittled down (mostly as resources for more ritual blood), until it's up to the skeptical reporter (Anthony Eisley) to try and save Tasha by substituting pig's blood for human blood in the final conversion rite.

I'd never heard of this movie until I found it in recommendations on Amazon, and though it may not be a classic, it's a solid piece of 60s B-horror which takes its devil worship a little more seriously than others of its ilk. A creepy atmosphere is built up from the beginning, and even the daytime scenes have a disturbing feel to them. The set-up, with exposition and some character development, is fine, though the middle drags a bit. But the ending makes up for that. Alvy Moore is mostly known as the bumbling Hank Kimball on the TV series Green Acres, so I expected him to be comic here, but he plays an academic fairly convincingly. Eisley, whom I know as one of the Hawaiian Eye detectives from 60s TV, is fine as the theoretical hero. German actress Thordis Brandt is mostly eye candy as Tasha, and Tony Benson is a somewhat cute grad student, but the best performance is from the beefy John Lodge as Luther who makes for a chilling villain. This is definitely low-budget filmmaking but it looks pretty good most of the time. Recommended. Pictured are Lodge and Brandt with the creepy statue. [Amazon Prime]