You reader of a Certain Age: Reminisce with me about a long-ago time when the first TV airing of a popular motion picture was a Big Deal. Huge. I can remember the TV spots in September 1973 for the premier broadcast of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) on ABC—the snippets of that creepy lullaby theme: “La la la la la la ”—Lordy, what excitement! Finally, the Big Night came: Calls of “It’s starting!” My brothers and me lined up on our stomachs in front of the tube—not too close (radiation!)—soaking up every image; later tearing to the kitchen for snacks and bevvies during the commercials, then having to “hold it” for fear we’d miss something if we were too long in the bathroom. It’s funny, the little things that stick with you. There’s a moment toward the end of the film when Rosemary (Mia Farrow), clutching a knife, is making her way through the Castevets’ apartment to find the baby the coven has taken from her, the one she believes they intend to sacrifice. Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer), ...
If ever there’s an occasion for movie magic, it’s Halloween. On film the holiday always looks so right. Not true to life, mind you. Right . The moon is always full, the autumn weather perfect. Lights and decorations are old-fashioned and plentiful. Ditto the trick-or-treaters—and just look at their costumes: quality. Even in a Disney movie there’s nary an acetate princess in sight. Yeah, it may all be a bit Stepford-y, but how I love it. I want to be in it! “Wow, check out this house!” Consider Hocus Pocus, a piece of semi-amusing silliness from 1993. Presumably because it’s Salem, Mass., everybody in this town is into Halloween, starting with the witch-hatted schoolteacher (Kathleen Freeman) who introduces our so- not -into-it protagonist (Omri Katz) to the legend of the Sanderson witches. If folks aren’t giving out candy in this version of Salem, they’re throwing parties, or heading to one. So naturally when the newly reconstituted Sandersons drop into the fe...
“ “Camp” is a word tossed around a lot by people criticizing Seven Arts/Hammer’s The Witches (1966), specifically the bizarre, choreographed sabbath near the end. That sequence is certainly unlike anything you’re likely to see in other Sixties-era supernatural thrillers. Personally, I find the stylized eroticism—the barefoot writhing, the suggestion of same-sex lust, Priestess Stephanie’s glob swallowing and orgasmic eye flutter—riveting, and wholly in keeping with the picture’s weird sexual undercurrents. To wit, I think it’s pretty clear what “horrible things” went down in Africa to cause the breakdown of schoolteacher Gwen Mayfield (Joan Fontaine)—things from which she has only marginally recovered when she takes the headmistress post in rural Heddaby. And make no mistake, village patroness Stephanie Bax (Kay Walsh) is wise—surely weighed those “things” favorably when deciding to hire poor, confused Gwen. “You’re as fastidious as I am,” she purrs. That huge bed warmer we ...
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