SEX OF THE WITCH (1973)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Contrary to the poster above, the mystery murderer does not wear the signature black gloves of the giallo, though I don't imagine that would have helped this almost incoherent "murder mansion" tale.

I looked into SEX OF THE WITCH simply because I wondered if writer-director Angelo Pannaccio had been more at home with sleaze-mystery than he was with possession-horror in the dismal RETURN OF THE EXORCIST. But my verdict proved exactly the opposite case. RETURN doesn't have as many lusty Italian beauties to ogle (though almost all of the actors are unknown to me). But at least I could follow what was going on in the possession-drama.

So elderly Uncle Thomas Hilton starts off the film by dying and leaving a huge inheritance to a collection of good looking male and female heirs, all in their twenties or thirties. The will even makes the usual specification that if any heir dies, the rest get his or her share. Trouble is, even though I watched  a subtitled Italian version, Pannaccio couldn't be bothered to establish who was who, or to outline the most basic relationships. The only thing one can be sure of is that Thomas disinherits his sister Evelyn, who has some vague associations with witchcraft. A little later it's said that one heir, Ingrid, has some ambiguous relationship with Evelyn, but even when their relation to the mystery murders is revealed, I still felt one doesn't know why things turned out that way. 

The killings themselves are ordinary and show only minimal gore. There's a lot of blather about how the Hiltons are a scurrilous family, and Pannaccio shoehorns an awkward piece of dialogue about how one ancestor perfected some scientific process of mutating cells. This, rather than witchcraft, is the only marvelous element of WITCH, and it bears on who the killer is and how Evelyn manipulates that individual-- sort of.

Almost the only pleasure to be had from WITCH are the good looking actors, including one American, Camille Keaton of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE fame, but she's very underused. The sex scenes are nothing special, but the actors are attractive and well photographed as they walk around spouting nonsense dialogue. There's one humorous moment reminiscent of Poe's famous "Purloined Letter" short story. A determined police officer declares his intention to find the weapon used in the first murder, when in truth it's sitting right out in the open, and he never twigs to its presence.