April 24, 2009 With horror remakes the name of the game in the horror world these days, and original films becoming scarcer and scarcer at the box office, it seemed like a good time for ESplatter to look back in time at some of this memorable -- but sadly unjustly forgotten -- splatter movies that remain unavailable in the U.S. after all these days. Today's title: "Witchmaker".



One movie that really, truly does deserve a resurrection but is quite unlikely to ever receive one is 1969's LQ Jones-produced "Legend of Witch Hollow" or as it is better known, "Witchmaker". This was something of a staple on Creature Features in San Francisco in the 1970s. It was pretty intense for TV -- but not explicit enough to be banned from the tube. A great, atmospheric supernatural suspense film, set in a swamp, it probably helped inspire "Evil Dead". While "The Equinox" (which is now in print) definitely had more of an influence on "Evil Dead," "Witchmaker" shares a lot of the same mood. The swampy, woodsy setting, characters confronting an evil outside and the issue of possession all come into play. It also definitely inspired "The Blair Witch Project".

The story: A magazine crew go to an isolated cabin in a swampland community known for its witch-related murders, apparently in the hope of communicating with the spirit world or something like that. One of their member -- gorgeous Thordis Brandt -- happens to be a medium. Naturally, things go disastrously wrong as witches in the woods begin working their magick. John Lodge is terrific as the main warlock Luther the Berserk.



For some inexplicable reason, this film drifted out of print after a brief appearance on VHS -- and stayed way, way out of print. Midnight Video released a grey market, widescreen DVD-R, but even that has since gone out of print.

Sinister Cinema is now the "grey market" company to buy the film from -- with a special edition that includes both widescreen and full frame versions of the film. Click here for our review.



The film managed to get screened in San Francisco within the last several years, so at least one print still exists. If there is one horror film from the late 1960s that absolutely deserves a resurrection it's this one. But it's questionable whether the negatives are around anymore.










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