The Witch Who Came From the Sea
Encyclopedia
| Molly really knows how to cut men down to size!! |
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The Witch Who Came From the Sea is a 1976 American horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Matt Cimber
Matt Cimber
Matt Cimber is an Italian-American film producer, director and writer. He was the last husband of Jayne Mansfield, who was the mother of his son, Antonio Raphael . Cimber directed her on stage and in one movie, Single Room Furnished...
and shot by cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Dean Cundey
Dean Cundey
-Life and career:Cundey was born in Alhambra, California, United States. As a child, he used to build model sets, suggesting an interest in films from an early age...
. The film concerns a dysfunctional and disturbed woman called Molly (played by Millie Perkins
Millie Perkins
Millie Perkins is an American film and television actress.Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Millie grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Her father was a merchant marine captain...
) who, after suffering repeated sexual abuse
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
at the hands of her alcoholic father, embarks on a spree of gruesome sexual encounters with men who she meets during her job as a waitress in a seaside bar.
Censorship
For its scenes of extreme sexual violenceSexual violence
Sexual violence occurs throughout the world, although in most countries there has been little research conducted on the problem. Due to the private nature of sexual violence, estimating the extent of the problem is difficult...
the film was banned all over the world. In 1983, the United Kingdom Department of Public Prosecutions compiled a list of 74 video releases that were not brought before the BBFC for certification and declared them prosecutable for obscenity. This list of "video nasties
Video nasty
"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982 which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse and various religious organizations.While violence...
" included The Witch Who Came From The Sea, which was successfully prosecuted and banned. In the United Kingdom the film was only finally released completely uncut in 2006.
Reception
The Witch Who Came From the Sea has been recommended by film critic Mark KermodeMark Kermode
Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons...
as one of the best video nasties of the era. One critic viewed the film as not being a horror film but actually representing a scathing indictment of child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
as well as a study of a troubled woman's descent into madness; "a study of a woman whose sanity teeters on the edge". Another completely dismissed the film as representing nothing more than "an absurd story with no redeeming qualities. Highly recommended for lovers of bad cinema".
The 2004 DVD release of the film (whose 16x9 transfer was overseen and approved by Dean Cundey) sparked renewed interest, with one reviewer remarking that The Witch Who Came From the Sea is "an unsung psychological gem" among 1970s exploitation films.