Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

The Witch Who Came from the Sea Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 14, 2016

Note: This film is currently available as part of American Horror Project Vol. 1.

The acronym WEHT is typically utilized to wonder where stars of yesteryear have gotten to, and it may be perfectly applicable to at least a couple of people who show up in the three films included in Arrow Films’ American Horror Project Volume 1. But “what ever happened to” might also be used with regard to the films themselves, for this initial trio of offerings may be relatively little known to even some who consider themselves to be diehard horror fans. The Blu-ray era has been a boon to lovers of horror, with any number of cult items seeing the high definition light of day courtesy of a gaggle of licensors and/or niche labels. Many if not most of those offerings, though, were probably at a somewhat higher level of general public recognition than the three films included in this set, which is not to say that those films were automatically of a higher quality than the three collected here. Arrow nonetheless seems to be well aware that they’re dipping into a stratum of horror films that may be perceived as “lesser” material, but each of these initial three offerings has something unique about it, if only frankly some inherent weirdness.

There may be no more appropriate “WEHT” personage in the new Arrow Films set than Millie Perkins, an actress who began her film career in one of the highest profile roles of the late fifties as the titular teen in The Diary of Anne Frank. Perhaps a little like another actress playing a martyred teen in her first film role, Jean Seberg in Saint Joan, Perkins probably inevitably witnessed a downward spiral of her career after such an auspicious beginning. In fact that downward spiral was evidently so profound that in the late 1970s a Hollywood columnist, responding to an actual “what ever happened to” query from a reader, reported that Perkins had died. That’s an especially rich misapprehension given the fact that The Witch Who Came From the Sea had been released in 1976 (it evidently sat on the shelf for quite some time after having been filmed years previously).

The Witch Who Came From the Sea is in some ways the least “traditional” horror outing in this new set, while at the same time being arguably the most disturbing. Perkins plays Molly, a young woman who is initially seen at the beach with kids under her charge (in a moment which recurs throughout the film). Molly may be attempting to be something of a raconteur with these children, but it’s obvious her mind— and sights—are firmly set elsewhere, namely a bunch of scantily clad studs doing narcissistic workout routines in the sand. Director Matt Cimber, cinematographer Dean Cundey (credited as an assistant to Ken Gibb, who ironically evidently went on to a career shooting porn), and editor Bud Warner leave little to the imagination (either the viewer’s or Molly’s) with some discomfiting close-ups of bulging crotches which are intercut with Molly’s widening eyes. Only when the scene perhaps unexpectedly tips over into some gruesome imagery does it become evident that something besides “mere” prurience is wafting through Molly’s apparently addled consciousness.

From this very first sequence, there’s a thin line (if indeed there is a line at all) between reality and Molly’s fantasies, and that’s an element which continues to play out in a number of discomfiting scenes which follow. Audiences of 1976 who remembered a young and obviously chaste Millie Perkins in early films like The Diary of Anne Frank may well have been downright shocked at some vignettes which offer the actress nude (fully frontal in fact), smoking a bong and involved in an incipient three way, with one of the participants a (gasp!) black man. Aside from the salacious content (which is copious, if smarmy), things get into quasi-Fifty Shades of Grey territory, albeit with Molly as this film’s “Magic Christian” (so to speak).

On one level, The Witch Who Came from the Sea may be seen as pure camp, an unseemly mix of weird sex scenes and over the top pop psychobabble. But it’s obvious that screenwriter Robert Thom (Perkins’ ex-husband, who evidently wrote the film for her, which may explain their divorce) has something considerably more literate and indeed literary on his mind. The film’s constant allusions and outright references to sea mythology and the recurrent use of castration, not to mention the film’s title, may lead lovers of Bulfinch’s Mythology to review information on Venus. There’s a somewhat desultory ambience to the film which only feeds into its often hallucinatory feeling. Molly is obviously a severely traumatized woman who may be walking through a waking nightmare, but who wants to make sure her dreamworld is populated with others, including the viewer.

The Witch Who Came from the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Witch Who Came From the Sea is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The booklet accompanying American Horror Project Vol. 1 offers the following information about the provenance of the elements used for the transfer and the transfer itself:

A 35mm print accessed from UCLA Film Archive was scanned in 2K resolution at OCN Digital, USA. Kodak Digital Ice was used to remove instances of dirt and debris during scanning. Grading was performed on the Baselight grading system at Deluxe Restoration, London. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, light scratches and other forms of film damage were removed or improved through a combination of digital restoration tools.

This film offers some early work by Dean Cundey, credited as an "associate" but evidently largely if not completely in charge of lensing the feature. Interestingly, The Witch Who Came From the Sea doesn't wallow in the shadowy ambience which would help Cundey attain the whimsical soubriquet of filmdom's "Prince of Darkness", and instead there's a kind of misty, beachside look to much of the proceedings that may remind some of John Carpenter's The Fog. While the elements have been upgraded in terms of damage, there are still manifold small blemishes which accrue over the running time (as well as an instance or two of some major problems like tears in frames), though probably the biggest issue some videophiles will have with this presentation is its obviously faded palette. Flesh tones are often on the (pale) brown side, and very little here pops with much robustness, though the flashes of bright red (which here are often skewed toward orange) when blood enters the scene offer some vividness. There's an understandably "dupey" look to much of this presentation (including in the fairly heavy grain field), but detail levels are still reasonably high a lot of the time, especially when close-ups are utilized (see screenshot 3). Some flashbacks have been filtered with soft focus, further softening a presentation which is fairly gauzy to begin with. I've scored this a 3, but would probably up this to a 3.25 or thereabouts if I were able to.

The Witch Who Came from the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Witch Who Came From the Sea features an uncompressed LPCM Mono track which was transferred from the UCLA 35mm print, according to the booklet included with American Horror Project Vol. 1. Things sound relatively problem free here, albeit within a somewhat tamped down overall ambience. Dialogue and sound effects are generally quite vividly rendered, and Herschel Burke Gilbert's adroit if sometimes unintentionally funny score sounds clear and effective. The sound here can be slightly on the thin side, and restorative efforts have not been able to completely remove some relatively minor signs of age like pops and cracks.

The Witch Who Came from the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction (1080p; 4:52) features Stephen Thrower, curator of the project. This feature is available under the Play menu.


• Tides and Nightmares (1080p; 23:28) is a nicely done making of featuring interviews with Millie Perkins, Dean Cundey, Matt Cimber and John Goff.


• A Maiden's Voyage (1080i; 36:14) is an older archival piece that has some interesting background information.


• Lost at Sea (1080p; 3:55) features more footage of Cimber culled from what looks like the same session that produced his segments in Tides and Nightmares.


• Audio Commentary with Cast and Crew features Dean Cundey, Millie Perkins and Matt Cimber. This is quite interesting but suffers from fidelity issues in what almost sounds like a Skype session at times.

The Witch Who Came from the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is probably the least typical film in the already pretty atypical American Horror Project Vol. 1. Less an outright slasher flick than a rather disturbing trip inside an obviously deeply troubled mind, The Witch Who Came From the Sea may provoke cynical, even derisive, laughter in some viewers—until they realize just how disturbing the film is. With an understanding of the provenance of the elements utilized for this transfer, video is acceptable if never overwhelmingly impressive, and audio is fine. The special features are quite well done, and for a certain demographic if not the public at large, The Witch Who Came From the Sea comes Recommended.