Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Virgin Witch Blu-ray Movie Review

Two mini-skirted sisters versus an aggressive lesbian witch. Rampant nudity ensues.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater March 17, 2012

Maybe it’s because I was raised during the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s—when demons were lurking inside He-Man toys and babies were supposedly being sacrificed in suburban basements across the country—but I’ve always been a sucker for movies about the occult, from relatively high-brow fare like Rosemary’s Baby on down to the campiest of campy exploitation shockers. 1972’s Virgin Witch most definitely belongs in the latter category. The low-rent movie was distributed by Tigon British Film Productions, a small studio that might best be thought of as Hammer Horror’s less-respectable cousin. Tigon produced about two dozen films between 1967 and 1977, including the folk-horror chiller Blood on Satan’s Claw, and the softcore cult classic Au Pair Girls. Virgin Witch is something of a mix between the two, featuring a shoestring story about a lesbian-led witches’ coven, giving plenty of excuses to show near non-stop T&A. It’s hokey, not creepy at all, and only marginally erotic, but it is frequently hilarious—in mostly unintentional ways—and certainly good for 80-odd minutes of wink-wink ironically enjoyed entertainment.

Sisters...

The movie wastes no time in establishing what it has in store for us, as the very first frame features a bared breast. (Why hello there!) That said, the following credit sequence is a bit disingenuous, showing a nude woman screaming, being burned alive—an image that couldn’t be further from the truth of the film. There are one or two moments of mild violence in Virgin Witch, but nothing that comes even remotely close to what today would be called torture porn. No, the emphasis here is almost solely on campy, softcore titillation—the word couldn’t be more appropriate—with the main characters disrobing in just about every other scene.

The film stars real-life sisters Ann Michelle (House of Whipcord) and Vicki Michelle (BBC’s ‘Allo! ‘Allo!) as Christine and Betty, matching miniskirt-wearing siblings who hitchhike to London, where they hope to find work as models. Christine is, shall we say experienced, while her younger sis is the virginal one, always fighting off her boyfriend Johnny’s (Keith Buckley) heavy petting. Answering a models-wanted ad in a magazine, Christine goes to audition for Sybil Waite (Patricia Haines), the “Wizard of Commercial Photography,” who—as it turns out—is also the High Priestess of a coven and a rather predatory lesbian who lures in young girls with modeling gigs, recruiting them into the cult and making a select few her lovers. Christine’s 36-24-36 figure strikes Sybil’s fancy, and Sybil offers to take her to a country manor out on “Witch Road” for a weekend photo shoot. What could go wrong? Betty comes along too, if only because—for the film’s purposes—two naked girls are better than one. Are you going to argue with that logic? Didn’t think so.

And from here on out there’s no shortage of gratuitous, sometimes full-frontal female nudity. Shortly after arriving at the country house, Christine goes frolicking topless through the garden while hired photographer Peter (James Chase), his shirt unbuttoned to his sternum, takes rapid-fire shots with a Pentax 35mm, pausing only to furtively feel-up his subject. “Are all your models expected to respond to your advances?” Christine asks coyly, but respond she does, and soon the two are getting it on in the woods while Sybil watches jealously from a distance. Meanwhile, Betty is left alone to explore the property, where she has run-ins with a lascivious milkman and a shotgun-toting old codger named—I kid you not—Colonel Crookshank. In the basement of the house, she discovers a red and green-lit room decorated with demon masks, Roman columns, and an ornate knife. You can guess what’s coming.

Or can you? Normally, with this kind of film, I’d surmise that one of the girls would be ceremonially sacrificed, leaving the other to fight back and/or escape the clutches of the cult. But what happens here is surprisingly more interesting. When Christine finds out about the coven, not only does she decide that she wants to join, of her own accord—a process that involves getting oiled up and humped frantically by a warlock whilst the other witches dance in a bongo-induced frenzy—but she also determines to unseat Sybil from the High Priestess position. And whaddaya know, Christine soon stumbles upon a black magic book that teaches her to harness her inborn psychic powers. Shazam!

It’s somewhat disconcerting—and hypocritically funny in retrospect—how Virgin Witch demonizes lesbianism as abhorrent while simultaneously encouraging us to ogle naked straight girls, but hey, this was the ‘70s and social attitudes were in a state of flux. Oddly enough, the film was written by a woman, Beryl Vertue—going under the pseudonym “Klaus Vogel”—who has since gone on to produce numerous British television shows, including the recent Sherlock series. Virgin Witch’s director, Ray Austin, had a fairly healthy career in TV too, moving to the U.S. to direct episodes of The Love Boat, Magnum, P.I., and Highlander: The Series.

Virgin Witch Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As we've come to expect from Kino—and their new partnership with Redemption Films—Virgin Witch is presented faithfully on Blu-ray, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that looks true to source, warts and all. And there are a few warts. This is a low-budget sexploitation horror movie, so you shouldn't expect the print to look pristine, and you will notice some white specks, occasional scratches, and even one or two black "reel change" dots up in the top righthand corner of the screen. Kino hasn't removed any of the print damage, but neither have they tried to smooth out the image with digital noise reduction or artificially sharpen it with edge enhancement. The film was shot on 35mm and the grain structure—while heavy—looks perfectly natural here. The filmmakers doubtlessly weren't working with the sharpest lenses available at the time, so the picture understandably soft, although the sheer act of transferring the film in high definition brings out a level of detail that just wouldn't be possible on DVD. Color is surprisingly vibrant, with vivid reds and greens, and the contrast seems just about spot-on. Flesh tones—and there's ample flesh—look healthy too. Finally, though the transfer sits on a single-layer disc, I didn't notice any overt compression concerns. Virgin Witch looks as good as a film called Virgin Witch might be expected to look.

Virgin Witch Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The same goes for the disc's uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 stereo track, which can only do so much with the limitations of the film's original low-budget audio elements. There was at least some attempt at sound design here—you can occasionally hear background ambience outdoors, like birds and wind—but I can't say that whoever did the recording was fully competent. Especially when it comes to dialogue, which is at least understandable, but often sounds distant or muffled or blatantly dubbed-in. Novelty song composer Ted Dicks provides a kooky score—sometimes creepy, sometimes bongo- crazy—and the music sounds decent, if dynamically limited. And that's about all there is to say here. This is a listenable enough mix—it is what it is, basically—and my only real complaint is that there are no subtitles for those might need them, or those who just can't wrap their heads around some of the more obscure English slang.

Virgin Witch Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p, 1:51)
• Gallery (1080p):A viewer-directed gallery with 16 stills.
• Redemption Trailers (1080p): Includes the trailers for The Shiver of the Vampires (4:09), The Nude Vampire (3:41), The Iron Rose (3:42), Lips of Blood (2:20), and Fascination (2:33).

Virgin Witch Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A minor British cult classic from the swingin' '70s, Virgin Witch has just about everything you could want from a softcore sexploitation horror film; namely, breasts galore. It's also more than good for a few campy laughs. You won't be chilled or thrilled or...ahem...aroused, but if you're into rinky- dink low-budget T&A-fests, this one certainly delivers the goods. And it looks surprisingly decent on Blu-ray to boot.