A young marriage (Pamela Franklyn , Michael Ontkean) go to a little town when the husband has got a job at a toy enterprise . There Mr. Cato (Orson Welles) is the head of a community whose one enterprise is the the manufacture of occult toys. Cato runs a witches' coven in the town of Lilith, where he needs the powers of Lori Brandon to raise his son from the dead. Cato, as it turns out , takes his witchcraft seriously and attempts to use to bring his dead son back to life . To do so, he needs a willing sacrifice Life to the Dead and Death to the Living. Enter the Occult World of 'Necromancy"
Poorly made tale of the misadventures of a young marriage and man's continuity quest for supernatural power , as Welles as the high priest out to get victim Franklyn . It displays ordinary elements of the witchery subgenre : Devil worship, witchcraft , diabolic possession and adding some scenes of fully nude coven worship . The picture displays lots of creepy , eerie and nonsense moments. Bizarre, tense, controversial and with chilling scenes about practices of devil worship and satanism ritual . Production values and set design are highlighted by the usual cool scenarios, as exterior , as colorful interior. Make-up and visual effects provide some much needed jolts . Some of the effects are little dated now, but director Bert I Gordon builds intrigue and tension enough through a stately pace. Top-notch casting , in this otherwise average production , as Orson Welles stands out playing his showy role. Orson's acting , is one of his strongest in an unconventionally nasty role. Whenever he was making a movie just for money , Orson would disguise himself . In this piece of horror trash from filmmaker Bert I. Gordon , Welles wears both a fake nose and a false beard . While Pamela Franklyn -still haunted by debuting in the successful The Innocents- is cool a as the unfortunate victim . Main and support cast are acceptable , such as : Pamela Franklin , Orson Welles , Lee Purcell , Michael Ontkean , Sue Bernard and Harvey Jason who married Pamela Franklyn . Rare and frightening musical score Rob Walsh and Karger . As well as atmospheric cinematography by Winton C. Hoch , John Ford's regular cameraman , and shooting took place in Los Gatos, California.
The motion picture was regularly directed by Bert I Gordon. He is a good artisan working from the 50s to 2000s , making passable films in low budget. He's directed movies of all kinds of genres as children films : The Magic Sword, The boy and the pirates. About witchery and necromancy : The Witching, Burning at the stake, Satan's princess. Erotic : The Big Bet, Let's do it. And Bert has a penchant for fantasy with giant beings and huge animals : The Cyclops, King Dinosaur, Earth vs the Spider. Beginning of the end, War of the Colossal beast, Village of the giants, Attack of the Puppet people, Empire of the ants, The food of the goods, among others . Rating : 4,5/10, so-so , but acceptable and passable . The tale will appeal to horror pictures harcore enthusiasts and Orson Welles/Pamela Franklyn fans.
