British horror films of the 1960s generally pushed the envelope in terms of sex and violence — they often had a lurid quality that set them apart from our domestic B-movies.
As kids, me and my friends came to rely on the British company Hammer Films for variations of the Dracula and Frankenstein stories that were shockingly violent (by the standards of that long-ago, pre-ratings era).
Christopher Lee was probably the scariest of all Draculas, and Peter Cushing was hard to top as the vampire’s long-suffering nemesis Van Helsing.
The Hammer label was one that was sought out by young horror buffs, and they also made contemporary horror stories that were even rougher than the period pieces. There was a ruthlessness in films like “These Are The Damned” that made them stand out from the pack.
The new Warner Archive DVD-on-demand release “The Sorcerers” isn’t a Hammer production, but the 1967 Boris Karloff picture about mind control is a creepy mix of horror and twisted sex about an elderly couple who have developed a device that allows them to do a mind meld with another person.
Catherine Lacey plays Karloff’s half-mad wife and Ian Ogilvy is the unfortunate young man Karloff picks up in a cafe to be his test subject.
The movie was filmed at the height of the “Swinging London” phenomenon and is played out in settings that could have been used for “Blow Up” or any other of the pop culture-powered dramas that came out of that fervent period.
The old couple not only connect with the mind of the Ogilvy character, they develop the power to control him and when they start sending him out on sexually perverse missions — that obviously give the old woman a kick she has never felt before — “The Sorcerers” moves into new territory for a 1960s B-picture.
Co-writer and director Michael Reeves died in 1969 at the age of only 25, but he has developed quite a cult following for the brutal and unsettling Vincent Price picture “Witchfinder General” that he made right after “The Sorcerers.”
Reeves was clearly a unique talent who might have developed into a filmmaker in the vein of Brian DePalma if he hadn’t died so young. “The Sorcerers” has many of the flaws of a ‘60s B-movie — some of the acting is quite bad — but it is memorably bizarre.
