MonsterGirl's 150 Days of Classic Horror! #6 Baby Yaga (1973) / Necromancy (1972)

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This post is part of Monstergirl's 150 Days of Classic Horror "One photo, one paragraph challenge for long winded me!"

Baba Yaga, Devil Witch (1973)

baba-yaga-poster+1973

The sensual Carroll Baker (Baby Doll 1956, Something Wild 1961) who later became one of the queens of the Euro-Exploitation realm (The Sweet Body of Deborah 1968, Paranoia 1969, So Sweet… So Perverse 1969, A Quiet Place to Kill 1970,The Devil Has Seven Faces 1971) inhabits the role of Baba Yaga.

Based on Guido Grepax’s ‘Valentina’ a pornographic comic, the film is less about the trope of good vs evil and suggests more the exploration of the heroine’s ‘body’ and the consumption of pleasure and pain. Isabelle De Funès is Valentina, a photographer who falls under the spell of a bewitched camera, and the sapphic enchantress Baba Yaga who desires to possess her. The film is filled with surreal imagery, erotic reveries and sado-masochistic fetishism. Ely Galeani (A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin 1971) plays the living doll.

Baba Yaga Carroll Baker

Necromancy aka The Witching (1972)

Directed by Bert I Gordon, who leaves behind gigantism for a moment to delve into satanism. Orson Welles is Mr. Cato a practitioner of the dark arts and leader of a coven in the small town of Lilith, who wants desperately to bring his dead son back to life. He seeks out Pamela Franklin who plays Lori Brandon, a girl who has the power to help him raise the dead. When she and her husband Frank (Michael Ontkean) move to Lilith guided by the lure of a new career, Lori finds out much to her horror the true reason behind Cato’s motives. Some very atmospheric moments, with the ghost of a little boy that taunts Franklin and some eerie exterior camera work. Also co-stars Lee Purcell as Priscilla. I’m a big fan of Franklin’s though I didn’t choose an image of her for this post.

Necromany Orson Welles
NECROMANCY (1972)

Necromancy with Orson Welles

6 Down, just 144 to go!-MonsterGirl

2 thoughts on “MonsterGirl's 150 Days of Classic Horror! #6 Baby Yaga (1973) / Necromancy (1972)

    1. some people think Necromancy is a terrible film. I found it eerie enough and with Welles and Franklin, while not a masterpiece nearly in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby, it had it’s 70s creepiness and consider Gordon worked with the great Ida Lupino in Food of the Gods teehee…

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