Joan Fontaine Centennial: The Witches (1966)
by Jason Adams
Tell me if you've heard this plot before: a closed-minded outsider with a sordid spiritual history comes to a rural UK village where they slowly unravel a plot involving each and every member of the town being in on the ritual sacrifice of a virginal young woman, with a twist. You're thinking The Wicker Man, right? Well seven years before Christopher Lee did his exuberant little dance beside that infamous flaming totem Joan Fontaine got there first in 1966's The Witches, an actual Hammer production (I always think The Wicker Man is from Hammer, but it ain't) that really doesn't get the love it earns...