The Sorcerers – 1967 | 87 mins | Horror, Thriller | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Based on a story by novelist John Burke, The Sorcerers was directed by 23 year-old Michael Reeves, who later died of an accidental drug overdose after making only one more film, the renowned Witchfinder General (1968). This peculiar Swinging Sixties low-budget cult horror proposes that youth is wasted on the young, and like Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), the voyeuristic pleasures it provides to the elderly couple can be seen as a metaphor for the cinemagoer. 80-year-old veteran actor Boris Karloff returned to his native Britain for this film and produced a strong performance but the master is overshadowed by Catherine Lacey, who is simply astonishing as his power-crazed and bitter wife.

The disgraced hypnotist and inventor Professor Marcus Montserrat (Boris Karloff) has developed a technique for controlling the minds, and sharing the sensations of his subjects. Monserrat believes his machine will allow the elderly to enjoy youthful experiences that their age would normally prohibit. He and his elderly wife Estelle (Catherine Lacey) test the apparatus on a guinea-pig in the shape of bored youth Mike Roscoe (Ian Ogilvy), and get pleasure from “being” the younger man. But Estelle soon grows to love the power of controlling Roscoe and the vicarious pleasures that he provides.

A conflict ensues between the impoverished couple, Estelle wishes to maintain control over Mike and urge him commit crimes in the pursuit of even greater thrills, whilst her husband believes the subject should be liberated from their experiments. Estelle is intoxicates by the voyeuristic thrills and has stronger control over Mike than her husband. She becomes unhinged when her husband tries to stop her and to prevent him from doing so she ties him to the living room furniture. Meanwhile, Mike’s occasional French girlfriend Nicole (Elizabeth Ercy) and best friend Alan (Victor Henry) become increasingly concerned by his mood swings and tendency to go missing without reason. Mike explains away his erratic behaviour as ‘blackouts’, but when an old girlfriend (Susan George) and a singer Mike had been seen leaving a nightclub with turn up dead – the police are soon on his trail. Realising his wife’s mania must be stopped at all costs, Montserrat battles for control of Mike consciousness as he speeds to outrun the police during a car chase.