The Witches BD + Screen Caps

ABOUT THIS RELEASE

In the mid-sixties, famed producer Dino De Laurentiis brought together the talents of five celebrated Italian directors for an anthology film. Their brief was simple: each filmmaker would create an episode centered on a witch, to be played in all episodes by Silvana Mangano.

Luchino Visconit and screenwriter Cesare Zavattini open the film with The Witch Burned Alive, about a famous actress and a drunken evening that leads to unpleasant revelations. Civic Sense is a lightly comic interlude from Mauro Bolognini with a dark conclusion, and The Earth as Seen from the Moon sees Italian comedy legend Toto team up with Pier Paolo Pasolini for the first time for a tale of matrimony and a red-headed father and son. Franco Rosso concocts a story of revenge in The Sicilian’s Wife, while Vittorio De Sica casts Clint Eastwood as Mangano’s estranged husband in An Evening Like the Others, concluding The Witches with a stunning homage to Italian comic books.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 1.0/5

Along with a 32-page booklet, the features aren’t exactly plentiful with an Audio Commentary by film critic and novelist Tim Lucas and the complete English-language version of the film available for the first time in any format.

VIDEO – 3.25/5, AUDIO – 3.0/5

The Witches comes to Blu-ray through the Arrow Academy line of releases presented with a 1080p high-definition transfer which was restored from the original 35mm interpositive and scanned in 2K resolution where instances of dirt, scratches and other instances of film wear were repaired. The film is show in its original 1.85 widescreen aspect ratio and although indeed this was improved, the video still had issues with clarity as detail wasn’t entirely sharp.

The audio here is a basic but adequate PCM Mono track that has some okay depth with other items like ambient noises while dialogue was fairly clean and clear coming from that center channel.

OVERALL – 2.25/5

Overall, The Witches is certainly a odd Italian movie for sure but not entirely engaging despite its weirdness and as an anthology, never really found a balance, though it was fun seeing a young Clint Eastwood starring in one of the anthology shorts. This Blu-ray from Arrow Academy is rather substandard with so-so video/audio transfers and only a commentary as a feature, though the English-language version is available for the first time.