The Sorcerers is set in 1960's swinging London where one night Mike Roscoe (Ian Ogilvy) decides he is bored, it just so happens an old geezer named Professor Marcus Monserrat (an ancient looking Boris Karloff) interrupts Mike while he's trying to enjoy some chips & promises to give him a new kind of experience he'll never forget. Being a trusty kind of guy Mike accepts & follows the Prof. back to his house where he & his bitter wife Estelle (Catherine Lacey) plug Mike into some sort of electronic device which hypnotises him & lets both the Prof. & his wife feel what Mike feels & experience what he experiences as well as being able to control his mind. At first they enjoy the sensations Mike give them but Estelle's motives take a sinister turn as she makes Mike steal for her as well as commit murder just for kicks...
This British production was co-written, produced & directed by Michael Reeves & I personally thought it was pretty bad. The script by Reeves, John Burke & Tom Baker (no, not the Doctor Who one...) is actually rather dull, I thought the ancient looking Karloff & the elderly woman who played his wife were two of the worst, least sinister, least frightening, least intimidating & frankly rubbish villains ever put on film. They can barely move! To be honest The Sorcerers isn't really a straight forward horror, it's as much a psychological thriller as anything else & apart from a couple of lame & pointless murders at the end has very little horror in it. The character's are dull & I didn't like anyone, the dialogue unintentionally funny these days & I found it all rather lifeless & bland, even lasting less than 90 minutes I thought the film dragged & at the hour mark I started reading a newspaper & one I had already read earlier in the day, not a good sign... For those interested my Sun football 'DreamTeam' is doing pretty well!
Director Reeves gives the film a decent look, he seems to film most of it with hand-held cameras on location using lots of tight close-ups which gives it a gritty sort of feel. I thought the film was lacking any sort of proper horror film atmosphere being set in swinging 60's London which is far from scary & dates the film badly. I just didn't like it & couldn't get into it with a inappropriate setting & the single two worst least threatening horror film villains in history. The violence is tame, there's one splash of blood as someone is killed with a pair of scissors, someone is strangled & there's a couple of burnt corpses on show.
Technically the film is alright, it has a certain hand-held look to it which works reasonably well. Partly shot on location in London this documents & show's an era long gone. The acting is OK but on-ones going to win any Oscars & Karloff looks so frail & old it's untrue, he was 80 at the time he was in this just two years before his death & apparently he was paid £11,000 for appearing in The Sorcerers which ain't a bad amount even today! The only other name of note in the cast is Susan George who gets stabbed with a pair of scissors.
The Sorcerers isn't a film that I liked but judging by some of the other comments on the IMDb many do so perhaps I'm in the minority. To be honest I'm a leader rather than a follower so I don't really care who else likes it, I didn't & it's as simple & straight forward as that.
This British production was co-written, produced & directed by Michael Reeves & I personally thought it was pretty bad. The script by Reeves, John Burke & Tom Baker (no, not the Doctor Who one...) is actually rather dull, I thought the ancient looking Karloff & the elderly woman who played his wife were two of the worst, least sinister, least frightening, least intimidating & frankly rubbish villains ever put on film. They can barely move! To be honest The Sorcerers isn't really a straight forward horror, it's as much a psychological thriller as anything else & apart from a couple of lame & pointless murders at the end has very little horror in it. The character's are dull & I didn't like anyone, the dialogue unintentionally funny these days & I found it all rather lifeless & bland, even lasting less than 90 minutes I thought the film dragged & at the hour mark I started reading a newspaper & one I had already read earlier in the day, not a good sign... For those interested my Sun football 'DreamTeam' is doing pretty well!
Director Reeves gives the film a decent look, he seems to film most of it with hand-held cameras on location using lots of tight close-ups which gives it a gritty sort of feel. I thought the film was lacking any sort of proper horror film atmosphere being set in swinging 60's London which is far from scary & dates the film badly. I just didn't like it & couldn't get into it with a inappropriate setting & the single two worst least threatening horror film villains in history. The violence is tame, there's one splash of blood as someone is killed with a pair of scissors, someone is strangled & there's a couple of burnt corpses on show.
Technically the film is alright, it has a certain hand-held look to it which works reasonably well. Partly shot on location in London this documents & show's an era long gone. The acting is OK but on-ones going to win any Oscars & Karloff looks so frail & old it's untrue, he was 80 at the time he was in this just two years before his death & apparently he was paid £11,000 for appearing in The Sorcerers which ain't a bad amount even today! The only other name of note in the cast is Susan George who gets stabbed with a pair of scissors.
The Sorcerers isn't a film that I liked but judging by some of the other comments on the IMDb many do so perhaps I'm in the minority. To be honest I'm a leader rather than a follower so I don't really care who else likes it, I didn't & it's as simple & straight forward as that.