Wonderful Movie

Absolutely Fantastic

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This film begins in 1692 with the Salem witch trials. Ann Putnam is a young girl who has accused several people of witchcraft. This scene is actually based on real events and characters and the real life Putnam was a young girl who ultimately accused 62 people of witchcraft! At first, folks believed her rants and several folks were put to death or imprisoned but after a while it became apparent that Ann was just a nasty piece of work!The scene then switches to the present. Loreen Graham (also Susan Swift) is on a class field trip to Salem and soon weird stuff starts happening all around Loreen. A guy dressed in stereotypical Puritan garb chases after her and he keeps appearing and reappearing. And, the girls' teacher is killed right before their eyes in a weird 'accident'! Eventually, this same Puritan guy appears IN Loreen's home and he's shot several times...with no effect whatsoever! The police arrive and handcuff the guy (which is odd in light of the bullets) and tossed him in jail...and there the man out of time languishes!! Later in the film, Loreen starts acting like Ann...as if she is somehow becoming this hellishly awful person.Considering the film was directed by Bert I. Gordon, I automatically assumed it would be crap. After all, he's responsible for crap such as "Empire of the Ants", "Food of the Gods" and "Picture Mommy Dead"...and quite few other genuinely bad films. But despite this and a rather low overall score of 4.3, it's pretty good for what it is...and has several interesting twists that help it stand apart from dozens of other Satanism films (a VERY popular genre in the 70s and early 80s). Overall, a tad silly but quite entertaining for this sort of thing.FYI--The Salem Witch Museum portrayed in this film is an actual museum which brings the trials to life. I visited there myself many many years ago.

In the Salem of 1692,a group of witches are burned at the stake.In present-day Salem,the spirit of young witch Ann possesses schoolgirl Loreen Graham during a class trip to the museum.Loreen then enters a cross-temporal battle to stop the evil Reverend Samuel Parris sending another innocent victim to the stake."Burned at the Stake" by Bert I.Gordon is a pretty tame witchcraft horror in the vein of "Crowhaven Farm".There are some huge lapses in logic,the characters appear and disappear with ease and there is really no resolution if witchcraft is being real or not.There is very little blood and absolutely no nudity,so fans of exploitation cinema will be disappointed.6 stakes out of 10.

Quite an imaginative concept (though it feels like its borrowing ideas from other films) is variably compiled, even with its cheap aurora it's commendably executed by director Bert I. Gordon. What starts off straight-forward and atmospheric transcends into silly plot devices, especially when it's focusing on the occurrences in the modern period. The muddled narrative does moves back and forth between 1692 when the Salem witch trails where performed and the present time. How this is connected is used through witchcraft, reincarnation and time travel. The latter aspect is vaguely touched upon, but it remains an interesting twist. While its offbeat, you couldn't help but think of such films like "The Exorcist", "Blood on Satan's Claw", "Witchfinder General" and "Audrey Rose", in which Susan Swift also played a similar role in. Swift gives an illustratively emotive performance (but I got to say the whining did become annoying during stages) when she is asked to play two characters. The scenes which it has her as the reincarnation of Ann Putman; The girl who falsely accused around twenty people of witchcraft and was under influence of the despicable Reverend Parris (an unnerving John Peters) wanting to install fear are eerily staged. Astute performances from the rest the cast with Guy Stockwell (the level-headed doctor), Tisha Sterling, David Rounds, Albert Salmi and Beverly Ross. During moments Gordon looks like his stuck between wanting to go out by exploiting the matter with some exaggerated shocks and gaudy icky make-up FX, but still he never over does it with some well-rounded psychological and composed dramatics that are lingeringly haunting. Capable direction keeps it resourceful with its smooth pacing and hypnotic location work of Salem Massachusetts, although some of the night time sequences where hard to make out what was happening. A modest little witchcraft film.

Time travel is a fun concept, and this film gives it a different slant. I got a kick out of Captain Billingham, one of the more down-to-earth characters, who was just not having a good day. Ordinarily, I don't choose to watch horror films, but this is an exception. Good story, excellent acting.