2. The Witch Who Came From The Sea (1976)
Poor Mollie suffered severe sexual abuse as a child at the hands of her alcoholic father. She is now, quite understandably, disturbed and dysfunctional. Mollie teeters on the verge of outright insanity. She takes out all of her angst on men and relives her childhood through painful flashbacks. We see her downfall through alcohol and murder but things are always kept quite blurred (did that really happen?) between Fantasy and reality until the final denouement. The Witch Who Came From the Sea is an obscure little 70s Grindhouse oddity which exploits the theme of child abuse to get its shocks. There are also castrations aplenty in the film, but they are not shown in any gruesome detail. The film is quite surreal and is full of symbolism to aid you as to why Mollie is so bonkers. The acting is solid, not brilliant, but the film has a dream like quality that makes it special and rises it above the usual Video Nasty fare. What it was doing on the list, I do not know. Yes, the themes are upsetting but there is a coherent plot and blood is not sloshing around the screen too much. It is an eccentric little gem of a movie that managed somehow to get fall afoul of the British censors but thank goodness it did or else it would have fallen into deep obscurity and it wouldn't have the cult appreciation it has today.