The Sorcerers
He is an old man, not in the best of health and not in good humour, Doctor Marcus Monserrat, “practitioner of medical hypnosis,” offering to treat anxiety and feelings of self-consciousness, but requiring subjects on which to test the unique process which he has developed in secret, ostracised and mocked by the medical establishment and living in near-squalor with his wife Estelle, devoted but disillusioned.
He is a young man, part of the hip London scene, Mike Roscoe, running an antique and curio shop by day, the Glory Hole, and hitting the clubs at night along with his girlfriend Nicole and their friend Alan, a mechanic, considerably more loyal to her than Mike is; approached late at night in a café by Monserrat and offered “an extraordinary evening,” Mike is bored enough to accept, an unknowing guinea pig.
The second feature directed by Witchfinder General’s Michael Reeves, The Sorcerers was released in 1967 and co-written with Tom Baker from a story by John Burke, it reunited Reeves with Ian Ogilvy who had starred in Revenge on the Blood Beast the previous year, here joined by Elizabeth Ercy and Victor Henry as Nicole and Alan, with top billing given to The Comedy of Terrors’ Boris Karloff, though Catherine Lacey is not to be underestimated as Estelle.
Initially presented as someone for her husband to talk to in order to explain his revolutionary theories to the audience, an offer of “dazzling, indescribable experiences… intoxication with no hangover, ecstasy with no consequence,” they will experience it along with Mike, every vicarious sensation of his vigorous body, and Estelle wants more, pushing him to steal, to speed on his motorcycle, to murder, the fraught minds of the characters emphasised by Paul Ferris’ jangling score.
A monstrous and resentful old woman with her teeth sunk in the young flesh of her victim, she refuses to back down, setting her against her husband who is interested only in publishing the results of his breakthrough but who has deeply underestimated her, Mike the puppet pulled between them, unable to account for his compulsions or the gaps in his memory, the violence surprising in that is immediate and real rather than fantastical.
The Sorcerers the only one of Reeves’ three films to be set in contemporary London, a blend of science fiction and horror in a place recognisable and relatable, restored for Blu-ray the new edition is supported by two commentaries, from William Fowler and Vic Pratt, and from Kim Newman and Sean Hogan, a conversation with Ian Ogilvy about the film, interviews with assistant cameraman Don Lord and editor David Woodward, a trailer and stills gallery and a reversible sleeve.
The Sorcerers is available on Blu-ray from 88 Films
