The Sorcerers

The premise of The Sorcerers (that of an elderly couple taking over the body of a young man) has great potential, not only as a thriller, but also as a social commentary. Unfortunately, the execution of that premise by director Michael Reeves is marred by a weak script and plot holes too large to be ignored.

The same sense of nihilism that permeated Reeves’s later effort, Witchfinder General is present here, but Reeves’s script script does little to explore it. Other themes are similarly ignored, such as Ogilvy’s character’s disenchantment and society’s disowning of senior citizens.

Instead Reeves focuses on the lure of action without consequence in Catherine Lacey’s abrupt decent into homicidal mania, which ends up coming across as over the top and little more than a plot device.

A more deft handling of the themes might have covered up some of the significant plot holes present in the script, but such is not the case. Between the dated psychedelic light-show, and the ludicrous premise that when a mind-controlled subject is physically wounded, an identical wound (complete with cut) would appear on the controller, The Sorcerers feels very much like an amateur effort.