Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A Masterpiece!

A different way of telling a story

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Bert I. Gordon's BURNED AT THE STAKE, inexplicably titled THE COMING on the British made video I managed to see, is essentially a chick-flick horror movie tapping into both THE EXORCIST and the legendary Salem Witch Fiasco with an interesting angle on time travel. Others have described the plot in enough detail, my interest in how the film essentially boiled down into a clever little manipulation aimed at 17 to 25 year old females who still remember the angst of their adolescent years. It's quite watchable, has some decent shock sequences, but ultimately raises more questions than it answers when viewed in a contemporary light that sees through the film's contrivances.For instance, you have to wonder about any horror movie that casts a 17 year old girl as a 12 - 14 year old who's age is never really established. At one point lead actress Susan Swift -- who is superb, given the material -- is playing hopscotch when I realized she was perhaps a bit too old for that sort of thing. Or at least a bit too well developed as the film takes great pains time & again to provide her with costuming that seems to be more interested in showing us how she was maturing into an attractive young lady. They tap into the Linda Blair thing by having her spend the bulk of the film either dressed up as a Puritan serving girl, a schoolgirl, or running around present day Salem in her nightgown so much that you wonder why nobody seems to notice & ask if she needs a ride home.She also spends an awful lot of the film writhing around on the floor in a demonic frenzy, which is where I suspect a lot of the interest in the film lies. Then the movie goes out of it's way to be respectable, showing it's true colors of having it's cake and eating it too by lacking the traditional nudity and explicit gore that early 1980s horror movies are so well known for. Yet make no mistake, the film is an exploitation exercise, albeit one in surprisingly good enough taste to appeal to a female audience who will very quickly come to identify with the poor young thing as she realizes that she is a modern day reincarnation of one of the young hysterical liars at the focus of the Salem Witch Fiasco. Then there is the scene where she sits on the steps of her school bus unsupervised while the rest of her class is being given a tour of a colonial era haunted cemetery, the improbability of which is only underscored by having her teacher literally struck dead from above by a coincidence of the most extreme kind.Then again all of the adults in the film are ineffectual, stupid, or at best well-meaning but ultimately wrong. All that is except for one of the resident present day witches who walks around dressed like Elvira and is the only one with any hope of getting to the bottom of the mystery at hand. Which is, how can a 17th century Puritan farmer suddenly find himself transported to 1981 era Salem? The farmer is the only truly sympathetic character in the film (even the local investigative journalist carries a flask of whiskey with him for a quick nip to get him through some research work) and yet the filmmakers have the clod invade the young woman's bedroom where he is understandably shot at point blank range by her mother, who doesn't seem to understand that good Massachusetts liberals don't keep loaded handguns in their bed stands. The scene is creepy but for the wrong reasons, since after all this is supposed to be a 12 to 14 year old girl. Couldn't he have just invaded the kitchen while she was fixing a snack?Perhaps this is the key to understanding the film, which is more or less a young woman's fantasy vision of a horror film world, replete with cobblestone streets, Gothic churches, cloistered old cemeteries, fetching costumes, and authority figures who are too caught up in their adult function roles to understand her inner turmoil. Good old Albert Salmi has a thankless role as a police officer who is nice enough to re-unite our heroic witch with her "familiar" Rottweiler hound but intellectually ill-equipped to understand what is going on around him. He's like an ineffective father figure, concerned and empowered but ultimately unable to comprehend what he's found himself in the middle of. The finale also has enough fire & brimstone yet ultimately fails to answer the basic question at the heart of the film: Was there actually a supernatural force at work in Salem in 1692? Damned if I know.5/10

Susan Swift is an appealing youngster, a flower child transplanted to the 1980s (like a young Susan Dey), but she doesn't quite have the vocal range for a demanding dramatic lead and she tends to whine; still, she's rather sweet and has bright eyes and a pretty smile. In "The Coming" (as it was called when briefly released to theaters), Swift may be the reincarnation of a Salem witch. The low-budget flick has a very limited imagination, borrowing ideas from so many other pictures that I gave up on it with about 15 minutes to go. It starts out strong and has some camp appeal. Obviously, there are more serious films that deal with the Salem witch trials that deserve to be seen over this one; however, as junk movies go, it isn't too terrible. The Boston locales are a definite plus, and the supporting cast is amusingly hammy. *1/2 from ****

As a fan of Susan Swift's OTHER and much better known reincarnation movie - 1977's Audrey Rose - I was eager to see The Coming. It took me ages to find a copy of the video, and when I did locate one in a second-hand shop, I had to spend £10 to get it! But I was not disappointed. I thought it to be a highly intelligent and original horror movie, which dealt superbly with the fascinating 17th century Salem witch hunts. As Loreen Graham/Ann Putnam, Susan Swift was brilliant, and I am amazed that the film is barely heard of anywhere in the world. I strongly recommend that you try and see it.

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.