"Terror" by Norman J. Warren is a film full of surprises. It starts in the 17th century with the persecution of a witch - she tries to escape but is caught and burnt at the stake. While she was burning, some people died. One death looked like an accident caused by carelessness, but the others had clearly been caused by supernatural forces. This is the beginning of the dying spree, and three centuries later… Three centuries later, the killings will come with double force. Many people are killed. Is it the witch or a human agent? The clues seem to point to one character in particular, but some killings are so "fantastic" that we are led to think about a supernatural agent.Anyway, I was not concerned about the plot. The film is quite inventive, and in some ways almost resembles a giallo. The preliminaries of each murder are stylish and dynamic; there are many pretty girls in the film (sure thing, Norman has really a good taste in what refers to feminine beauty), and the soundtrack is inspired and helps to enhance the film. In short, fast cameras, a good soundtrack and a bizarre and interesting way of telling the story. But one thing the film lacks – Nudity. We only once see a woman performing a show almost naked. She's ugly. And there were so many pretty girls in this film, and not even one of them… Anyway, even so, I think that "Terror" is an enjoyable film, one can say that Norman J. Warren has a very personal way of making films. Whatever you say about his films you can't deny his creativity. I've only seen three of Norman J. Warren's films – This one called "Terror", "Inseminoid" and "Prey", and all of them share this common trait – they are bizarre and addictive, so if you're looking for something different in films, check out his films.

Norman J. Warren was a leading figure in the New Wave of British Horror during the 70s; along with fellow schlock-meisters Pete Walker and Alan Birkinshaw, he was instrumental in pushing the boundaries of UK cinema in terms of gritty violence and sex. For that reason, I have always maintained a certain degree of admiration for the man, despite the fact that the majority of his films are technically shoddy efforts, suffering from muddled scripts, weak editing, poor acting, low production values, and amateurish special effects.In a lot of respects, Terror is no exception—the story makes little sense, the cast are dreadful, much of Warren's visual style is cribbed directly from Dario Argento's Suspiria, and the gore is unconvincing—but after all is said and done, this film still manages to be one of his more entertaining efforts. This is primarily thanks to the unrelenting violence—there's bloody stabbings, impalements, be-headings and mangled corpses aplenty—but it doesn't hurt that the film also features several easy-on-the-eye actresses, some gratuitous sleaze, a few silly red herrings, and loads of wonderfully dated 70s trappings (wide-lapelled suits, a yellow cortina, flares, blatant product placement for Daz, and the filming of a typically daft soft-core sexploitation flick called 'Bathtime With Brenda').Fun moments that are particularly worthy of a mention: a bear trap positioned with unbelievable accuracy; Annie Lennox's ugly twin performing an S&M strip-tease for a man with a huge nose; Peter 'Chewbacca' Mayhew unwittingly terrorising the film's heroine before uttering the immortal line "You want a mechanic?"; aspiring actress Viv (Tricia Walsh) unable to distinguish between red paint and blood (even when it's all over her face); and tasty bit of skirt Carol (Blake's 7 hottie Glynis Barber in her first screen role) doing nothing to help the blonde stereotype by locking herself in a shed full of tools when chased by a psycho killer, but failing to arm herself before making a break for it.

Perhaps I'm getting too mature in my teenage old age, but this movie just didn't do it for me. It seemed to me like it was just scene after scene of killing, which, don't get me wrong, are pretty cool, but just don't fit together as a whole. They just don't gel.and then it all ends with a hokey and unconvincing, yet action filled climax, where (spoilers!!!) the last protagonist is killed by the 300 year old ghost of a witch burned at the stake. It wasn't hard for me to get through, it was just what it was, not below or above average. It was really difficult for me to get behind this one. To me, it'll always just be "That movie about the girl who was possessed by the evil spirit of a witch to kill all her friends because a film was made about her(the witch, that is.)" 4/10. Just so-so, if even that.

The angry and powerful spirit of an evil witch who was burned at the stake hundreds of years ago gets revived in modern times. She proceeds to exact a harsh and violent revenge from beyond the grave on the ancestors of her killers. Director Norman J. Warren, working from a witty script by David McGillivray, ably creates a creepy atmosphere, maintains a steady pace throughout, and stages the elaborate go-for-broke gruesome murder set pieces with considerable graphic aplomb ala Dario Argento (whose "Suspiria" was an obvious big influence on this film). Gleefully disgusting splatter highlights include two brutal stabbings, a garroting, a soft-core porn director being fatally beaned in the head with a studio light, a juicy decapitation, and a nice impalement on a sword. Other bracing bravura moments are all the inanimate objects in a studio coming to deadly life and a car being levitated. The sturdy cast all contribute solid performances, with especially praiseworthy work by John Nolan as a stuffy movie studio head, Carolyn Courage as the worried heroine, Glynnis Barber as a bubbly, lovely blonde actress, Milton Reid as a hulking nightclub bouncer, and Tricia Walsh as a vacuous redhead bimbo. Les Young's agile, polished cinematography, Ivor Staney's neatly moody'n'spooky synthesizer score, the engrossingly tawdry showbiz setting, and the uncompromisingly bleak nihilistic ending are all likewise up to par. Good, grisly fun.