Warlock

Warlock (1989)
Directed by: Steve Miner
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 53%

Hello Film Fans! Today, I have a review for a film that I have been itching to see for over a decade! When I was younger (probably fourth or fifth grade) I bought a few used games from a local video store for my SNES. One of those games was Widget the World Watcher (which I am positive nobody ever saw the show or played the game...I did both). The other game I bought was Warlock. I had no idea what it was about but the cartridge looked cool enough...

I was easy to please?

Anyway, when I got home and fired up my SNES I put hours into Warlock. By the end of my time with the game (maybe 3 levels in) I still didn't know what the Hell I was doing. I never did finish the game and I never knew where the developer drew inspiration from. Here is a clip of some game play. Skip to about 3 minutes in because the person that recorded this gameplay just dicked around for a while before starting to play.


I am not sure you can tell but the game was incredibly fun but insanely difficult which is why I never bothered to finish it. So flash forward several years and I saw the poster art for Warlock and I immediately remembered my time with this game. I have had it on my Netflix Instant Queue for months now, and tonight I finally decided to watch it. What follows is going to be a complete overview of the film in "Hate Watch" format but know this; this film is SO worth seeing because it is SO bad!

Warlock starts (rather abruptly) with an old man shoving a cat into a picnic basket typed vessel. We then see a group of elders walking through a village that looks like it is from the colonial days. The group eventually makes its way to a tower where they are keeping a man prisoner. It is revealed by the leader that the year is 1691 and they are in Boston. The man in front of them (Julian Sands) is accused of being a Warlock and is sentenced to death by burning. They make sure the clarify that he is sentenced to burn while boxes of live cats are tossed in below him! This explains the beginning of the film. Because I don't want to continue to call him The Warlock, I will simply refer to our antagonist as Sandy. As the elders leave, a man with the best 80s metal hair, Redferne (Richard E. Grant), tells Sandy that he is going to pay for the pain he has caused. Sandy informs him that the Devil will set him free. Redferne knocks him over, rude, and leaves. A huge storms comes through and takes Sandy away in a tornado. The elders rush back up to discover that not only is Sandy MIA but so is Redferne.

The film then jumps forward almost 300 years to 1989 California. Sandy crash lands into the house of Chas (Kevin O'Brien). Kassandra (Lori Singer), Chas' roommate, rushes out to investigate. The two contemplate on what to do with the unconscious Sandy and eventually decide to put him in Kassandra's room (because everything is plastic and Chas' stuff is antique). The next day, Sandy wakes up and broods which is super sexy to Kassandra (who looks like she walked out of a fitness VHS). She leaves for work which means that Chas is left alone with Sandy. Sandy admires a ring that Chas wears but he informs him that he cannot take it off because he broke his finger and now it cannot be removed. Utilizing his warlocky powers (he chops the dude's finger off) he takes the ring. Sandy then gives Chas a kiss of death (he bites out his tongue). Chas then dies. Kassandra is taken in by the cops and questioned about Chas' death. She freaks out and heads back to the house to collect her stuff. While she's at the house, Redferne shows up and asks where Sandy has gone. After the initial shock (and a phone call to the police), Kassandra helps Redferne find the glass that Sandy cut himself on. When the police arrive, they take Redferne in for questioning. While Redferne is in captivity, Sandy comes back and hexes Kassandra by making her age rapidly. This is a real "bummer" according to Kassandra.

Kassandra bails Redferne out and she decides to help him until she is unhexed. In the meantime, Sandy has caused a faux Medium to become possessed by an actual demon which causes her to die. Sandy plucks her eyes out and uses them to find the pages to the Grand Grimoire (a book that is like the Bible only for Satan). Sandy finds the first third of the pages back at Chas' house inside an antique piece of furniture. He then travels to a trailer park and seemingly befriends a young boy tossing a football around. Sandy hears a church choir singing and asks why the boy isn't among them. He replies that his father doesn't like "all that Jesus and the 12 apostrophes stuff". Sandy informs him that he is a witch and the boy asks where his broom is because he can't fly without it. Sandy chuckles and tells him he doesn't need a broom to fly. We discover later that Sandy murdered the boy so he could use his fat to make a flying potion (because he needed the fat of an unbaptized boy). Sandy then gains the second set of pages from a Mennonite farm. The elder farmer notices signs that point to bewitchment and paints a hex symbol on the barn. This alerts Redferne and a battle ensues. During the fight, Kassandra regains the charm bracelet that Sandy took which is the source of her hex. She reverts back to her original age and she tells Redferne that she is done with this chase. Redferne appeals to her caring nature and she tells him it would be better to fly to Boston to get the last set of pages before Sandy does. After a brief moment of shock by the planes, Redferne agrees and they arrive in Boston. We see, however, that Sandy has hitched a ride in the cargo hold of the jet and meets them in a graveyard at the church where the last pages are being held. Another battles ensues and Sandy gets all three sets of pages together and almost yells out the true name of God but is thwarted by Kassandra injecting saline into his skin with her insulin needles (I mentioned she is diabetic right?). The saline causes Sandy to burst into flames (because witches hate salt) and thus the universe is saved. Redferne then catches the next tornado back to his own time and the film ends with Kassandra burying the grimoire in the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Here is the trailer to the film that actually shows pretty much the entire film in a minute and half


Now, nobody would ever claim that Warlock is an incredible piece of cinema nor would they claim that it is even, in fact, a good piece of cinema. However, there are a few things that lead to it being considered a terrible (yet cult classic) film. First, neither Sandy nor Redferne show any real shock at the inventions around them. Redferne is a little spooked by cars but gets over that quickly. Sandy gives exactly ZERO Fs about what is going on around him. All he cares about is getting those dam-ned (how they say it in the film) pages. They could have had a really great horror/comedy if they'd added some fish-out-of-water typed humor. Perhaps have Sandy get into a cab and demand to be taken to Boston and the cabbie say "you mus' be crazy, cracka" or something similar. Secondly, the effects are laughable. Watch that clip up there and see for yourself. I could make a film with better effects with the stuff that is in immediate reach from me right now. If they had dropped maybe $13.75 more on effects then they could have had some passable CGI. Lastly, the acting. Holy freaking crap the acting. It is so bad that it almost passes as a parody of these types of films. Kassandra's vocabulary consists entirely of something resembling Valleyspeak. Julian Sands emits this aura like somebody told him that he was doing a film version of a lost Shakespearean play. The good thing about that, though, is that his performance is actually kind of terrifying and pretty much all awesome.

Warlock is not meant to be taken seriously (at least I hope not). Watch this film with the expectancy to laugh and mock. Even if you are scared of the most remotely occult related things; you can watch this and laugh hysterically. The effects are cheesy, the dialoge is unusual, and the story is trite but it is still a ton of fun.

My Score: 5/10

Season of the Witch

Season of the Witch (2011)
Directed by: Dominic Sena and Brett Ratner
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 10%

I had the urge tonight to do another Hate Watch Review and Nic Cage immediately entered my brain. I heard his voice question "But which bitchin' movie of mine will you watch, Heath!?" "Well, Nic, that is a valid question. With so many God-awful movies under your belt how does one choose" I replied. I thought it would be wise to search Netflix for the worst movie I could find. I settled on one of his SEVEN films from 2011; Season of the Witch. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. Seven films in 2011. There are some actors that pledge to never make another movie ever again after seven films (Hugh Grant et al.) but Cage says, "What other crazy sh*t can I do!?" Well Mr. Cage, this truly is a testament to your willingness to do anything. Be aware, I am going to go into detail about the movie in its entirety. Unlike my other films where I discuss parts; I plan on telling you exactly why this is held in such low regard across all of humanity. Enjoy!

Season of the Witch opens with a "trial" on a bridge in which several women are being accused of consorting with Lucifer. I put those quotation marks around the word trial because there is no way on Earth these women are going to live through this ordeal. Of the three women, one confesses to witchcraft. It is obvious that she is just trying to save her skin because she doesn't possess the hallmarks that all witches possess (shadowy eyes, gnarled teeth, bluish grey skin, a crazy crooked nose) like her companions. When the priest has condemned them all he signals his fellow priests to toss them over the bridge; effectively breaking their necks. They double up the murder by dunking them underwater and leaving them. As the crowd disperses, the head priest objects to his brother's haste to leave. They say that they believe they are as dead as they can be and that they have no concern for the sacrements that must be performed for their souls. The head priest decides to do the task alone and suffers for it when, surprise, the witches are not dead.

Fast forward some time to what appears to be The Crusades. Ron Perlman and Nicolas Cage are on top of a hill taking wagers on who will kill the most baddies. Violence ensues. Fast forward more time. A similar scene occurs. This is the filmmakers way of telling us that "Nic Cage and Ron Perlman are bad dudes in this movie" and I can appreciate the shorthand. Fast forward again to another massacre only this time Cage (his character's name is unimportant) sees women and children have been slain. This is not glorious to Cage. When he expresses his distaste for the scene the head knight calls him insolent. Feeling thoroughly unrighteous, Vincent from the Beauty and the Beast TV series leans over and says "Let's get the Hell out of here" (which is definitely how Crusaders talked). Cage realizes that that is a terrific idea and the two head off aimlessly; destined to star in a buddy cop movie set in the Crusades era.

Cage and Dieter from Blade II walk for a while and they happen upon a house filled with corpses. They set the house on fire (because that's what you did in those days) and continue on. Their next stop is a castle racked by plague. Apparently Cage is a celebrity even during the Crusades because he hides his face as they ride through the streets. Koulikov from Enemy at the Gates, on the other hand, couldn't care less who sees him (much like in the Present). The two are discovered to be Crusaders when a stableboy sees the emblem on Cage's sword. The two are confronted by guards and an epic sword fight breaks out (which ends in 33 seconds). The two are taken to see the Cardinal by the guards and they are commissioned to escort a witch, that is believed to be the cause of the Plague, to a Monastery. When Cage refuses, they are thrown in prison. After a dream, Cage decides to accept the Cardinal's condition if he agrees that the alleged witch will receive a trial (no quotations) and the desertion charges are lifted from Hellboy and himself. The Cardinal agrees.

The crew find a snake oil peddler that knows the way to the Monastery and hire him to lead their crew. When the group goes to retrieve the witch, they find that she is a young girl. After they are attacked by the not quite sedated witch, Cage backhands her and ensures that she is, in fact, unconscious. They then set out for the monastery.

As the crew (or crüe) travels they discuss things like: fighting, witches, STDs, etc. Cage then uses his Cage sense to catch someone that has been following them. It is revealed that an altar boy (escaping the Church) wishes to accompany them on their journey. Cage pits Johner from Alien Resurrection and the altar boy against each other in a fit. When the Kay (the altar boy) proves his worth, Cage accepts him into the fold. The group continues to walk for a while...I missed some of the details because I was looking for more names to call Ron Perlman. As the group is resting for the night they agree to take turns watching over the witch. When it is the priests turn to watch her, she grows hysterical (insert joke here about kids and priests). She attacks him, steals his key, and escapes. The crüe follows her to a nearby village and a man(witch)hunt begins. They all break apart to cover more ground and one of the knights begins to hallucinate. He believes the witch is his daughter so he begins to aimlessly runabout. He is run through by Kay on accident because he thought the figure rushing crazily towards him was the witch. They find the witch and she apologizes for running. She explains that she couldn't stand being touched by the priest again (...). They bury the knight and go on their way.

After more walking and an ambush by wolves, where their guide is killed, the group arrives at the Monastery. They go inside and find that all the monks have been killed by the Plague. It is at this point where the true nature of the witches affliction reveals itself. She is not a witch at all but is possessed by a demon. The priest starts to perform an exorcism but the demon easily quiets him. The demon then possesses nearby dead monks to combat the knights. In the battle, most of the group is slain (including the guy that provided the voice of Clayface in Batman: The Animated Series). Nic Cage fights fights off the demon as Kay finishes the ritual in which the demon is vanquished from the Earth. Cage has Kay promise to look after the witch (no longer a witch). He agrees and buries all the dead folks.

Wow. That is all I can really say about this movie. It is a great film to watch for the joy that hating it brings. Nic Cage proves once again that he, is limited by nothing. Now, enjoy the wonderful song "Season of the Witch" by Donovan


No BS

Season of the Witch showcases Nic Cage being Nic Cage beautifully! It is a terrible film and has almost no redeeming qualities (Christopher Lee is in it for 3 minutes total) but if you are drunk it could provide some great laughs!

My Score: 4/10