Tag: witchcraft

Witch Hunt

  By

★★★
“Not-so sunny spells.”

This is set in the everyday world – but with one major tweak. Witchcraft exists, and has been outlawed in the United States by the 11th amendment. Now, government agents from the BWI seek out witches, using tried and true methods from the middle ages (the “sink test” is exactly what it sounds like), and punish those found or suspected to be practicing witchcraft. But those opposed to this have set up an “underground railroad” to smuggle the targets over the boarder to Mexico. Teenage girl Claire (Adlon) is part of one such family, courtesy of her mom Martha (Elizabeth Mitchell); Dad is out of the picture. Claire is rather ambivalent about their activism, since she just wants to fit in at school. But the arrival of Fiona (Cowen) and her little sister, siblings whose mother was burned at the stake, forces Claire out of her professed neutrality,. Especially as the investigation of the unrelenting BWI Agent Hawthorne (Camargo) gets closer to home.

This was on wobbly territory in the first half, with a few storyline flaws. Why are witches outlawed? Was there some 9/11-like incident to trigger the crackdown? And why has the government built a wall to keep them in? If they want to leave, surely that’s a victory for everyone? I was also amused that, at least initially, it appears all witches are redheads. Because, as we all know, gingers have no souls. :) There was also a scene in which schoolgirls Claire and Fiona hang out in a bar: hey, this society may hate witches, but they’re clearly more relaxed about teenage drinking. However, that scene was also where the film suddenly “clicked”, as they discussed whether the ending of Thelma & Louise had been censored because they were witches. For whatever reason, thereafter I felt in tune with what the film was trying to do. The film may have been more than a little clunky with its social metaphors, yet it was still an interesting universe to depict.

This seems to ramp up markedly after Hawthorne shows up, putting an all-too human face on the hatred, and providing a good antagonist – something largely absent in the early states. There’s a very politeness to him which makes his actions all the more menacing – a little like Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. The updating of old-time mythology surrounding witches also works very well: the modern version of the sink test involves the school swimming pool and, in a nod to the “kinder, gentler” era, scuba apparatus. Though as it turns out, this isn’t infallible: albeit without consequence or impact. All told, there are plenty of interesting ideas here: however, the movie falls short of merging them into an effective whole. If the generally decent performances do help paper over some cracks, there are enough still apparent, and the end result is actually a little infuriating. I suspect a moderately near-miss like this has a greater sense of unfulfilled potential than a complete disaster.

Dir: Elle Callahan
Star: Gideon Adlon, Abigail Cowen, Elizabeth Mitchell, Christian Camargo

Coven

  By

★★★
“The Craft meets Heathers.”

The town of Calvert has had a long association with the dark arts, going back to the founding families in the early 19th century, many of whom were involved in a coven. Now, four of their descendants, led by Ronnie (Cipolla), are seeking to unleash the power of the “goddess witch” Ashura, which has been bound for centuries. They need a fifth to complete the necessary rituals, and their first potential recruit doesn’t quite work out, shall we say, after things get a bit… stabby. However, a quick seeking spell points them in the direction of history student Sophie (Gordon, who also wrote the script).

She has been working with local bookstore owner Emily (Skya, whom you may recognize as the heroine of Assassin’s Run), with the aim of achieving contact with her late mother, and the power Ashura will grant her devotees is a tempting lure. Of course, it’s not as simple as that. Indeed, it’s so obvious that it doesn’t even count as a real spoiler for me to tell you that Ronnie has no intention of sharing the power with anyone else, and the other four girls are just a means to that end. Emily needs to find the means to put the goddess witch-shaped genie back into the bottle, before she becomes just another piece of occult roadkill on the highway to hell.

I have to say, for a film both written and directed by women, it doesn’t paint a very positive picture of female relationships. Ronnie is an uber-bitch, perpetually demeaning and tearing down everyone else, and that seems to rub off on most of her coven-mates. The costumes also seem to have been chosen to pander to the male gaze. Which is a polite way of saying, most of them seem to come from the sluttier aisles of Hot Topic. Special credit to Jessica Louise Lamb for her contributions in this area, even if the nudity she provides seems, again, at odds with the usual teen-girl audience for this sort of thing. Though as the possessor of the aforementioned gaze, I’m never going to complain about eye-candy.

There are almost no surprises to be found here, with the story-line proceeding in the expected way to the flood of digital effects that is the finale, e.g. the history professor (played by someone who looks like a low-rent version of Chrissy Teigen) who just happens to have a copy of a founding witch’s diary, key to proceedings. This is also a premise which is hardly novel. However, I low-key enjoyed these bitchy witches being bitchy, and it was all rather less po-faced than I expected. In some ways, it feels like a significantly higher-rent entry in the Witchcraft series. While that is certainly not necessarily a good thing, the franchise had its moments, at least as far as entertainment was concerned. This is much the same: if its quality is arguable, for me, it has enough moments to keep me entertained.

Dir: Margaret Malandruccolo
Star: Lizze Gordon, Jenny Cipolla, Margot Major, Sofya Skya

Alice, by Joseph Delaney

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

I previously reviewed the ninth volume in the Wardstone Chronicles series, I am Grimalkin, and site contributor Dieter was kind enough to send me a copy of this, the 12th installment. It’s obviously a bit odd to be so selective about reading and reviewing a series, but neither Grimalkin nor Alice are the main character, and by all accounts, the other volumes don’t qualify. I probably should read all the others, to be completely fair in my assessment here… But then I look at my pile of unread books, which even though it’s largely virtual, is threatening to declare independence and become its own country. So, file that under “some day”.

Things have moved on a bit since my last encounter. The Fiend – basically, the Devil – is still separated from his head, and the heroes and heroines are seeking for the necessary artifacts that will allow him to be disposed of permanently. In particular, they have two of the three weapons necessary. However, the third, the Dolorous Blade, is not on Earth. To find it, someone will need to descend into the realm of the dead knows as the Dark, journey across its many territories to the Fiend’s domain, where the relic is hidden under his throne. That someone is powerful witch, Alice Deane. But there are a lot of the deceased in the Dark who are very keen to reacquaint themselves with her, because Alice is responsible for them being there…

Despite my intermittent knowledge of the series, I didn’t find that was a problem at all. The book does a good job of bringing the reader up to speed with recent events, and Grimalkin provided sufficient background on the world and situation, that I didn’t feel lost. A fair bit of the book is also told in flashback, to Alice’s time as an apprentice, somewhat unwillingly, to the witch Bony Lizzie, telling the story of how she broke free and discovered her true potential. These are intercut with her progression through the Dark, which is an evocatively unpleasant place, both in decor and inhabitants. Fortunately, she has help there, in the shape of Grimalkin’s apprentice assassin, Thorne, though her loyalties are uncertain.

While an enjoyable and fast-paced read, one issue I had was the lack of any real escalation. When they finally arrive in the throne-room, what they face hardly feels like the final boss it should be. But my main complaint came at the end, when it appears – pending the 13th and final volume – that the entire exercise proved unnecessary. Alice seems to have risked her life and soul for no real purpose. If I’d been her, I would have been more than a bit miffed at getting what’s not much more than a “Thanks, but we’re going in another direction” for her efforts. On that basis, this is probably a book where you should probably enjoy a gruesome and chilling journey, instead of the rather underwhelming final destination.

Author: Joseph Delaney
Publisher: Greenwillow Books, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
a.k.a. The Last Apprentice: I Am Alice
12 of 13 in the Wardstone Chronicles series.

The Witch Files

  By

★★★
“The Breakfast Coven.”

If John Hughes directed a film about witchcraft, it’d probably end up like this. For you have five stereotypical high-school girls in detention: Brooke the rich bitch (Ziolkoski); Greta the jock (Adrienne Rose-White); M.J. the timid mouse (Robinson); Jules the goth (Flatmo); and Claire the nerd (Taylor), who isn’t actually in detention, just doing a report on it for the school TV channel. [90% of the film is the ‘found footage’ she shoots of subsequent events, a conceit for which I usually don’t have much time… and here is no different, occasionally requiring pretzel-like contrivance.] Jules mysteriously triggers the fire-alarm to get them all out early. After she reveals this no big thing was part of her witchy skills, the other four enthusiastically agree to take part in a ceremony binding them together, into a coven.

At first, it’s remarkably easy: they basically just chant whatever they want, and it shows up. Life becomes a bowl of free designer clothes and undeserved ‘A’ grades. But, inevitably, there’s a price to pay, and the young women start to find that minor physical ailments are accelerating at a highly disturbing rate. [This is nicely tied into the historical portrayal of witches as wizened crones, explained as a result of the magical energy expended] While some of the girls want to stop their dabbling in occult practices, others have become addicted to their new-found powers and refuse to stop. Given the previous binding, this is a problem. Additionally, the town’s past offers a long association with witchcraft, and a recurring pattern of strange events, taking place every seventeen years. As in almost every American high-school horror film since Carrie, this builds to a showdown at a school party.

This over-familiarity is likely the main problem, with both characters and story-line coming over decidedly as nothing you haven’t seen before. Even if you never watched Charmed or The Craft (or Swedish take on the same, The Circle), the tropes in question will be entirely recognizable, and the film offers few if any surprises. Credit is due to the actresses, however, who take their two-dimensional characters and do a good job of bringing them to life. This keeps the film rolling along, when on occasion it threatens to stall out completely. Ziolkoski probably does best, helping the audience understand the allure of mystical power, though the entire ensemble gel together nicely.

In the end though, there isn’t sufficient here to set it apart from those which have gone before. It doesn’t help that the magical battles in the final third are well beyond the capacity of the budget to depict. The optical/digital effects unfortunately mostly feel like they were copy-pasted in from an eighties Full Moon Features project. There is one nice bit of vehicular mayhem, though even there, Final Destination did it better. If you haven’t ever seen a film about teenage girls and witchcraft, you could certainly do a lot worse. But there can’t be many of you out there.

Dir: Kyle Rankin
Star: Britt Flatmo, Holly Taylor, Alice Ziolkoski, Tara Robinson

The Circle (Cirkeln)

  By

cirklen

★★★
“Into every generation, half a dozen or so chosen ones are born…”

The first in an intended trilogy, based on a popular series of books, this is set in the fictional Swedish town of Engelsfors, where the high-school is rocked after a student commits suicide in the bathroom. At the same point, six female students start to experience strange events, hinting at undiscovered powers: one can move objects with her mind, another can influence people, a third becomes invisible. Turns out they – as well as the dead colleague – are proto-witches, one of whom will eventually develop into the Chosen One, who will save the world from her evil nemesis. However, said nemesis is not sitting around, waiting for thus development: that “suicide” wasn’t a suicide at all, and it becomes clear the remaining six are just as much in danger.

This starts off in highly-impressive fashion, setting up its premise with elegant style. The film looks great, makes excellent use of music, both original and adopted (the soundtrack is by Benny Andersson of ABBA fame, who is also one of the producers, and there’s a particular cool montage set to Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill), and the special effects are nicely understates: director Akin doesn’t throw them at the screen for the sake of it, he uses them to enhance the film’s atmosphere as much as for show. However, the second half feels unnecessarily stretched: this runs 144 minutes, and probably shouldn’t. Perhaps the process of adaptation from the book needed to be more ruthless; you get the sense the film is trying to juggle too many characters, simply because they were in the original source material. As a result, they all suffer since, even at its significant length, the film doesn’t have the chance to explore them in any depth: they remain not much more than stereotypes, e.g. the Goth, the slut, the bullied, the swot. Maybe they are leaving this for the subsequent entries?

However, it works well enough as a standalone movie – more Harry Potter than Lord of the Rings – and still continues to provide a sleek and shiny source of mainstream entertainment. There’s more than a hint of Buffy here, and not just in the “Chosen One” concept and high-school location, also the idea that Engelsfors is some kind of Hellmou… er, portal for evil, as well the Witches’ Council who try to run things. As yet, neither of these last two aspects have been explored much, and I sense they will likely come into play more, down the road. I also got a distinct hint of Eko Eko Azarak too. It’s probably true to say that you may get more out of this if you have read the books, which I haven’t; I suspect a remake is only a matter of time, likely bringing nothing of note to the party. Bit of a mixed blessing to see countries attempt to ape Hollywood so shamelessly: I can’t help preferring films like Let the Right One In, which do their own thing. This is perhaps just too slickly commercial for its own good.

Dir: Levan Akin
Star: Josefin Asplund, Helena Engström, Ruth Vega Fernandez, Irma von Platen

The Witches Hammer

  By

★★★½

“Hammer time!”

If never quite escaping its low-budget roots, or producing enough compensations or fresh imagination to make you forgive them, this is a robust enough vehicle and a decent entry in a sadly-small sub-genre: British girls-with-guns. It’s perhaps closest to the 1998 movie, Razor Blade Smile – which I really should get round to covering here, except it was pretty freakin’ awful. Similarly, Hammer involves a vampire assassin, though you can also lob in a shedload of other influences, conscious or otherwise, from Buffy, through Nikita to Bloody Mallory. If originality is not the movie’s strong suit, it is at least stealing from some of the best action heroines.

Rebecca (Coulter) is resurrected from the dead by a secret (government?) program, Project 571. They turn her into a vampire, giving her enhanced speed, reflexes, strength, agility, etc. – with the downside that she’s explode into flames if she goes out in daylight. After one assignment, she discovers her handlers have been killed, but is contact by Madeline (Beacham), who runs the imaginatively-named Project 572. Together with sidekick Edward (Sidgwick), she is sent to retrieve a mystical tome a the necessary first-step to slay the head vampire, Hugo (Dover), who… Ok, I’m somewhat hazy on the specifics, but he’s the bad guy, alright? Rebecca has to martially-art her way through an ever more dangerous series of witches, vampires and self-replicating ninjas (I assure you, it’ll make sense when you see the movie, to the point where you’ll probably go, “Oh! Self-replicating ninjas! That’s what Jim meant…”) until the final encounter with what a certain action heroine would certainly call The Big Bad.

Pluses? It’s actually shot on 35mm – while HD video has become the staple of low-budget cinema, it still doesn’t have quite the same feel as film, and the atmosphere here benefits as a result. Stephanie Beacham is magnificent, possessing a calm assurance that is marvellous to watch: she breezes through her scenes like a galleon at full sail, befitting her status as a genre icon. And the little and large duo of vampire, Oscar and Charlotte, are entirely endearing – their moments of comic relief work very nicely. [The idea of a midget vampire has been used before, as anyone who saw the truly appalling Ankle Biters will know.] The digital effects are nicely done too, with the vampires collapsing into a shower of glowing sparks, in a way that would also gladden the heart of Sunnydale’s favourite slayer.

Minuses? There’s a certain unevenness of tone which doesn’t quite work. At various moments, the film wants to be exciting, poignant, self-aware, slapsticky and dramatic: these individual moments work with varying degrees of success, and the combination, with the frequent gear-changes which result, occasionally seem clunky. Camp also needs to be played completely straight to work, and that isn’t always the case here. Hayes is over-fond of flashbacks: there are at least four here, and that’s probably three more than are necessary, with the only truly significant back-story belonging to Kitanya, the Russian witch who supposedly wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, the magic book which everyone seeks. As noted above, Eaves doesn’t really bring much new to the show: if you can find a review that doesn’t mention, say, Blade, your Google-fu is stronger than mine, and it is a very obvious comparison.

Coulter is acceptable in the central role – she reminded me most of Yancy Butler from Witchblade. She just doesn’t have quite the right attitude for a supposedly ruthless killer: Olivia Bonamy, in Bloody Mallory, brought the appropriate level in such things, such as her gloves with FUCK EVIL on them. Coulter is a shrinking wallflower in comparison, and this is shown in a sequence where she’s rescued from a morgue by one of her Project 571 colleagues. Rebecca clings on to the sheet with an obvious death-grip, rather than showing any skin, almost keeping it up to her neck. Hard to imagine a stone-cold assassin caring too much about nudity in front of another woman, and a less coy approach would perhaps be more appropriate.

The action is solid, if generally short of spectacular. There doesn’t seem to be much doubling of Coulter – or if there is, it’s not obvious. She get to use a selection of weapons, which adds a nice sense of variety; from swords through staffs to the F-sized rail-gun pictured top left (even if the cartridges being ejected were rather too obviously digital), Kris Tanaka was the action choreographer, and also appeared as one of the vampires near the end; it’s clear he knows his stuff. I’m not quite so sure Eaves does, as the editing of the sequences – for which he is also responsible – seems to be choppy and occasionally difficult to follow, though not to the level of MTV-style editing, the bane of my life as a viewer.

This was probably better than I expected it to be. The low-budget is not often obvious, and there are enough moments of charm to tide you over the less successful elements and make up for a certain lack of genuine freshness. Finally, despite the director’s protestations to the contrary, I’m still fairly sure there’s an apostrope missing from the title, which would only be grammatically correct in a context such as “The witches hammer at the door.” Eaves claims the apostrophe-less version is an accurate translation of Malleus Maleficarum, let’s just say, Wikipedia begs to differ. It probably doesn’t matter as much as I find it does, but while we can expect apostrophically-chalenged titles from Hollywood (I’m looking at you, Two Weeks Notice), good grammar costs nothing. ;-)

Dir: James Eaves
Star: Claudia Coulter, Jon Sidgwick, Stephanie Beacham, Tom Dover

Witchcraft X: Mistress of the Craft

  By

★★★
“Tackily entertaining entry in sorcery saga. Mine’s a pint…”

This comes from Vista Street Entertainment, whom you might remember produced some of the worst entries in the Women Who Kick Butt box-set; they’re kinda like a poor man’s Troma. The series mostly feature attorney Will Spanner, but he took a break for this entry, being temporarily dead: it’s that kind of world. While I’ve not seen 1-9, I found this entertaining – trash rather than garbage – though Chris kept making sarcastic comments about Stephanie Beaton’s nipples (or lack thereof).

She plays an LAPD detective sent to England to extradite a Satanic serial-killer (Knowlton). Before she can, he’s freed from custody by vampire queen Raven (Daly) to assist in a dark ritual. Luckily, there’s white witch Celeste (Cooper), who runs round London at night, fighting evil in a fetching, powder-blue PVC costume, complete with cape. Cue catfights, human sacrifice and a ten-minute chunk where all three leading ladies get naked, simultaneously but separately.

Daly (plus henchwoman Emily Booth) chews the scenery to fabulous effect, and the Raven/Celeste conflict is the stuff of which franchises are made – imagine Buffy and Glory, ten years after. Given sufficient beer, experienced bad movie lovers will appreciate the badly dubbed sound effects, clunky dialogue and cheap production values. But how can you not like a heroine who travels on the astral plane, yet still also uses payphones, clad in her little costume? It will, however, probably be some time before I get Chris drunk enough to pick Witchcraft XI from the unwatched pile…

Dir: Elizar Cabrera
Star: Wendy Cooper, Eileen Daly, Kerry Knowlton, Stephanie Beaton