Witchcraft XIV: Angel of Death
So here we go with the fourteenth installment of the Witchcraft franchise.
I need to check but that seems like a record to me. It’s like the main character of this franchise, Will Spanner is trying to catch up with James Bond.
Witchcraft is a film franchise started by Troma back in 1988 as a horror film that rips off Rosemary’s Baby. It was a pretty good movie overall and worth it to create a sequel. What made Witchcraft II a good sequel was the fact that it connects the two movies while being it’s own. While the first movie is about a woman projecting her baby from her husband’s evil convent, the second movie turns that baby into a teenager that continues the battle on his own. Similar to the Terminator franchise. Though Witchcraft II still has most of the elements from the original, it also has one nude scene that the previous did not have.
Thus beginning an awesome continuous ride down the rabbit hole as each squeal attempts to out due the one before to the point that the horror movie more fits into the category of soft-core porn.
Though Troma still had it’s logo begin most of these Witchcraft series I did notice other production companies sharing the film making credits.
Most frequently is Cinema Epoch which sometime around Witchcraft X seem to replace Troma’s logo at the beginning of the films.
With this replacement came a turn back to the classic horror of the first film, or rather, they just got rid of the soft-core porn part, which makes a lot of sense. When the first wave of sequels came about in the 1990s, soft-core porn on cable was at it’s peak, and It’s last hoary before the internet would make soft-core porn useless really.
Now we are up to number 14. The Angel of Death, and it has nothing to do with Slayer (too bad). With a new movie comes a new Will Spanner (it fact it’s rare that Will Spanner is played by the same actor twice). I’m a fan of the whole concept of Will Spanner, a baby born to be a warlock, but as he grew up decided to chose an non evil path which lead him to become a lawyer(ironically) that’s drawn to mostly murder cases that are magical in nature. Over the course of the movie, Will spanner actually developed into a cool character, weather they met to do this or not.
But I will say that this new actor they got to play Will I’m not too impressive with. As a personality, Will actually fit the part of a lawyer really well. The contradiction was a turn on. He seemed not like the type of person to be some wacky witch, and this helped him used his natural ability to see darkness to help the police solve cases, and earn the respect of those he works with as a DA.
Though I began to love in these pass movies how Will is more using his gifts to their full capability to fight evil, I don’t like the new look of the new Will Spanner. It’s too goth for me, and it seems like a 180 form the guy they’ve been showing for a dozen movies, I mean, it does not even look like he’s even a lawyer anymore. (plus this guy can’t act)
The new Will makes me feel that this new Witchcraft picture was made by fans of the series who wanted to make their own. That seems kinda off because from what I understand the highest costing Witchcraft film is about eighty thousand dollars with the average movie costing about forty to forty eight thousands. That’s pretty low, for a fan to go lower…(how could you do lower?). Plus, I think a true fan would make a Witchcraft movie that was wall to wall naked titties, in order to make it… authentic, but that might coast at least Eighty thousand to do, and one thing I noticed from these Witchcraft movies is that they don’t like to spend money (Although the other thing that I did notice is that they will spend money on naked ladies).
My fan theory still stands, as their is a lot of bad acting in this. The best acting is coming from the two actors who play the police detectives, Lutz and Garner. As happy as I am that Will Spanner keeps coming back to the series, I’m also happy that Lutz and Garner have come back. Lutz and Garner are long staples in the Witchcraft franchise, Two cops who come across the supernatural as much as Will does, so it’s not surprising that they would run into each other a lot.
What’s interesting about the long spanning characters is how easy they can becomes just supporting characters. The angel of Death does not have a focus on Will, Lutz and Garner as much as it does a girl who’s mother is a powerful witch and she inherits powers she can’t control, but a witches convent wants to use this power for their own gain. A series of murders happen because of this girls inability to control her massive powers which gets Will and the two cops sniffing around in what feels like a sub plot, added in so that they can officially call this part of the witchcraft franchise.
they tired once before to leave Will Spanner out in Witchcraft eight and it did not work. Plus, I think using Will in this fashion is perfect. It has always given the story more depth.
I am curious about how much this movie was actually made for. there are certain things that make it seem even cheaper than the other movies. Not that this is a turn off but when you get actors for free you get what you paide for. The villain, Samuel felt like he was trying to hard to be evil, the movie was hurt by actors who could not complete the simple task of acting. Out of every thing this fan fare is just that, though it’s cool that their are fans of the film I wish they but that dependency on the title. This and the film looks rushed. The combination makes for a bad film.
Witchcraft XIV is a low point in the film series as weird as that sounds
