Witchcraft III: The Kiss Of Death (1991)

Here is where I start to doubt the sanity of my plan to make my way through the entire Witchcraft series. The third entry, a step back after the fun of the second, just doesn't instil a great sense of optimism in me for what is yet to come.

The slim plot sees William continuing to get on with his life. He's surprisingly unfazed by the events of the second movie, instead choosing to focus on his career as an attorney and the lovely life he might have with his girlfriend, Charlotte. Things only start to come apart when he meets Louis, a cool dude who starts off friendly enough but soon shows his true colours.

Directed by R. L. Tillmans (who is actually Rachel Feldman, apparently), Witchcraft III: The Kiss Of Death is the kind of shoddy incompetence that gives a bad name to films that try to cover up their incompetence with random moments of enjoyable silliness. This has no such moments, there's no reprieve for viewers, apart from the fact that the runtime comes in at just under 90 minutes.

Writer Jerry Daly seems to have been given some notes on the first film, told that the main character has powers he doesn't really want to use, and then left to craft a tale of rivalry and magic that removes most of the fantastical elements in favour of standard soap opera melodramatics you could catch most weekdays on Channel 5.

The cast don't help either. Charles Solomon Jr (billed here as Charles Soloman on the end credits) is playing a man with a dark past and the potential to unleash some dangerous power but you wouldn't know it from his rather monotone performance. Domonic Luciana is ever so slightly better, as Louis, but that's more to do with the fact that villains are usually a bit more interesting than goodies. Lisa Toothman tries hard as Charlotte, caught between the two men as the game starts to be played, and Leana Hall isn't too bad as Roxy. William Lewis Baker livens things up a bit whenever he's onscreen, it's just a shame that his role is such a small one.

It boggles the mind to think of who these films were ever aimed at. There's not enough horror content for horror fans, not enough gratuitous content for those after cheap thrills, not enough care given to the plot for anyone after simple drama, and generally nothing that will appeal to anyone except individual masochistic idiots determined to wade through the entire series. We're not a big demigraphic, but we're bloody tenacious.

3/10

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