Witchcraft 16: Hollywood Coven (2016)

Here we are. We made it. How are you all feeling? I am relieved, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen me suffer through this series (a genre-tinged selection of films that manages to be worse than any other series I have endured so far, ANY).

Most people who know me tend to know that my stubborn refusal to give up on any movie I am watching has led me to sit through lengthy, and sometimes interminable, disasters that would have broken lesser (aka more sane) viewers. That being said, the Witchcraft movies nearly broke my steely resolve on a number of occasions, especially whenever I had to count the instalments that I was yet to watch. Could the final film, at this time (god have mercy, let there be no more), manage to offer me something more than more disappointment and misery?

No.

The only new thing that this sixteenth, and final (please, please, PLEASE let it remain the final), instalment brings to the table is a meta approach to the material that somehow allows everyone involved to make it for even less money than some of the other films in the series. And, knowing how cheap this series can be, that is saying something.

Director David Palmieri returns, as do the cast members from the past two films, and it's obvious that these movies were all made within a very short space of time, perhaps even just a week or two, perhaps even less than that, and then chopped up and churned out to make some more money from . . . . I really don't know. I have no idea who was still eagerly waiting for a new Witchcraft movie at this point.

Sean Abley returns as writer, perhaps hoping to do something that would reinvigorate the series, but he has one decent idea that is then quickly wasted, leaving many scenes to play out in almost exactly the same way they did in the previous films.

Molly Dougherty, Noel VanBrocklin, and Zamra Dollskin are the same as ever, as are Berna Roberts, Leroy Castanon, and Ryan Cleary (still the worst of the Will Spanners). Ernest Pierce gets a bit more to do this time around, but doesn't make the most of the opportunity.

Look, the whole thing is dire and I am just happy that the whole experience is now one that I can put behind me, for now. I don't advise anyone else to check these films out, certainly not all sixteen of them anyway, and I can't wholeheartedly recommend any of them. I just hope that it's a long time before I have another idea quite as dumb as this one.

2/10


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