Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh (1997)

There was a moment, a clear and shining moment, while I watched this film, the ninth in a series of films that should never have gone beyond five (to be generous), that led to my eyes glazing over and me having a vision. The film in front of me faded away, to be replaced by an image of me repeatedly banging my head against the coffee table in my living room. Except the coffee table didn't stay made out of hard wood, as it is in reality. No, it turned into a mass of squishy breast implants. And the harder I tried to knock myself into unconsciousness, the more I would just feel myself pushing into the implants. And then my sofa turned into a gum-popping bimbo, asking if I was okay and if  had found the right implants that I wanted her to wear yet.

I then came back to reality, rewound a few minutes of the film, and settled back in to endure the rest of Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh.

There are a few returning names this time around (director Michael Paul Girard and actor David Byrnes) and the plot, from a script written by Stephen Downing, is as dumb as you should expect by now. Will Spanner (Byrnes) is dead. He wanders around while coming to terms with this, sometimes seeing people have sex. One of those people having sex is a hooker named Sheila (Landon Hall). It turns out that Sheila can hear Will, which means that she ends up helping him in his quest to keep his good lady safe and deal with an evil enemy.

Here's the thing about Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh. It's actually quite amusing at times. Hall is a good sport when it comes to everything the role asks of her. She has to keep acting as if she can't see her main co-star, she is involved in one or two sex scenes, and she even acts differently at one point while being used as a vessel for a spirit. She's a highlight, and not just because I am easily distracted by nakedness. Although I suspect it is unintentional, the general premise of this film makes it slightly more fun than so many of its predecessors, and Hall helps to convey that fun.

So it's a shame, if not at all surprising, that the rest of the film is dire. The acting is terrible from almost everyone onscreen, there's a distinct lack of sexiness to any of the sex scenes (at least two of them are rapey, obviously or in sneakier ways, and one is a guy who just paid a hooker and decides to start his time with her in a lift), and it would appear that the film-makers were given a budget of approximately £100 with the condition that the financiers receive change. There are times when it feels more like a trailer for a film than an actual film itself, yet it still manages to be a slight improvement over so many of the previous entries. And I'll happily take a slight improvement over nothing.

I know that you're all laughing at me by now. I know it. Either you're laughing or it's the voices in my head again. It doesn't matter, I WILL see this series through to the end. Although I do hope that there IS an end to this series. To paraphrase someone much more talented than myself - "either this series will end or I will".

3/10

No main links. Go to Amazon.co.uk to buy stuff.
Or got to Amazon.com to buy stuff. Win win for me.

The films are so interchangeable that I can keep reusing this Charmed pic

Witchcraft 7: Judgement Hour (1995)

I know what you're thinking. Why would I continue to subject myself to the awfulness of this series? And why would I force you all to read reviews of these films? Well, because I said I would see this through to the bitter end, and if I am going to suffer then you can all suffer too.

Will Spanner (this time played by David Byrnes) is once again helping the police to find an evil killer. The police are Garner (John Cragen) and Lutz (Alisa Christensen), the villains are Mr Hassa (Loren Schmalle) and his right hand men, Vontana (Jason Edwards) and Costanza (Eryk Sobesto). And there are lots of women onscreen to bare their breasts in almost every other scene.

This is directed by Michael Paul Girard, who wrote the fourth film in the series, and written by Peter E. Fleming (who also wrote the previous film), based on a story by Jerry Feifer. I would say it's a terrible film, but that pretty much goes unsaid by now. The series is what it is, tenuously connected softcore romps that use an implausible supernatural framework to host some tame sex scenes.

But if you thought any of the previous instalments were bad, you're going to have a horrible time with this one. The acting is atrocious from everyone involved. EVERYONE. The leads are awful, the supporting players are worse, it's almost as if the director told his cast that the person who gave the worst performance would get some huge bonus on payday. As well as those already mentioned, that includes April Breneman (as Keli, the partner of Spanner), Michael Altan, Ashlie Rhey, and Mai-Lis Holmes (who is at least more fun onscreen than anyone else).

The script is as muddled and messy as other Witchcraft movies, but with added vampirism (which allows people the chance to wear amusing false fangs), and even less of an attempt to make the characters more than the most paper-thin walking cliches. The dialogue between the two cops and their superior officer sounds like something that could have been written for an episode of Angie Tribeca.

At least I was able to laugh while the film was on, whether it was at the script, the acting, or the not-so-special effects. Say what you like about this series, each instalment is silly enough to save you from wanting to self-lobotomise before the end credits roll. And that is about the only thing I can say to recommend this, and many of the other instalments.

2/10

As Witchcraft VII: Judgement Hour is currently unavailable, use this general link instead to do some shopping.

Witchcraft IV: The Virgin Heart (1992)

This fourth entry in the enduring Witchcraft series features the lovely Julie Strain in a fairly prominent role. I decided to start this review with that sentence because it is one of the few highlights I can think of, days after having endured the full film.

Directed by James Merendino, who also co-wrote the script with Michael Paul Girard, viewers are once again given a whle load of nonsense to swallow, from the opening credits right through to the very end. Charles Solomon Jr returns (as of this moment, for the last time) to the role of Will Spanner, an attorney who also happens to be a bit of a warlock. He is still reluctant to use his powers, but what is a warlock attorney to do when he crosses paths with an evil music exec/manager who is collecting souls in exchange for fame?

If you are unable to get your hands on a copy of Witchcraft IV: The Virgin Heart then feel free to try recreating the experience in the following way; have two of your friends talk inane nonsense, plug your ears up with cotton wool, and listen to them for about 90 minutes. Because not only is this film bad, it sounds as if all of the audio was recorded and filtered through a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Solomon Jr seems to have assumed that if he kept being hired to play the same character then his acting was obviously good enough to be a valuable cast member. It isn't, making him one of the weakest lead characters I have seen in any "horror" movie series in many years, and I have placed the genre label in quotation marks because these films really only use a couple of fantastical elements to allow for plots that cram in some confrontations and sex. Clive Pearson plays the villain, Santara, and was obviously directed by being told "yes, keep doing that, but less subtle." And then you have Julie Strain being at least gorgeous enough to prove a pleasant distraction while the plot hilariously unfolds, even shoehorning in a moment that feels like a horribly clumsy homage to Blue Velvet. Lisa Jay Harrington and Jason O'Gulhur also appear, with the former almost an interesting character, the sister of the young man accused of a murder that draws Spanner into the whole situation.

There's no sign of competence here in any department. Script and direction are awful, this is one ugly film in terms of the sheer murkiness of the visuals and audio, the acting is laughably bad at times, and it's impossible to care about the events.

If the fifth Witchcraft is worse than this then . . . well, no, I just can't believe that things actually get worse than this. But we'll see. God help me, we will see.

2/10

DO NOT buy this here, just get it on Amazon Prime instead.
Americans can NOT BUY this version.