Although Season of the Witch opened a week before The Green Hornet - and thus got the month of January's March of Bad Movies off to a suitably odoriferous start - I did not get a chance to see it until its last few painful days stinking up the local multiplexes. By the time this review gets posted I am certain that it will be pulled from most theaters to make room for the very similar looking, and also PG-13 rated, Anthony Hopkins demonic possession thriller The Rite. A few years back it was sadists and long haired ghosts. Now it is all demons and invading aliens.
I remember seeing the first version of the trailer back in 2010, when the movie was going to be released by Lionsgate. That trailer made the movie look like a horror film. But the movie was pulled from release for some reason and there were re-shoots done. (According to star Nicolas Cage the re-shoots were mostly special effects sequences and expanded battle footage.) Now it is 2011, almost a full year since Season of the Witch was first supposed to be released, and the new studio (Lionsgate is no longer releasing the film) has an all new trailer that makes the movie look like some kind of half-baked rip-off of the remake
What does it all mean? That you can't polish a turd, no matter how hard you try.
Behmen (Nicolas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) are a pair of anachronistic knights (Cage and Perlman both act like they have wandered in off the set of a 20th buddy cop movie and are thoroughly confused as to where the hell they are) that have become disillusioned and disgusted with the Crusades. Seeking a peaceful life away from the endless slaughter and bloodshed of the battlefield, the two return to (England?) only to discover the Black Death is ravaging the population.
They are discovered and - before they can be hanged or burned, or whatever they do to deserters - called before a dying Cardinal (Christopher Lee, whose mere presence gives the movie a faint whiff of awesome). From his deathbed, the Cardinal commands that Behmen and Felson escort an accused witch (Claire Foy) to a distant monastery so that she can be tried for Witchcraft. Behmen reluctantly agrees, only because he wants no more innocent blood shed for God.
But as the group journeys to the monastery, various members (one just as much of an anachronism as Cage and Perlman) begin to meet nasty ends. At first reluctant to believe so, Behmen begins to suspect the girl is truly an evil witch.
Regardless of which version of the trailer that you watched, if you have seen either one I think that it will come as quite the non-surprise to learn that there is some true Evil afoot. It is also no surprise (considering the re-shoots and re-edits) that the movie is a confusing mess that is incapable of balancing Behmen's real world crisis of faith and battle fatigue (Behmen, overcome by blood lust, mindlessly slaughters a young child before coming to his senses and losing both his taste for battle and his belief in a benevolent God) with the fantastical displays of supernatural power by "Ultimate" Evil.
In a world where dead bodies can not only sprout claws, fangs and wings, but also defy the laws of gravity and scuttle across ceilings on their hands and knees, Behmen's loss of faith is neither moot nor meaningless. It is callous, foolish, and completely insane. Long before Cage and Perlman's characters even exist the movie shows that every heinous atrocity that has ever been committed by the Church, and those faithful to its commands, is been completely and thoroughly justified. If the movie had dared to show some kind of truism to the old cliche that the Devil's greatest success has been convincing humanity that it does not exist by showing Behmen's faith being seduced away by false innocence, then Season of the Witch might have been an interesting movie.
But it isn't. It is just a chaotic and confusing bore.
One star out of four.
This one is the great film of Nicholas Cage. I saw last time Ghost Rider of Nicholas. His performance in this film is too good. The script writing of this film is very unique. The special effects are really effective.
Posted by: social bookmarking | January 25, 2011 at 11:23 AM
Um, okay.
Posted by: Chadzilla | January 25, 2011 at 01:34 PM
It's amazing how little entertainment value there is in watching Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman play world-weary Crusaders in a movie called Season Of The Witch. The story is about Cage and Pearlman teaming up to take a witch to a castle where she will be put on trial.
Posted by: magento design | February 17, 2012 at 02:09 AM