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Witchery, or Witchcraft as it's commonly known in Europe, beings with Jane Brooks (Linda Blair) waking up from a nightmare involving a witch. Jane's Mother & Father Rose (Annie Ross) & Freddie (Robert Champagne) are interested in buying an old deserted hotel on an island about 50 miles from Boston, renovating it & reopening it. Together with Jane & their young son Tommy (Michael Manchester) Rose & Freddie are planning to travel to the island with an architect named Linda Sullivan (Catherine Hickland) to check on the amount of work that needs doing, they also meet up with the estate agent Jerry Giordano (Rick Farnsworth) & hire a local fisherman named Sam (George Stevens) to take them to the island. Once there they enter the hotel & begin to inspect the property while back on the boat Sam is killed & the boat is let loose to sail off into the distance. They discover two unexpected guests in the shape of a photographer named Gary (David Hasselhoff) & his virgin fiancé Leslie (Leslie Cumming) who happens to be researching a book that she is writing about the gruesome legends & superstitions surrounding the infamous island & hotel. As the night draws on a raging storm outside isolates them from the mainland as a mysterious 'lady in black' (Hildegard Knef) keeps popping up as the ancient evil that resides in the hotel seeks fresh victims for demonic possession, human sacrifice & Satanic rites...
The director of this American Italian co-produced film is somewhat shrouded in mystery as the IMDb lists Fabrizio Laurenti as Martin Newlin but there are rumours that Joe D'Amato did the honours, either way to be honest despite it's bad reputation I found Witchery quite entertaining in a so-bad-it's-good cheesy sort of way. The script credited to Harry Spalding & Daniele Stroppa on the IMDb again is confusing too as the actual credit on the film itself is Daniel Davis, anyway whoever wrote this thing did a decent job, please stop laughing. At heart it's a haunted house horror but adds some gory deaths & a surreal feeling to everything. The different sets of characters have reasonable motives & didn't get on my nerves as much as I'd thought they might, it's not plotted very well, it doesn't make a whole a lot of sense & the dialogue isn't exactly top drawer stuff but as a whole Witchery entertained me for it's 95 odd minute duration plain & simple. It's reasonably well paced, a little slow to get going maybe but there are plenty of surreal, bizarre goings-on & gruesome deaths to keep one amused. One part of Witchery which destroys some of it's credibility is this so-called storm, there is no storm in sight & the sea is probably calm enough to swim in, Witchery's supposed 'twist' ending didn't really work for me either & just check out the dumb expression on Cummings face on that final freeze-frame. The hotel provides for a good isolated location & adds a certain atmosphere to the film which has the distinctive indefinable 'horror' feel throughout, cheap horror at that. Technically Witchery is not too bad at all, it was obviously shot on location so it looks good throughout & while not exactly the pinnacle of film-making finesse it's overall production values are slightly better than expected. The violence & gore is of typical Euro explicitness, a woman has her lips sewn shut & hung inside a fireplace so she can't scream as the others light it, someone is crucified & then burned alive, impaled on a swordfish, someones veins expand & pop & a woman is raped by a man with no lips. Witchery was shot in English so there is no dubbing, as far as acting goes David Hasselhoff & Linda Blair in the same film what more can I say?! Yes ladies Hasselhoff does take his shirt off & for the lads Cummings takes hers off. Both Hasselhoff & Blair are a hoot to watch in this thing, however the little kid is very annoying & really can't act at all. I sure most sane film-goers will disagree with my opinions but I still stand by the fact that I liked it & would happily watch it again, Witchery is pretty good fun & definitely worth a watch if your into 'bad' films or your a horror fan in general.


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