Witchery (1989)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Where to start? This movie is such a mish-mash, such a hodge-podge. Hasselhoff plays Hasselhoff, including scenes with his shirt off to display his slightly hairy and muscular chest, ha ha ha. Linda Blair doesn't go topless, though, and that might have been her redemption for the performance she put in. Hildegarde Kneff was the star for me, with her bewitching accent and ominous posing. Delicious. The "plot" is a laugh. The rape scene is unpleasant. A few scenes of violence are quite well-done, e.g. the lip-sewing, while some others seem to be from the 1950s, lamentable and amateurish. This film dates from 1988, just before Hasselhoff made his mark in Baywatch, but years after Blair had spun her head around and thrown up green soup in The Exorcist. HA HA HA HA HA Rates a 3 overall for me... worth watching for the overall amusement, but it is a BAD movie.

Leslie and her boyfriend Gary travel out to an island in search of the witch lights that are reputed to be there as part of her research for a book on witchcraft.Freddie Brooks and his family travel out to the same island to examine the abandoned hotel to consider the possibility of buying it.They all become stranded there.The house's previous owner comes back from the dead in order to drag the visitors down to Hell as bloody sacrifices."Witchery" features some tasteless stuff including satanic rape scene and some nasty gore.The photography is slick and the editing is great.It's nice to see David Hasselhoff and Linda Blair in this stylish Italian shocker.The scene of Leslie Cummins rape by an incubus with his lips sewn shut has to be seen to be believed.8 out of 10.

There are many different versions of this one floating around, so make sure you can locate one of the unrated copies, otherwise some gore and one scene of nudity might be missing. Some versions also omit most of the opening sequence and other bits here and there. The cut I saw has the on-screen title WITCHCRAFT: EVIL ENCOUNTERS and was released by Shriek Show, who maintain the original US release title WITCHERY for the DVD release. It's a nice-looking print and seems to have all of the footage, but has some cropping/aspect ratio issues. In Italy, it was released as LA CASA 4 (WITCHCRAFT). The first two LA CASA releases were actually the first two EVIL DEAD films (retitled) and the third LA CASA was another film by the same production company (Filmirage), which is best known here in America as GHOSTHOUSE. To make matters even more confusing, WITCHERY was also released elsewhere as GHOSTHOUSE 2. Except in Germany, where GHOSTHOUSE 2 is actually THE OGRE: DEMONS 3. OK, I better just shut up now. I'm starting to confuse myself!Regardless of the title, this is a very hit-or-miss horror effort. Some of it is good, some of it isn't. I actually was into this film for the first half or so, but toward the end it became a senseless mess. A large, vacant hotel located on an island about 50 miles from Boston is the setting, as various people get picked off one-by-one by a German- speaking witch (Hildegard Knef). Photographer Gary (David Hasselhoff), who wants to capture "Witch Light," and his virginal writer girlfriend (Leslie Cumming), who is studying witchcraft, are shacking up at the hotel without permission. Along comes real estate agent Jerry (Rick Farnsworth), who's showing off the property to potential buyers Rose (Annie Ross) and Freddie (Robert Champagne) Brooks. Also tagging along are their children; pregnant grown daughter Jane (Linda Blair) and very young son Tommy (Michael Manchester), as well as oversexed architect Linda Sullivan (Catherine Hickland - Hasselhoff's wife at the time). Once everyone is inside, their boat driver is killed (hung) and the boat disappears, so they find themselves trapped and basically at the mercy of the "Lady in Black."So what can you expect to find here? Plenty of unpleasantries! One of the characters has their lips sewn shut and is then hung upside down in the fireplace and accidentally slow-roasted by the rest of the cast. There's also a crucifixion, witches eating a dead baby, a swordfish through the head, someone set on fire, a possession, a Sesame Street tape recorder, the virgin getting raped by some demon, a guys veins bulging and exploding thanks to voodoo doll pokes and some other stuff. From a technical standpoint, it's a nice-looking film with pretty good cinematography, a decent score and good gore effects. The hotel/island setting is also pretty nice. Blair (particularly at the end) and Ross both seem like they're having fun and Knef is great as the evil witch. Even though people like to ridicule Hasselhoff these days, he's not bad in his role, either.On the down side, despite all the gore, the film seems somewhat dull and it gets monotonous after about an hour. The supernatural themes are muddled and confusing, too. When characters are being swept into the witches lair to be tortured and killed, the filmmakers unwisely decided to superimpose the screaming actors over some silly looking red spiral vortex effect that looks supremely cheesy. And the witch lair itself is vacant and cheaply designed with unfinished lumber. And while most of the cast is at least decent, a few of the performances (particularly the "actress" who plays Hasselhoff's girlfriend and the kid) are so bad they're constantly distracting.

*Please note: (The below text is taken from the Irish DVD Release). Some of this summary MAY be wrong:Edge-of-your-seat chiller, in which The Legacy of an ancient Witch and her bloodthirsty coven causes a deserted island hotel to become the embodiment of evil two Centuries later.When an inquisitive photographer (David Hasselhoff, Baywatch, Knight Rider) and his virginal fiancée (Linda Blair, The Exorcist) creep onto the island to research its gruesome history, they are joined by an unwit- ting estate agent and his prospective buyers.Gradually the group find themselves falling victim to the ancient evil that lives on in the mysterious old woman who roams the hotel, seeking fresh victims for Satanic rites, human sacrifice and demon- ic possession...Check in at the Witchcraft hotel... we hope you enjoy your SLAY!Additional Info. on the movies contents:Violence: Some gruesome, sexual violence - VERY STRONG!Sex and/or nudity: Some strong, as well as innuendo.Bad language: Some, strong.Other: Some drug use and references.