Bounding Into Halloween Honors The Sabbath On Night 5 With ‘The VVitch’ (2015) & ‘Warlock’ (1989)
Burn the witches! Burn the witches! Don’t take time to sew your stitches because we are on the fifth night, and it’s time to greet Sunday with your best resting witch face.
Tonight’s double feature takes us into the darker side of nature, and the blessed beings that dwell within it. Good is nothing that we favor, and that’s why evil is our sour flavor, but enough about that. The witching hour approaches, and the ritual is about to begin.
The VVitch (2015)
This extraordinary debut from director, Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse, The Northman), takes place in New England during the 1630s, and it’s about a family of settlers who were banished from their colony when the patriarch, William (Ralph Ineson), accused the already hardcore Puritanical elders of not being strict enough with upholding God’s law.
With their piety called out as weaker than watered-down ale, the elders curse William for his “prideful conceit” before casting him, and his family, out of their makeshift paradise of pure thoughts. But he was more than willing to ditch those posers.
Relocated to a remote farm at the edge of an eerie woods, they’re plagued by crop failure, and the possibility of starvation. Things get worse when their newborn, unbaptized son, Samuel, goes missing while under the care of the eldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy).
The mother (Kate Dickie) blames her for Samuels’s disappearance and this launches a dark chain of events that disintegrates the household while everyone accuses her of witchery. That’s when the billy goat, Black Phillip (Charlie), comes to the rescue, for he wants to show Thomasin how to live deliciously.
The movie is a triumph of classic American folklore with excellent performances from the small cast, and it’s one of the most authentic period pieces in film history. From the look to the nigh incomprehensible Elizabethan English dialect, it gives viewers the genuine impression that they’ve been transported back to a time when hypocrisy was made paramount, and paranoia was the law.
A slow-burner, but one that pays off in the end. The VVitch can be found on Prime by signing the black book of subscription. Come hither to watch the trailer:
Warlock (1989)
We go from 1630s New England to 1690s New England for the next feature by director, Steve Miner (Friday the 13th Part 2, Friday the 13th Part III, House). The late/great actor, Julian Sands (Gothic, Arachnophobia, Smallville) stars as the titular villain, and it’s quite possibly the best performance of his forty-year career.
In the film, he’s a malevolent practitioner of the dark arts who spent most of his time menacing the simple folk of late 17th century Boston before he incurred the wrath of hardass witch hunter, Giles Redferne (Richard E. Grant). After murdering his beloved Marion, he finds himself locked up in a tower.
While awaiting execution for his crimes, the devil comes to the rescue in the form of a time-traveling tornado, and transports the Warlock to Los Angeles of the late 80s. The reason Old Scratch sent him there is to obtain, and assemble the lost pages of the Grand Grimoire.
The ancient text contains the true name of God and will unmake the world if it’s uttered aloud. But the devilish magic man didn’t expect that Redferne would be able to follow him through the vortex, or that his nemesis would enlist the help from a resourceful waitress named Kassandra (Lori Singer).
The effects are dated, and the plot of the movie is a little too similar to the first Terminator, but it’s still an entertaining flight through old school horror tropes. Julian Sands was perfectly cast as the time-hopping heretic, and it’s his perfect blend of sadistic and seductive that made Warlock a cult classic in the horror coven.
The sequel, Warlock: The Armageddon, was released in 1993 that wasn’t connected to the events of this movie, but it still has some cool moments, and Sands turned in another great performance before closing the black book on that role forever.
Warlock can be invoked over on TUBI, and the original trailer is below:
NEXT: Bounding Into Halloween Night 2: ‘The Exorcist’ And ‘Possession’ Invade Your Soul
