Witchery (1988)

Gary (David Hasselhoff) and his gal pal Linda (Catherine Hickland) visit an island off the coast of Massachusetts where a haunted resort hotel looms to do research on witchcraft. They're joined by the Brooks family (including a pregnant Linda Blair) prospective buyers of the property. When a violent storm prevents them from leaving the island they're forced to endure the vengeful wrath of an evil witch who won't quit until every last one of them dies a horrible death! WITCHERY (aka GHOSTHOUSE 2) boasts a haunting atmosphere and creepy special effects.System Requirements:Running Time: 96 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR UPC: 631595061796 Manufacturer No: SSDVD-0617 Product Description

Spectacularly bad!

This may be the worst movie I've seen since Manos, Hands of Fate. Yet I can't rate it poorly purely due to shlock value. When I heard there was an 80's horror flick with Linda Blair AND David Hasselhoff I had to see it! As another reviewer said, when the Hoff is the best thing in a picture, you've got something pretty special. Unfortunately Linda Blair was underused and the 80's cheese was non-existent.

The plot makes no sense. There's no reason given to anything that happens except that Witchcraft is involved somehow. It's German Witchcraft at that, which again makes no sense except a German actress was hired to play the witch and I guess her accent had to be explained. I'm glad someone here explained the pregnant woman in the beginning was being chased by Puritans. That makes a little more sense than what I first thought since the Puritans kind of looked like Mexican banditos chasing the woman through an Old West town. I couldn't figure out what all that had to do with an island outside Boston. There's also a tiny subplot with a little girl in a wheelchair that has no purpose, except if you think girls in wheelchairs are creepy I guess.

The acting, especially by the supporting cast, is outlandishly bad. Usually you have to watch broad comedies satirizing bad acting to see such poor line readings. The actress playing the Hoff's girlfriend either had a speech impediment or was heavily medicated for most of the shoot. She slurred her lines so badly she was often unintelligible. Too bad she was supplying what little exposition there is.

The special effects reminded me of low budget, 70's tv shows on par with something like Shazaam. People mention the constant shifts from day to night within scenes. Instead, I enjoyed the "violent storm" and "killer waves" the characters kept refering to which kept everyone trapped on the island. I guess the budget didn't allow for people to wait around for an actual storm to occur, or even stock footage, because every shot showed clear skies and calm seas.

Unfortunately, even the cheese doesn't stop the movie from getting very slow and boring about 2/3's through and then you just can't wait for it to end. The filmmakers also seemed bored because the ending is very abrupt with no great payoff or satisfaction. Still a disaster of this proportion seems to necesitate the MST3K gang to be dragged back to work in order to skewer it. October 31, 2007

3.5 stars...

...story is about a witch who lingers about an abandoned buliding located in an island. A buyer is interested in the property and they go take a look, get stranded in the island, and strange things begin to take place. I like the creepy atmosphere and music; however, there just was not much there to justify giving it a better rating. It is not a horrible movie though, it is worth watching at least once. March 20, 2007

"They've got a lot of legends about this island. Witches and rainbows and [stuff]."

Witchery (1988) has gone by any number of titles over the years, including the following; Ghosthouse 2, Witchcraft, La Casa 4, Witchcraft: Return of the Exorcist, but no matter which name it's called, the plain and simple fact is it's drecky bit of horror cinema. Produced by the late Aristide Massaccesi aka Joe D'Amato (Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Buio Omega), who specialized in horror and softcore porn, often times featured within the same film, Witchery was directed by Fabrizio Laurenti (Troll 3). Starring in the movie is Linda Blair (The Exorcist, Chained Heat), Leslie Cumming (Zombie 5: Killing Birds), David Hasselhoff (Revenge of the Cheerleaders, Starcrash), and David Hasselhoff's perm ("Knight Rider", "Baywatch Nights"). Also appearing is Catherine Hickland ("One Life to Live"), who was married to der Hoff at the time of filming, Annie Ross (Superman III, Basket Case 2), Robert Champagne (Ghosthouse), Rick Farnsworth, Michael Manchester, and Hildegard Knef (The Lost Continent), as the mysterious and sadistic (and annoying) `lady in black'.

As the film begins we see a pregnant woman in a nightgown being chased on a beach into a deserted hotel by a handful of idiots, and given their garb, I suspect this is meant to have happened sometime in the past. This goes on for a bit until the woman meets an untimely demise as she throws herself from an upper window...which transitions into another woman named Jane Brooks (Blair), who's also pregnant, waking with a start, as it was all a dream sequence (or was it?). Now we see a couple named Leslie (Cumming) and Gary (der Hoff) arriving at the same deserted hotel as seen in the dream (it's located on a island off the coast of somewhere) as Leslie is doing research for a book about witchcraft, and Gary is along to take photos, to which the filmmakers have Hasselhoff monkeying around with a light meter, obviously knowing not how to use it, in an effort to show he's somewhat of a proficient photographer, I guess. Now we move abruptly into some scenes featuring other characters, most of who are related to Jane including her father Freddie (Champagne), mother Rose (Ross), who's a real piece of work, and her younger brother Tommy (Manchester). The gist of these scenes is to inform the viewer that Jane's seemingly wealthy parents are planning to buy the dilapidated hotel in the hopes of turning into a country club of sorts, and decide on taking the family along to check it out. Oh yeah, they also bring along an attractive, blonde architect named Linda played by Catherine Hickland, to evaluate the place. On top of everything else, there's a kooky, old woman, dressed in black (played by Knef) who pops in and out of the film, acting like she's orchestrating things to draw specific individuals to the island hotel, where she just happens to reside. Anyway, the Brooks party arrives at the hotel, with an dopey real estate agent named Jerry (Farnsworth) along for the ride (ahh, another potential victim), run into Leslie and Gary, and the bad mojo starts once they realize, through some kooky circumstances, they're all stranded on the island.

While there were a few things I liked about this feature, there was plenty more I thought wrong with the film, the main aspect, I suppose being director Laurenti's seeming inability to relate the story in a coherent manner. Perhaps I shouldn't be too critical given this was his first film, but the flow was just so uneven that it felt like he was purposely trying to confuse and obfuscate the relatively simplistic plot, which is essentially a mish mash of witchcraft and satanism. As far as the acting goes, it's pretty sad when David Hasselhoff provides one of the better performances in the film. I thought Annie Ross, as the money grubbing, nagging, snippy, too much make-up wearing matriarch, did pretty well, but her role is cut short as she's one of the first victims (she does get hers in fairly spectacular fashion). The absolute worst performance in the film comes from Leslie Cumming, who played the character Leslie, as her delivery was thoroughly monotone and her acting abilities akin to that of a dead fish. She was cute, though, and she did appear topless at one point as a sort of incubus attacks her character while she's sleeping. As far as Ms. Blair, well, she doesn't come off that well, and it's pretty obvious the filmmakers were trying to play off leech off the success of some of her other films, most notably The Exorcist (1973). I think she suffered, as did most of the others, by the sheer fact the writing was generally awful (surprisingly enough, it seemed more than adequate for der Hoff...go figure). There were a few elements about the film that made me laugh, the main one being whenever the witch would work her mojo on a particular character, she'd draw them into another dimension, one populated with weirdoes, chicken wire, and fire, by means of a cheap looking effect consisting of a red, swirly vortex with the character centered in the middle, screaming at the horrific turn of events thrust upon them by forces unknown. Another really funny bit comes as we learn Leslie's never known the pleasures of a man, and Hasselhoff's character, prior to the weirdness, tries continually to score, only to be denied (the woman truly must have had the willpower of the gods to fight the enchanting allure of der Hoff and his magnificent chest mane). The best part of the film, at least for myself, comes near the end as Hasselhoff's character goes up against the witch. I won't spoil it with details, but I will say it was very satisfying and almost made the movie worthwhile if only to witness said events. As far as the `shocker' ending, any horror film fan worth his or her salt will see it coming a mile away. All in all this is a fairly rotten film with a slight bit of nekkidness and a modest amount of gore, worth about two stars out of five, earning one extra for the bit with Hasselhoff near the end.

The picture, presented in widescreen anamorphic (1.85:1) on this Shriek Show DVD release, looks pretty clean, but doesn't appear to have been formatted correctly (at the very beginning you'll see a credit cut off). As far as the sound, it comes through well, offered up in Dolby Digital 2.0. There's not much in the way of extras offered up, as all that's included are trailers for other Shriek Show DVD release like Shadow Dead Riot (2006), Just Before Dawn (1981), A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971), and Devil Dog (1978). Also thrown in is a montage of a handful of trailers for films by Joe D'Amato. Normally I'm pleased with Shriek Show and their releases, but there didn't seem a whole lot of effort here, especially given the blurb on the back of the DVD case describing the characters of Gary and Linda as a couple, when, in reality, it was Gary and Leslie...perhaps it was just a mistake, but it seems like a rather large one, indicating whomever wrote the piece probably didn't actually view the film.

Cookieman108

By the way, if a body were stuffed up a chimney, don't you think it would make for an awful and highly noticeable smell once someone started a fire in the fireplace? Apparently not, according to this film...at least not for a while...
November 30, 2006

Uncut...

Regardless of the R rating on the specs givin here,the runtime on the dvd is 96 minutes.Which is the full uncut version. September 15, 2006

Out of Desperation

Out of desperation I will buy this dvd. Unfourtuantly, it is only rated R. I saw this movie years ago as a child and it really crawled under my skin, that version was uncut. Although I have high expectations in seeing this movie once more I feel that the jucy scenes will be cencored, which blows. But maybe down the road they'll release the uncut version. August 30, 2006

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