THURSDAY NIGHT HORROR! - "Warlock" (1989)

Warlock (1989)

Screenwriter David Twohy first conceived of the Warlock as a good character who was genuinely persecuted in the 1600s and was whisked away to the present day only to face a different type of persecution. However, he soon realized that the Warlock was the true villain of the piece.

The movie was directed by Steve Miner, the man behind other horror films such as “Friday the 13th Part 2”, “Friday the 13th Part 3”, “House”, “Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later”, and “Lake Placid”. For the movie, he wanted the Warlock and the main protagonist, Redferne, to be played by British actors due to the fact that the time there from, the American colonists would not have been far removed from their British roots.

Julian Sands was given the script in order to read for Redferne, but he ignored the script at first. He didn’t feel like he wanted to be in a horror film. When he did finally read the script, though, he realized that it had a lot of black comedy and was not the slasher that he thought it’d be.

Julian Sands is the titular character in "Warlock"!

When he auditioned, Miner thought that Sands would actually be better for the Warlock role, which Sands ended up relishing. Richard E. Grant was scheduled to audition for the Warlock role and Miner decided to still let Grant audition despite having just cast Sands as the Warlock.

Miner was so impressed with Grant’s audition that he offered him the role of Redferne instead. Lori Singer was eventually cast as Kassandra, the female lead.

In the movie, the Warlock and Redferne are from 1691 and Redferne has already captured the Warlock who is set to be put to death. However, Satan intervenes and transports the Warlock into the future and Redferne follows him through the portal. They end up in 1980s Los Angeles where the Warlock comes across Kassandra.

The Warlock is then tasked with putting back together the Grand Grimoire, Satan’s own version of the Bible. He puts an aging curse on Kassandra, thus she has to team up with Redferne in order to find the Warlock and reverse the curse.

Richard E. Grant is Redferne in "Warlock"!

Now, of course, this is a low-budget B movie with a hokey premise. However, it works primarily due to Sands and Grant as the Warlock and Redferne. Sands stated in an interview that he had always wanted to do a sequel with Grant that never came to fruition and I have to say, had that sequel happened, I would have been psyched.

The movie’s premise, though absurd, is also just a load of fun. Kassandra and Redferne traveling across the country to try and stop the Warlock causes several fun events to happen such as when the Warlock terrorizes a family farm.

All that being said, there are a few problems with the movie. First off, I can always handle weak special-effects for a low-budget movie. I generally give them a lot of wiggle room as I know they were working on the smallest of budgets. However, the effects in this movie have aged poorly even by those low standards and can be quite distracting.

The other issue is Singer as Kassandra. I’m sorry, but Singer does not give a good performance here. It’s almost as if Singer thought this movie was too beneath her to really give a shit about her performance. In fact, it’s been reported that Singer was difficult to work with.

This was apparently true especially with make-up man Carl Fullerton. According to sources, Fullerton had devised far more elaborate and convincing prosthetics for Singer’s transformation into her older self. However, Singer reportedly refused to wear anything but the bare minimum of prosthetics.

This meant that they had to resort to older techniques to make her look older. So, not only does her performance suck, but the makeup looks like shit too.

In spite of its flaws and a terrible performance by Singer, the movie is fun at the end of the day. It’s neither the best nor the worst of the Bs, but if you’re looking for a quick fix of supernatural, low-budget horror, then “Warlock” may just be the movie you’re looking for!