Season of the Witch (2011) d. Sena, Dominic
High profile B-movie starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman as two wisecracking thrill-killing 14th-century Knights Templar who suffer a crisis of confidence after offing one innocent victim too many and desert, only to be captured and pressed into duty transporting a young witch to a remote abbey in the hopes of ending the Black Plague.
For his part, Christopher Lee delivers a delicious, boil-covered hare-lipped cameo, enduring impressive prosthetics for his limited time onscreen. Bragi F. Schut’s lame screenplay and dialogue do no one any favors. Cage has become as much as a liability as asset when it comes to attracting audiences – much like Drive Angry the same year, horror fans stayed away in droves.
Unnecessary and shoddy CGI may dampen spirits, as does the goofy third act which goes giddily off the rails, but for those seeking mere escapism, this is a relatively inoffensive popcorn burner. Filmed on location in Austria and Hungary.
Did you check out the original ending? Schut's screenplay was pretty heavily tampered with by the studio, so I don't think it's fair to blame him entirely. The enirety of the end was completely redone. Originally it didn't have any lame one liners or a crap CGI monster.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see the original ending as I watched it streaming on Netflix. I wonder if it's on YouTube somewhere.
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JTsJxyU7IU
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I'll always take some decent swordplay over stupid keyboard/console monsters any day. It's still a little silly, but then again, so was the film overall. This is definitely preferable. Thanks for sharing!
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