Season of the Witch (Review)

I will say this: Dominic Sena’s Season of the Witch is absolutely, definitely a movie. It looks like one, it sounds like one, and I saw it in a theater where movies normally play. It has a beginning, middle and an end, with characters interacting, talking and occasionally fighting each other. It began as a screenplay written by Bragi F. Schut, was given the green light, and production began. Crew members woke up at the break of dawn, sets were constructed and extras were hired all so Season of the Witch could find its way onto multiplex screens across this great nation. Hours of sleep were no doubt lost during the making of this movie, and now the final product has been released for the public’s viewing pleasure.

It begins after a small group of alleged witches are hanged for, well, being witches. Here’s an opportunity for the film to set up a sense of ambiguity. Do witches exist? Is the brutality of the church when it comes to these women justified? Well, Season of the Witch is not particularly interested in asking questions. Just moments after the movie starts the film confirms to us that witches do, in fact, exist. (Insert Christine O’Donnell quip here.)

Cut to Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman. They’re about to start crusading all up in this joint, trading one-liners about how many infidels they can kill and who’s buying the drinks tonight and whatnot. After a montage of allegedly “different” battle scenes that can only be told apart based on the lighting, Cage ends up stabbing a woman with his sword in the heat of battle. He’s been at this thing for years upon years, but in this moment he suddenly decides that all this killing may not be in everyone’s best interest. He decides to walk away from all this violence and Ron Perlman comes along because, well, bros before… killing hoes. (Sorry.)

After a long trek together, they find themselves in a town stricken with the plague. Everyone they see is either close to dying or wearing a mask out of Eyes Wide Shut, and all these scenes are missing is Eric Idle calling for the villagers to bring out their dead. Turns out this little town has determined the cause of the plague: a witch! They have her chained up in a dungeon, and when Cage and Perlman come a-wanderin’ into town they decide to make them deliver the witch to a group of monks who will decide her fate.

What follows it part road movie, part horror movie, part Lord of the Rings­ wannabe, all awful. The dialogue intends to be era-appropriate most of the time, but out of nowhere the actors seem to forget the whole “period” aspect of the movie. Out of nowhere Cage or Perlman will occasionally break out a modern profanity relating to feces that I’m pretty sure was rarely uttered in the age of the crusades, and overall Perlman barely even seems to try and act as if the film is any good/true to the era it’s portraying.

The movie’s ineptitude could have at least been masked if it looked any good, but what sets Season of the Witch apart from the bad movie pack is that the environments are small and the computer effects are awful. All the supposedly “large” battle scenes at the beginning of the film were clearly filmed in front of a green screen with about ten actual people. The ending, which has the potential to be mildly frightening, is completely ruined by lame, blurry “monsters” and fire effects. Also, a certain demon that appears has the least menacing voice in the history of cinematic demons.

Season of the Witch is best summed up by looking at one character: Hagamar, the guide. He is played by Stephen Graham, a British actor. You may know him from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, where he is legitimately quite good as infamous gangster Al Capone. That’s impressive: a British actor pulling off a wholly American character. When you put Graham in a movie like Season of the Witch, one would expect him to just sit back and use his native British accent. Nope. Against every ounce of logic in the universe, he goes out of his way to use an Al Capone-like American accent. That’s the basic story of Season of the Witch: it goes out of its way to make no sense whatsoever, and it looks bad doing it.

Rating:  (out of 4)