And here we are, folks. We’ve arrived at the final installment of the Warlock series. It’s been a little bumpy getting here but I, personally, have enjoyed the ride. So let’s take a look at Warlock III – The End of Innocence from 1998. Make sure to check out the previous installments of this series:
Warlock (1989) – The Drunken Monkey Review
Warlock: The Armageddon (1993) – The Drunken Monkey Review
Just a head up! With my editor in the throes of prep work for the latest rapture, I will spill some spoilers.
Party Like It’s 1673
Like the first movie, this one opens in the past. 1673 New England, to be exact. A mother and young daughter, Kris, are fleeing from a dark figure through the woods. Seems the figure is a very bad man with very bad intentions for Kris. But the mom works a little nature magic and helps Kris escape. Herself…not so much.
Jump to present day Kris at Sommerville College (not sure if that’s a play on Midsommar or something akin to Sommers Isle but it definitely had a witchy feel to it, doesn’t it?) She gets a call from some town historian who tells her of a home up north, that’s been in her family for generations, is about to be torn down. She’s more than welcome to come walk through and take anything she’d like.
She relishes the idea as she really knows nothing about her family history. She asks her boyfriend and friends to join her. The movie gives us a great rundown of her friends and I do appreciate that it LITERALLY shows us as the camera pans down the dorm hallway – the super serious academic boyfriend, Michael; the hyper sexed BDSM couple, Lisa and Scott; the lifelong guy friend, Jerry, who’s secretly in love with Kris; and her tarot reading BFF, Robin.
Not one trope among them. Nope. No siree. Not in this movie.
WHY IS SHE FRIENDS WITH THESE PEOPLE
They are less than enthusiastic about the trip so Kris just heads up alone, where she almost runs down the glorious trope of a local old person warning someone away from an evil property. What she doesn’t know is a local handyman was sent to the property to investigate a bunch of banging noises – hey, it could be the pipes which might burst and ruin a property we’re tearing down anyway – and naturally, the house kills him.
Or the evil IN the house that the old woman warned us about perhaps?
As Kris moves through the house, she has violent hallucinations made worse by the raging storm. Faucets dripping blood, power goes out, perhaps even memories from her past? I’m more worried that she didn’t seem to pack ANYTHING to even get her through the night, let along an extended stay, except a nightgown that looks like a straight up shift from the 17th century.
Because of COURSE it does.
We get one quick flashback to the characters from the opening scene. It seems the bad man was a warlock and he was in pursuit of young Kris because “she’s been given to him” though we don’t know by whom or for what purpose.
Hmmm….
Well, Kris starts freaking out and decides to bail on the creepy old house, family history be damned, and that’s exactly when her friends and Michael show up. He MADE them come, and Kris is just being a HystERicAl wOmaN because of the storm.
Eventually we’re blessed with an awesome nineties montage of going through the house, fixing stuff up, and unpacking random shit. But Kris can’t seem to find anything about her family and just wants to take her ball and go home. Luckily, Michael convinces her to stick it out because without that, we’d have no movie.
And after a visit from the historian whom Kris spoke with earlier, she learns about the terrible history of the house. The Convington family used to own it in the 1600s. Plenty of children went missing, murderous rituals, etc. In fact, Kris’ ancestor got the house, somehow, after her daughter ended up as one of the missing kids. She tricked the warlock and walled him up in the basement.
Excuse me, what?
SMOOTH OPERATOR, PARTY OF ONE
And wouldn’t you know, a Mr. Albert Covington shows up at that exact moment. He claims to be an architect and can give Kris a TON of info about the house and her family.
May I interject for a moment here…
Back to the review.
At this point, I’m sure you’ve figured out that Covington is the Warlock. He works his way through all of Kris’ friends, tricking them by promising one thing, delivering another, torturing them into giving permission for the Warlock to “take” Kris, in order to save themselves.
Again, WHY IS SHE FRIENDS WITH THESE PEOPLE??
Except her BFF. Remember tarot girl, Robin? She explains to Kris that she’s a witch and can use her magic for good, to protect everyone from any evil coming at them.
HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH!
She’s really the only one who stands by Kris and tries to protect her, not giving into the warlock’s temptations. Unfortunately, the warlock is just too strong, plus he’s using the others to do some of his dirty work. Eventually Kris is confronted with the truth – Convington is the warlock from centuries before (no shit. Slow much, Kris?) With Kris’ sacrifice, he’ll raise a woman from Hell “who will mother a race of evil the world has never seen.”
GAHT DAMN he’s so good. I offer myself as tribute!
But the warlock missed a critical piece of information from the family letter he swiped off the historian, after tearing his throat out, natch. Part of the letter spells out how to destroy the warlock. A doll used to trick the warlock ages ago is the key. Kris finds it in the cellar, and destroys the warlock once and for all.
Though I’m gonna miss Bruce in those leather pants.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, SCHMARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Okay, let’s touch on a few things that are wrong with Warlock III.
The opening scene music choice seemed…suspect. Not sure why an upbeat dance club number was chosen for a mother and her young daughter fleeing for their lives from an evil warlock, but I don’t make movies. What the hell do I know? And in general, the audio is just awful. That could be because the movie is nearly 30 years old and hasn’t been remastered (at least not the version I watched.)
98% of the characters in the Warlock III are not worth caring about, not even Kris. Kris is very hot and cold. One minute she’s whining, the next she’s super pumped excited, then the next she’s pissy. I just couldn’t get behind her. And her friends SUCK, except her bff. She’s the only one who had any kind of moral strength to stand up to the warlock and his demands. The rest? Fuck them. They were all cardboard caricatures anyway. Weak sauce.
This might seem like I’m being a little dramatic but for whatever reason only the warlock knows, he had to get Kris’ friends to give her up, turn their backs on her, so the warlock can use her in his ritual. AND THEY ALL DO! Except the BFF, naturally, because hoes before bros. Or whatever. So I don’t care if these people live or die. I prefer die, especially at the hands of such a smoooove bad guy.
There are a ton of tropes strewn about the place: the old woman warning Kris off; weird shit happening that’s written off because of drugs or a heavy storm; the main female character getting her tits out at some point to fondle them for absolutely no reason. That last bit felt so out of place and unnatural to the character that it came off as awkward instead of titillating. Which speaks to all the acting in this. Pretty much everyone is just awful, even the awesome Ashley Laurence as Kris didn’t do it for me in this one.
WHO DOESN’T LOVE A GOOD BAD BOY?
All that said…there’s a lot of great in this flick.
The most important being Bruce Payne. We may not have the luscious Julian Sands anymore but what hole was left by his absence, Bruce filled nicely.
I said what I said.
He is the best part of this Warlock III. The character of the warlock this time is much bigger, emotionally speaking, so he does overact slightly to fill that space. And it fits. It’s not yelling or jumping around. His facial expressions bring it, along with more exaggerated body movements. But just enough. Most of the movie he’s in black leather pants, black shirt, black vest, and a black leather duster when he makes his first appearance. He just oozes menace, even from behind his soft smile.
There’s actually a scene where he’s perched like a crow on the footboard of Kris’ bed, watching over her while she sleeps. It’s foreboding and fucking beautiful.
I love the use of the flashbacks to give us snippets of Kris’ ancestral history. It’s not one big expo dump in the beginning. We get three separate bits thrown in that give us just what we need to know at the time to help progress the story. And the story itself is pretty interesting. Instead of the warlock becoming the son of Satan, he’s trying to grow an entire RACE of satanic offspring. Loftier goals, IMHO.
And I have to say the deceits and tortures the warlock inflicts on Kris’ friends are pretty brutal. Jerry is an avid music lover and composer. But after being tricked by the warlock, he starts to lose his hearing. It’s just ringing and buzzing and the only thing he eventually still hears clearly is the warlock’s buttery voice. I almost felt bad for the kid.
I did feel bad for witchy tarot girl, Robin. After trying her best to thwart the warlock, he soon overpowers her and turns her into a porcelain statue. Which he promptly SHATTERS into a million pieces. I even wrote “daayyyuuuumm” in my notes after it happens. I may even have teared up a little…
But the most important aspect of Robin’s character is something I’ve been longing for in so many movies that involve witches or witchcraft of any kind. While Kris is nervously questioning Robin’s magic and rituals, Robin calmly explains that she uses it for good. But anyone can learn magic and use it with bad intentions instead.
THANK YOU, ROBIN. THANK YOU. I’m not sure if that’s the work of writer Pierce Milestone, who created the characters, or the other two writers, Bruce David Eisen and Eric Freiser (Eric also directed). But I’d like to give all of you big wet kisses on your mouths for finally giving us something that’s an actual truth in witchcraft.
(This point is also made in 1996’s The Craft, where the store owner says that magic isn’t black or white. It’s use lies in the heart of the witch that wields it. But there was so much wrong in that flick, witchly speaking, that it was like that little truth nugget got swirlied and shoved in a locker, soon forgotten.)
Warlock III – SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
That there are some franchises, or sequels and three-quels, that can actually hold their own. They haven’t succumbed to generations of inbreeding that result in twisted, half-witted, genetic cesspools that make you wish the series had died after the firstborn. I’ve enjoyed all three films in this series, which is unusual, this third one more than I’d remembered. Could be the story, could be Bruce Payne in leather pants.
I’ll take it either way.
4 Margaritas (out of 5)
Warlock III - The End of Innocence (1998) - Drunken Monkey Review - Malevolentdark
Director: Eric Freiser
Date Created: 1970-01-01 00:33
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