Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil

Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil (1993)

** (out of 4)

I'm not even going to try and give a plot outline for the first 18-minutes of this movie but if there was a "B" Movie Hall of Fame then they'd certainly be inducted. Once we get past this the film centers on Will Spanner (now played by Marklen Kennedy) who comes under the hypnotic spell of Cain (David Huffman) who has bought a rock bar so that he can steal the souls of people with the help of a sexy blonde (Nicole Sassaman). WITCHCRAFT V is without question the best of the series so far and I was really surprised at how entertaining it actually is (as long as you can put up with this type of film). The movie really changed the pace from the previous four by clearly hiring women based on their breast size. Yes, this one here is going for a lot more of the softcore sex stuff but I'm not going to complain because most of the scenes are extremely sexy. This is certainly the case whenever Sassaman is on the screen as she's certainly incredibly beautiful and her body speaks for itself. Another plus comes from the before mentioned 18-minutes that start things off. I'm not going to try and explain what happens but there are about five different events that take place and each of the five must tie together or else there'd be no story here. The way all of these events just happen to take place and connect everyone together is just so silly and so campy that "B" movie fans will be howling. The William character here is certainly the least interesting of the five films but thankfully for him there's a pretty fun villain. Huffman is actually pretty good in the role of the villain and I must admit that I got a big chuckle out of his evil speeches. The film offers up several sex scenes and like most skin-flicks that appeared on Cinemax back in the day, there's really no story around them, women just get naked. Those wanting the work of Bunuel or Welles would probably be best served to stay away from this movie but in regards to what the series has offered so far, it's a mini miracle.

David Huffman steals the show in an amazingly hilarious performance as Campy Cain the warlock. A bizarre mix of homoerotica and strange facial expressions combined with odd stances ( the bar scene ) and dialouge - " I need to get some more coffee", " I do magic - hypnosis".

The special effects are diabolical.

How there are 14 of these films is beyond me.

I love the soft core porn elements.

David Huffman, who went on to do absolutely nothing else after this Oscar worthy performance, really should hang his locks in shame.

Pretty awful film, but saved by the blonde bad girl.

I can go on and on and on about what's wrong with this film, but why bother? It's no fun pointing out the flaws of a movie that's supposed to be bad. And if the makers of this crap thought they were doing a masterpiece--may God have mercy on their souls.

I am just gonna be frank. I read a review for the movie in my Blockbuster Video Guide saying that it contains "exposed breasts galore." Well...they were right. Lots of gratuitous shots of large, surgically-enhanced (I'm guessing) breasts. What's a crappy horror movie without the gratuitous nudity? Exactly!

The acting and f/x (if that's what you call 'em) are so inexplicably bad that I had to wrestle my hand off the "Stop" button. Maybe it's because I'm an aspiring filmmaker and actor myself. A low budget is no excuse. Look what Kevin Smith did with the micro-budget comedy "Clerks." John Carpenter's pockets weren't exploding with cash when he made "Halloween." But when he did the killing sequences, instead of explicitly showing us the blood and gore, he left it up to the audience's imagination. And he still scared the pants off many viewers! In one scene of this movie, the villain sticks a sword through this guy's stomach and we suddenly cut to this stupid close-up shot of the blood dripping off the sword, as if we're supposed to believe it actually got pushed through his body. As for the computer-generated f/x...what the hell was that! They must've stole 'em off someone's screensaver!

If I have anything good to say, this film is good for a few laughs. Unintentional laughs, that is. They should've at least used a tongue-in-cheek approach. That way we can be laughing WITH them. And of course, if you wanna watch some good nude scenes that's a plus. But you can always save yourself the trouble and rent a flick from Surrender Cinema. That way you won't have to wear out the "Fast-Forward" control as much.

My score: 2 (out of 10)

Beautiful blonde Marta pretends to be a hooker, while her boyfriend knocks the john over the head so they can steal all his money. Unfortunately, he was hit too hard and killed, so they drag his body to their car. Unfortunately, they also get into an accident in which they hit a wino in the road. They speed off, but Reverend Meredith and his assistant were driving by in their limo and stop to help. Something flies out of the wino into the Reverend, possessing him.

Meanwhile, Marta and her boyfriend break down in the woods, and come across a man at a fire. He seems to be crazy, but in fact he's Cain, a powerful servant of Satan who collects souls of transgressors. He kills the boyfriend and makes Marta his servant.

Lawyer/reluctant warlock Will Spanner returns from previous titles in this series. He and his girlfriend/fiancé Keli (her first appearance in this series, I think, but a recurring character hereafter) go to a nightclub where Cain hypnotizes Will.

Cain has Marta seduce Will in his sleep, and thereafter is able to use Will to collect souls for him. Cain seems to be so powerful, it's unclear why he needs Will at all. Keli gets Rev. Meredith to try to help Will, since he's become violent with her. He brings along Anastasia, a German-speaking Christian gypsy witch of some kind. She's not very powerful, unfortunately, and while Will is a powerful warlock, he's deeply in denial about his powers and also about the fact that something is happening to him.

There are a number of nude and sex scenes, as usual. There's one in the shower of Will's home which is unusual if only for the size of the shower. It seems they're remodeling their home and haven't finished the bathroom, so the shower is really a showerhead attached to a wall in a big stonewalled room. The house, by the way, or at least the front hall of it, seems to be the same one used in Witchcraft 8: Salem's Ghost (1996), the only title in the series without any of the recurring characters or any reference to Will Spanner. Or perhaps there happen to be a lot of houses with front doors that have a large oval pane of glass in them, and a staircase with one turn in it.

Special effects are fairly cheap again as usual, although an effect with which the white of Will's eyes flash whiter is better than some of the other ones in which characters' entire eyes turn bring red or blue. The effect of souls being passed to Cain, however, is very cheesy.

I'm in the process of binge watching the Witchcraft franchise and am fast starting to think this is the worst movie series of all time.

Here in the 5th part we see the return of William the warlock, except now he's played by a different actor as I'm sure the last guy had enough.

He's spellbound by a rival warlock who uses him to collect souls for satan, or something.

With some of the worst overacting I've ever seen and sex/nudity in every other scene this really pushes for the title of worst Witchcraft movie. I'm not sure it is, but it's certainly on par.

I'd recommend the Witchcraft franchise thus far to people who like *Ahem*, people who are into *Hmmmm* guys and gals I don't like? *Shrugs*

The Good:

Boobs, what? I'm a simple man

The Bad:

SFX that hurt my brain

Antagonist is hammy to ridiculous levels

Cringe inducing

Dull plot

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I didn't know Ronnie James Dio was a warlock

Poor girl, her top keeps falling off