La endemoniada

From the people who brought you Troll 2, here's another one that will make you scratch your head so much that you'll draw blood. Witchery, upon first glance, seems like any other haunted house/possession flick, but upon further inspection, it's anything but. Featuring both Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff (guess they were trying to target that German market?), Witchery is one of those movies you finish and, for the longest time, you think it was something you dreamnt about.

This is in no small part to the female lead's performance that can only be described as somnambulist. It's as if she's reading from cue cards or her performance is being channeled via another spirit that's possessing her. It's a thing of bad movie beauty.

Gore fans will find a lot to enjoy as people get their lips sewn shut in extreme close up.

That movie has been produced and directed by the same people, who enriched the world of cinema with such masterpieces, as Troll 2, The Crawlers... Well, although this movie is not THAT horrible and ridiculous, as Troll 2 and Crawlers, although special effects (done by the same italian "Greg Cannom" (Mrs. Doubtfire, Bram Stocker´s Dracula, Titanic, etc.) Maurizio Trani, who have done some poor FX for Troll 2 and Crawlers, this movie stinks anyway. It´s a low-budget hilarity, where the characters behave as nobody would in real life. It also contains some episodes from the first part of this masterpiece (Casa 3, or Ghosthouse (1987), and which is in no way better. All these four movies were produced by an ultra low-budget company Filmirage. By the way, they had used the SAME score in Crawlers and in Witchery! What a shame!

"Witchery" (1989) If it was not for such great popular actors this movie would be lost in obscurity. David Hasselhoff played Prince Simon in Starcrash (1978). Linda Blair played Ida Mae in "Married with Children" TV Series (1986-1997).

Strange things happen like the film runtime is stated as 95 minutes or 96 uncut. But the DVD I placed in the player says 1:36.50 minutes. There are no subtitles so you might have to play the German parts over again as they slur. There is not an overabundance of background music which makes the phony background music more impressive when they use it.

We get a lot of amateur-stilted dialogs; you are just going to have to get over it if you are to make it through the movie.

Linda Sullivan (Catherine Hickland) is a witchy researcher and an overdue virgin. She and her quazi boyfriend investigate a derelict hotel on the coast of Massachusetts.

Same time a family is looking to purchase the hotel. We get to see the boat captain hanging around, an intrepid German actress, a weird portal (like "Hot Tub Time Machine",) a dumb waiter, and much more.

They have time to reflect and so do we. Did I watch the whole thing?

Looks like it could be a pilot for a TV series.

A group of people are stranded at an isolated hotel by an evil witch (Hildegard Knef) who possesses them and kills them. I don't understand why the rating for this film is so low on IMDB. It's well made by the standards of the horror genre and featuring a good performance by Knef, some seriously scary scenes, and good effects. It is however unrelently mean and cruel. Unrated; Extreme Violence, Rape, and Profanity.

An Italian/American co-production co-starring Linda Blair and David 'The Hoff' Hasselhoff: how could any fan of trashy horror resist such a treat?

Well, based on the uneventful, extremely tedious, and utterly nonsensical first forty minutes or so, I would have said 'very easily'; thankfully, however, things do eventually get a tad more entertaining with the introduction of several inventive death scenes, and for those lucky enough to find an uncut copy, a smattering of nudity too (unfortunately, my copy was optically edited to remove such offensive material).

The Hoff stars as Gary, a photographer who accompanies his beautiful girlfriend Leslie (Leslie Cumming) to a run-down hotel on a seemingly deserted island in order to take pictures for her latest project, a book about witches; whilst there, frustrated Gary also hopes to try and cure a bad case of blue balls by relieving Leslie of her virginity.

His plans for nookie are scuppered, however, by the unexpected arrival of property developers Freddie and Rose Brooks (Robert Champagne and Annie Ross), their pregnant daughter Jane (Blair), son Tommy (Michael Manchester), pretty nymphomaniac architect Linda Sullivan (Catherine Hickland), and estate agent Jerry (Rick Farnsworth), who have come to inspect the island's hotel.

After explaining their unexpected presence on the island, Gary and Leslie are welcomed by the property's new owners, and when a violent storm suddenly picks up, making it perilous to return to the mainland, everyone agrees to spend the night in the old building. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the hotel's new guests, the place is also home to the spirit of an evil witch (Hildegard Knef), who requires human sacrifices in order to bring herself back to life. One by one, victims are pulled into a swirling red vortex (which is guaranteed to provide unintentional laughs), before meeting a terrible fate.

None of this makes much sense, and the acting is atrocious (Manchester as Tommy is particularly bad, whilst Hasselhoff proves to be one of the better performers, which speaks volumes about the others), but those viewers who make it past the dreary first half are rewarded with some pretty decent moments of gore: Rose has her lips sewn together, before being roasted alive in a fireplace; Jerry is crucified and burnt alive; Linda is tortured by hags and impaled on a swordfish(!!); Freddie's veins pulsate and erupt in geysers of blood; and Gary gets stabbed in the back.

Oh, and Leslie is raped by a guy with no lips and Blair gets possessed (again).