Witchville

When I saw the word 'Syfy' appear on the screen, I immediately raised my defenses and thought 'oh no, this is going to be one of those movies'. As you might know, if you are familiar with Syfy Channel's previous works, then they have a habit of putting out some fairly questionable movies that tend to be lacking proper special effects.

However, "Witchville" actually surprised me in a good way. Well, aside from the poor choice of title for the movie, then Syfy actually managed to pull this production off quite nicely.

The movie has a fairly alright story, although it was quite predictable and not really bringing anything innovating to the fantasy genre. And actually most of what was in the movie have been seen in other similar movies. But still, "Witchville" worked out well enough.

What really impressed me was the production value that Syfy had upped and put into this. Especially the costumes and wardrobes, that was just brilliant work. I liked the armor and all the detail they had put into those. However, I just didn't fully understand the obsession with skulls, almost every armor and outfit was adorned with skulls in one way or another, even the king's armor had a skull on the shoulder piece of his armor, that just wasn't proper attire for a king. Skulls are associated with death and evil, and shouldn't be adorning a king's armor. But aside from this skull-fetish, then the armors and costumes were just amazing.

And as for the special effects, well Syfy isn't exactly known for their million dollar investments on the CGI side of movie-making. However, the effect that they put into "Witchville" were actually nicely executed and seemed to work well enough on screen. Don't expect to be dazzled out of your seat, though, but it is a great step up the ladder effects-wise for Syfy. So thumbs up on that account.

The people they had cast for the various roles were also working out well enough, most of them anyway. Personally I think that the lead by Luke Goss should perhaps have been cast differently, as he was not a particularly strong actor in this movie. The movie was really carried by the performances of MyAnna Buring (playing Jozefa), Sarah Douglas (playing the Red Queen) and Simon Thorp (playing Kramer).

I am a huge fan of this particular fantasy genre (perhaps because of my 26 years of playing Dungeons & Dragons), and I did enjoy "Witchville". So you might ask why I only gave it a 5 out of 10 rating? Well because the story was somewhat of a mess, there were a lot of dead ends in the movie and the coherency of it all was just overall blurry. The movie lacked a proper red line to follow, and as such, the end result turned out to be somewhat jumpy and half-hearted.

"Witchville" is well worth a watch if you enjoy this particular type of fantasy movie, just don't expect too much from the movie in the story department.

And thumbs up for the people behind the design of the DVD cover, because they really buffed it up and made the movie appear much more interesting that it actually turned out to be. So as the saying goes; "don't judge a book by its cover".

Another turkey! Should be rated Fantasy/Humour/Sleeping Pill. With due respect to a previous reviewer I don't agree with the mantra that it's a TV movie therefore don't expect the standards to be high. Why not? There are MANY TV movies which are probably better than cinema release stock.

The same old repeated clichés, jumps, twists turns, a storyline I've seen on numerous other occasions. Nothing that helps me to like OR dislike the characters.

The best piece of acting came from the witch who was burned in the first quarter of the movie.

Nuff Said

I wasn't hoping for much but I got even less than that! This 'movie' was not only bad - devoid of any real plot, wit, or meaningful context; lousy special effects; terrible acting; and laughable direction - it was also a throwback to the most simplistic and misogynist view of magic and witches I have seen in ages. At first I thought they were depicting those views in order to turn them on their head but no- that really was the lens of this movie on the world of magic and female power versus civilization. Even the campy stuff wasn't fun because it seemed not to have any sense of humour about itself and how really really bad it was. If you like to watch things that are really really bad in order to laugh at how bad they are, you might find this a treat of some sort. It really is that bad. Did i mention it is bad?

This reminded me a little of "In the Name of the King" (2007). Here instead of Jason Statham though, we have the completely out of his depth Luke Goss as the king "Malachy" and Ed Speleers as his hunky sidekick "Jason" as they try to save the kingdom from the clutches of the evil "Red Queen" (Sarah Douglas). It might have made for a perfectly watchable television movie had the acting been better, but Goss is frankly dreadful as he wields his broadsword with all the menace of a fairy liquid bottle. Speleers is always easy on the eye, but again he makes little impact as their set-piece escapades see them recruit new allies and head for a denouement with the vengeful monarch who breathes red smoke. The budget clearly wasn't huge, but to be fair the special effects folks, they have done a reasonable job at making the film look decent. The story, though, is weak and the writing does little to help overcome the obvious limitations of those delivering it on screen. It might kill ninety minutes on an aircraft somewhere - after a few glasses of something, but otherwise this offers nothing at all new or remarkable.

I have made no secret of disliking Syfy's output in general, but despite its awful title Witchville is actually one of the better ones in my opinion. Granted the title is really quite naff, the story is rather standard and didn't particularly surprise me and while I admired its ambition the dialogue is often quite weak and stilted. However, I liked Witchville. The production values are surprisingly not too bad for a low-budget movie, the sets and costumes look as though they were constructed with care, the scenery is beautiful and the effects are more consistent and less crude, the standout being the hellhound attack which did have me biting my nails. The sword-fighting scenes are efficiently done and nicely choreographed, the direction is competent and I too loved Jozefa's stylish entrances. The music is pretty tolerable too, while the acting while far from award-worthy is decent, especially MyAnna Buring. All in all, despite its weaknesses for me it is one of the better Syfy movies. 7/10 Bethany Cox