Witchcraft IV: The Virgin Heart

My review was written in August 1992 after watching the movie on Academy video cassette.

"Witchcraft IV' is one of the best in this popular home video series, with an alluring central performance by pinup Julie Strain. This patented combination of sex and horror will get a brisk response.

For the third film in a row, Charles Solomon (who had a small role as part of Jim Garrison's team in "JFK") plays lawyer Will Spanner, who suppresses his warlock nature until called back into action by adversarial witches.

He's hired by Lisa Jay Harringotn to defend her brother, accused in a ritual murder. Trai leads to evil Britisher Clive Pearson, who manages the career of sexy stripper/chanteuse Belladonna (Julie Strain).

In a script nod to Walter Hill's "Crossroads", an occultist acquaints Solomon with "The Legend of the Blues", relating musical mastery to devil worship. Happy ending is a bit hard to swallow, but the producers undoubtedly are thinking of sequels.

Solomon is his usual good ole boy self, while Strain, a 6-foot tall model familiar from both Penthouse and Playboy magazines and videos, has her best acting showcase to date in the central role. Special effects are minor.

In WITCHCRAFT IV: THE VIRGIN HEART, a woman is abducted and it's up to private investigator / warlock, Will Spanner (Charles Solomon Jr.) to get to the bottom of things.

Spanner's search leads him to a club called Coven. This is a rough place. How rough? Well, it's filled with industrial smog, and the bartender wears nothing but waders pulled up to his man-nipples! Now, that's rough!

Thankfully, a dancer called Belladonna (Julie Strain!) takes the club stage. It's not long before her clothing dissolves into memory. Henceforth, we realize that this is Ms. Strain's movie, for our minds are filled with nothing else! Fans of this Amazon, warrior-goddess take note: She's really good in this! While one could simply watch her standing mute, for hours, she proves herself to be more than the sum of her magnificent parts!

As Spanner delves into Belladonna's dark world, he becomes increasingly involved with her.

Mostly a mystery / detective story, those expecting a straightforward occult film will be sadly disappointed. For a movie called WITCHCRAFT, it seems absurd to save almost all of the supernatural stuff for the final 20 minutes!

Those expecting a non-stop, Julie Strain-naked-extravaganza will be only mildly satisfied, since she's interrupted constantly by the long-winded story! Seriously, it's ludicrous anyway, and could be told in a 10 minute, short film!

MOST UNBELIEVABLE SCENE: When Belladonna is abused by some mere man. You'll keep yelling, "Why doesn't she just kick his a$$?!", at the screen...

It's been three years since warlock Will Spanner (Charles Solomon Jr.) has used his powers, but when faced with a demonic, murderous music manager who removes his victims' hearts, the supernatural lawyer must once again draw on his magical abilities.

With Will investigating a murder case that takes him to sleazy strip clubs and smoky blues bars, Witchcraft IV: The Virgin Heart is more like a film noir than a horror — and a bad one at that, with a dull mystery and a lifeless performance from star Solomon. Written and directed by James Merendino, the film cements the Witchcraft series as one of the worst horror franchises ever, this latest entry being the weakest one yet.

As with the previous three films, the film suffers from dreadful acting, flat direction, and cheap production values, with particularly bad sound, much of the dialogue almost impossible to make out. I imagine that none of this seemed all that important to Merendino, just so long as skin-flick legend Julie Strain (playing a stripper called Belldonna) got her clothes off—which she does.

This was the last of the Witchcraft films to feature Charles Solomon Jr. as William: perhaps even he had his limits and could take no more of this garbage.

Witchcraft IV: The Virgin Heart (1992)

* (out of 4)

The fourth film in the series finds lawyer Will Spanner (Charles Solomon) involved with a new girl (Julie Strain) while trying to investigate a case involving a man accused of killing his girlfriend. It turns out that the devil's son is also working the music scene by having young musicians sell him their souls in exchange for fame. I'm honestly not sure how those two stories were supposed to connect but WITCHCRAFT IV tries to do it but of course fails miserably. The first three films in the series were bad but each of them featured something strangely bad that made them entertaining. This fourth installment is clearly the worst of the bunch and you can't even say it reaches a so bad it's good level. The biggest problem is that there's just not much of a story here and what little there is gets stretched to a 93-minute running time, which is about 73-minutes too long. The film does offer up some rather funny moments including the scene where our lawyer-warlock goes up against the D.A. trying to say his client is innocent. The dialogue for these two going back and forth managed to get me to laugh. It's also funny hearing the lawyer tell the talented stripper that she should join a band and sing for a living. And let us not forget the scene where our lawyer buddy gets backstage at a strip club by claiming to have gotten lost looking for the bathroom (I hate when that happens). The performances, as you'd expect, are all pretty poor and even Solomon comes off rather bored here. Strain certainly can't act but I'm fairly certain she was hired for her breasts, which she shows a few times throughout the film. WITCHCRAFT IV just drags along so badly that it's really hard to find any sort of entertainment in it.

WITCHCRAFT IV: THE VIRGIN HEART is the worst WITCHCRAFT film yet, and all four have been pretty bad. This sees Charles Solomon Jr., the main actor from the last two films in the series, coming back for a final time essaying the role of the good-guy warlock facing up to the forces of evil.

This effort tries to tell some sort of politically-tinged tale but the budget is far too low to convince with any of the court house scenes. The emphasis of the story is on rock music so there's lots of the expected padding and little in the actual way of story telling. Once again the devil is getting folk to sell their souls to him and only our hero can stop him.

The most notable thing about THE VIRGIN HEART is the willingness of starlet Julie Strain to show off her bare body, which she does on regular occasions playing a devilish stripper character. While Solomon Jr. would thankfully quit the series after this instalment, unfortunately it would continue to run and run without him.