Witchcraft III: The Kiss of Death

My review was written in April 1991 after watching the movie on Academy video cassette.

Third entry in the popular home video "Witchcraft" series scores high in sexiness but low in the supernatural realm. It should appeal to fans of erotic thrillers.

Charles Solomon, whose acting is unconvincing throughout, toplines as the son of a warlock who denies his ancestry (and inherited powers) until he has to do battle with a vampire bad guy (Domonic Luciano).

Luciano, who preys on Solomon and his girlfriend (Lisa Toothman), periodically kills women with a kiss of death that literally ucks the life out of them.

Luciano's own girlfriend is platinum blonde Luana Hall, who gets an energy transfusion every time her beau puts the fatal smooch on someone, Plot comes unglued when Luciano offs the femme prosecutor who's been giving Solomon a hard time.

Pic climaxes when Luciano dumps Hall and makes Toothman his new thrall. Using inherited witchcraft, and a little help from witch doctor William L. Baker, Solomon puts Luciano out of commission.

Real find here is heroine Toothman. After small film roles and Playboy Channel appearances, she proves to be vulnerable as well as voluptuous in a leading role. Luciano also makes a smooth villain.

Action scenes, particularly the anticlimactic final reel fights, are awkwardly staged with chintzy special effects.

Sure, this is a standard, cheese ball, demon-lover story with a little tease, but the saving grace of this flick is lovely Lisa Toothman shines charms throughout, but saves the best for last. This is one of those actresses who incites one thought all the way through: Damn, I hope she has a nude scene! And she doesn't disappoint. What a joy to see this girl-next-door type flaunt her Big Naturals before the closing credits! Lisa deserved many more bad movies with award winning nude scenes. Her big scene is all the more satisfying because of the cat fight she has with her witch rival. Lisa, thank you for leaving us this legacy! I recommend fast forwarding to just the scenes with Lisa in them

THE KISS OF DEATH is the third in a series of incessantly-made straight-to-video horrors that together form the WITCHCRAFT series. The first two films in the franchise were below par and this is no different, a near-indistinguishable entry filled with the usual softcore fumblings and mild horror.

Once again male protagonist Charles Solomon Jr. returns to the series playing the good-hearted warlock just trying to get on with his life (and love life). Unfortunately for him a rival warlock has evil in his heart and is killing a series of women in order to give his love eternal life. The two men eventually come to blows but not before lots of characters have bedded each other and female nudity is thrown into the mix.

THE KISS OF DEATH makes for boring viewing and one that's devoid of interest. Solomon Jr.'s character couldn't get any less interesting and the lack of money means that there are few effects scenes or indeed life in the picture. In fact, it only really gets going at the climax which offers up some of the usual action nonsense. Many more films were to follow...

You might think that a film this weak would be the kiss of death for any horror franchise, but not the Witchcraft series: despite Part III being yet another utterly unmemorable example of cheap and nasty straight to video crud, the films just kept on coming (there's sixteen of them to date!).

I might be a bit sketchy about the details of this one since I struggled to stay awake, but I seem to recall that son of a witch William (Charles Solomon Jr.) is now a defense attorney, trying to prevent the innocent from being sent to death row. When evil warlock Louis (Domonic Luciana) gets between William and his big-breasted girlfriend Charlotte (Lisa Toothman), the lawyer must use his supernatural powers to fight back.

As with the previous two Witchcraft films, the production values are very low, the acting is pitiful, and the plot is completely unremarkable. Director Rachel Feldman tries to keep punters happy with a spot of soft-core sex and some gratuitous nudity, but even that proves boring. Unless you happen to be a movie masochist like myself, you would probably be better off giving this one a miss.

Witchcraft III: The Kiss of Death (1991)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

William Spanner (Charles Solomon) has put the events from the previous film behind him and he's now trying to make it as a lawyer. All is well until an evil warlock named Louis (Domonic Luciana) turns up and wants to turn Willy's girlfriend (Lisa Toothman) into his sex slave. Don't you just hate it when horny warlocks show up? This third film in the series is the third one in a row that couldn't even score a two-star rating from me but as bad as this thing is, at the same time I couldn't help but get a few kicks out of it. This film has quite a few bad moments in it but thankfully they get a few laughs so this almost enters the "so bad it's worth watching" category. One hilarious thing involves William defending a young black boy accused of raping and murdering his neighbor. The early scenes of William trying to get him to talk about what really happened are just downright hilarious and especially a sequence where the boy breaks down into his mother's arms. This is followed by several scenes taking place in a bar where William and Louis become friends by doing a wide range of things but it usually ends up with Louis giving women the "kiss of death" mentioned in the title. The incredibly bad special effects involved with these "kisses of death" could almost kill the viewer. Also, the final showdown for the rest of humanity has our two warlocks wrestling around on the ground in one of the most unrealistic fight scenes that you'll ever witness. For what it's worth, Solomon is actually better than what you'd typically see in a film like this and I also enjoyed Luciana as the bad guy. Toothman finally takes her clothes off towards the end of the picture and we also get Leana Hall playing the evil warlock's woman and yes boys, she gets naked too. WITCHCRAFT III certainly isn't going to win any awards but there are enough laughs here for bad movie fans.