Warlock - L'angelo dell'apocalisse

The son of Satan is born and has 5 days to capture 5 sacred stones to open the gateway for Satan to return to earth and rule forever. Only a pair of warriors can stand in his way.

This is a stupid, pointless horrible sequel that is merely an attempt to make more money rather than make an entertaining horror movie. First the plot is dumb. These sacred stones are the only way to open a gateway to hell....so you'd assume that they would be pretty well protected, or at least a group of zealots would be hunting for them? No - the warlock finds them at a fashion show, in a businessman's office and in a circus freak show. No explanation of how they got there or how the warlock finds them so precisely in such a short time. Also the warriors are of course teenagers who die and come back to life. The whole thing is just stupid and without merit.

The horror is also lazy. There's no tension and no suspense - just gory effects. And poor ones at that, all the effects are very cheap and unconvincing. Also the murders are lazy and just gory for the sake of it, each time the warlock collects a stone he kills the owner in a twisted gory way. At one point he picks up at hitchhiker just to scalp her and then kill her 30 seconds later. It's all done with so little ceremony that it just feels tired.

This drags down the whole film. Add to that terrible performances by Sands (has he ever been good?) and the two teenage warriors (Young and Marshall) and the whole thing stinks.

There is no "yeah it's bad, but...." - it's just bad. The most terrifying moment in this "horror" is the final shot that leaves it open for another sequel. God save us.....

Julian Sands as the warlock (son of Satan) is back at it again, and his suave presence fitting as usual in a rather devilish sequel. This time around he makes much more of a bloody mess as he cruelly and imaginatively toys around with the owners of the scattered magical runestones, Druid Guardians and two meddling small-town teenagers who are the only ones that can stop him from opening the gateway to hell.

When we get Sands making people look foolish, it was a wicked blast - from the sardonic wit to the sexed-up vibes and the graphic shocks heavily reliant on practical make-up effects (like the insane birth sequence?!). However when it was just the cornball love struck teens getting together, or preparing for their epic encounter my interest sort of dipped, and pacing stuttered. Luckily when the two forces come together in the final half-hour there's all kinds of crazy excess, flourishing visuals and magic jousting. Makes the wait well worth it.

Genre journeyman director Anthony Hickok shows ticker and provides few deft, and offbeat touches to how he framed some of the set-pieces. I must admit there were moments when the visual effects are beyond hokey (floating baseball), but the sheer absurdity of it makes up for it. I'm just surprised this follow-up didn't get a theatrical release, as it a solid offering.

Julian Sands returns here, but I don't know if he is supposed to be the same guy are not. The rules are all changed around here and in many ways it is almost an entirely different movie. The Warlock in this movie seems nearly indestructible than in the first, and instead of the puritan types that were the ones to try and stop him in the first one, here he must be stopped by druids. This time the Warlock makes a most memorable first appearance, and then he goes after these magic stones so he can release Satan into the world. This makes the druid angle seem rather dumb as I don't think they believe in such things. However, it still is a rather good movie, just not as good as the first...in fact this movie might have seemed better if the first one never happened. The movie though does follow a certain pattern. You see scenes of this kids coming into terms with their special powers to stop the Warlock, then a scene of the Warlock finding one of the stones, finally whoever has the stone is killed in an unusual way, and then repeat. This happens till the end and the big showdown occurs. I do so enjoy the shotgun scene. That is about all there is too it, but then the Warlock does kill people in vastly different and interesting ways. Not a great movie, but it is okay and worth checking out, though it is rather gruesome at times.

It had been years since I had watched this film, but watching it recently, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed this sequel to the original warlock. The characters weren't near as annoying as that girl who lost her bracelet in the original, and the Warlock was actually given some pretty cool lines and parts. I don't know, maybe it was the plot, but the Warlock just seemed so much more evil in the sequel. Is it cheesey? Yes, because the early nineties were a cheesey time, but sometimes it's fun to look back at the past and smile.

If you like cheap, cheesey horror films, this one might make you grin.

The first 'Warlock' film was a classic and I wish I could say the same about the sequel. Okay, it's not bad, but it's not a patch on the original.

First, the good. Julian Sands as the titular 'Warlock.' He's great and totally carries the film as he returns to our time in order to retrieve - what we'd probably call today - the 'Infinity-like Stones' in order to bring about the coming of a demon who will end our nice happy little planet. He's on top form as a villain who doesn't care who he kills along the way in order to get what he wants.

The film's troubles start with the heroes of the piece. A band of old druids know about the Warlock's arrival and have prepared a 'contingency plan.' This revolves around training up one of their young sons as the saviour of the world who will stop the evil at hand. The problem is... they never bothered to tell him about his destiny and now he only has six days to learn how to kill a - seemingly immortal and unstoppable - evil being.

I should point out that the special effects aren't that special. Any practical gore and make-up effects are actually quite good (as is the demon himself for his brief appearance), but anything filmed up against a green screen is truly awful.

Overall, I'd say the film is like if 'The Terminator' had the killer cyborg wandering around Los Angeles killing all the (wrong!) Sarah Conners and then finally tracking the right one down in the last fifteen minutes and facing off against Reece and Sarah. Then the film is over. It feels like the film is one long - very long, to be precise - setup for the final battle and, all along the way, the bad guy is a damn sight more interesting than any of those tasked with stopping him.