Witchcraft III: The Kiss of Death

A good warlock fights for the love of a woman against an evil warlock. The story is thinly disguised as a horror film, and not a very good one at that. Slightly better than the first two, but not by much. Most of the female cast members are terrific looking, and are frequently naked. 2 out of 10.

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.

So far my binging the Witchcraft series isn't going well, the first two were embarassments and for this reason I went into part three expecting the worst.

After watching it I can say it's the best one so far! But it's still pretty dire.

We meet William from the first two movies, he's now grown up and fighting off memories of his origins. But when a rival Warlock appears on the scene who has set his eyes on Williams girlfriend he is forced to embrace his past.

Badly made from start to finish Witchcraft III is undoubtedly a mess but was welcome relief after the first two films.

Here is hoping it's all uphill from here.

The Good:

The kiss of death!

The Bad:

Poorly made

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Warlocks don't understand personal space

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.

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.