Witchtrap

This comes across as so amateurish it's amazing it got made. The script is lazy and naive, the acting is by numbers. Gratuitous nudity adds nothing. Yet... somehow... it's almost impossible to turn off. Maybe you just end up wanting to see justice done, and nobody makes it out alive. Meh!

This triffle of a film, gives new meaning to the word bad. Bad direction, bad script, bad editing, bad special effects, bad acting, everything about this film is bad. No redeeming features what-so-ever (some might argue, saying Quigley naked is always good, but you can always rent any of her other films.). One of the absolute worst films of all time. Not even good for a couple of laughs and not good in a cheesy way. Avoid it. 1 out of 10.

Paranormal investigators and private detectives are hired by the owner of an inherited Gothic mansion that appears to be haunted. Witchtrap is basic in plot, not that it matters. This is a horror flick wheres scares come first. Sadly, having revisited it many years after my first viewing - both times on VHS - I found it to be somewhat disappointing. The acting is pretty poor and I am not sure if the movie is meant to be part comedy or if they just employed a cheap script writer, there are plenty of bad lines here. It is saved to an extent by some enjoyable gory deaths, including a body melt, plus Scream Queen Linnea Quigley gets naked in the shower (she is also one of the better actors too).

Lauterhouse, affectionately referred to as "slaughterhouse" by its owner Devin Lauter (played by the director, who should have stayed hidden behind the camera!), is a big SoCal mansion on a secluded plot of prime real estate. Devin wants it converted over to a bed and breakfast, but the sadistic ghost of his late uncle, a former stage magician, keeps killing off whoever enters.

Paranormal researcher Agnes Goldberg (Judy Tatum) is hired to photograph and exorcise the ghost and organizes a team of paranormal experts that include her "mental medium" husband Felix (Rob Zapple), "psychic medium" Whitney O'Shay (Kathleen Bailey) and sexy video-tech Ginger Kowowski (Linnea Quigley), plus three low-grade rent-a-cops for protection. Naturally, things don't go as planned when Uncle Avery (J.P. Leubsen, the creepy guy from WITCHBOARD) starts to use his powers to kill everyone off.

Looking for some of the worst amateur acting and dialogue ever to hit the small screen? Then look no further! Tatum and Bailey are so monotone they make Ben Stein look like Laurence Olivier! Other highlights include a showerhead impaling a neck, a black character who threatens, "I'll tapdance on your face like Bojangles Robinson!," a pudgy voyeur groundskeeper, an exploding head, blood that looks suspiciously like Cherry Kool-Aid, Tenney's trademark AWFUL wisecracks, Linnea in the shower, a possession, a human meltdown and much, much more. It's all delirious fun. I laughed a lot while watching it. In fact, every time I see this for sale, I pick up a copy to give to one of my friends as a gag gift.

I would rate this a 9 for laughs and entertainment value and I give it some credit because the plot is actually competent even if much of the dialogue is not, but going by craftsmanship, it's a generous 3 out 10.

Kevin Tenney directed two respectable horror films (WITCHBOARD and NIGHT OF THE DEMONS) prior to this, which confuses me. Neither of the two prior flicks were masterpieces, but they were competently made with fairly good actors and a veneer of professionalism, which makes this cinematic millstone a giant question mark. One would think that Tenney had a handle on how to do things like create atmosphere, rising action and suspense, elicit good performances out of his actors, etc. Nuh-uh. With this movie, Tenney seems to have had a cinematic aneurysm, losing any sense of how to make a professional, polished product.

While the movie doesn't suffer from technical ineptness, there's an amateur quality to the whole thing that makes it feel almost like a 1970s drive-in movie. Oddball camera angles (the opening scene could make you seasick--watch it and you'll know what I mean), stiff or non-professional acting, lengthy exposition dumps, and dialogue that is in turns wooden or ingratiatingly cute, and little action until the third act all make for an annoying viewing experience. Still, it can be charming if you're in the right mood. Linnea Quigley is the only name actor I could spot, and her nude scene was a blessing in the midst of all this mediocrity. The actresses playing the psychic investigator and physical medium both came off to me as non-professional or poorly trained (the investigator in particular desperately needed some vocal or dialect training--her accent was annoying). The actors playing the two cops-for-hire were ok, but the constant one-liners they delivered got irritating pretty quick. The movie picked up steam near the end with some better than average special effects (which is probably where most of the budget went), which was a welcome relief from all the tedious exposition. Lovers of bad movies might want to try this one, but all others would do well to select something else to watch on Tubi.