Witchcraft 8: Salem's Ghost

The Witchcraft series is one of the longest running film series of all-time. Being an erotic-horror series, it would be fairly easy to make these film standalone with only the same theme. Surprisingly, the series actually does have a central reoccurring character - Will Spanner, an attorney who happened to have been born into a family of witchcraft. Beginning with Witchcraft 2, Will became the series central character, and for three films in a row, was even played by the same actor.

However, Will isn't so much as even mentioned in this entry. In fact, the entire storyline from the previous seven films has been wiped out.

Filmed over a span of just ten days in 1994, Salem's Ghost ended up becoming an entry of the Witchcraft series as a result of poor performance. Rumors of a possible spin-off series based around Salem's Ghost had been planned, but never brought to life.

The film, which is a semi-remake of the original Witchcraft, revolves around a young couple moving into a centuries-old mansion in Salem. From the start, however, it's apparent that something is not normal in their new home. Sonny, the husband, has bizarre visions that lead him down to a hidden room in their basement. This room holds the spirit of an evil warlock who was buried under the house. When their bumbling neighbor steals a cross from the tomb, the warlock is unleashed, and begins a violent reign of terrorizing Sonny's wife.

For a movie shot in just ten days, Witchcraft VIII: Salem's Ghost is quite good. Being an erotic horror film, there of course are long sex scenes, but they're well shot and interesting. The acting for the most part is quite good, with Jack Van Landingham giving quite an over-the-top performance as Simon Winfrough, the warlock. Special effects are below standard, but they're used sparingly, and it doesn't become a problem. Those with a sharp eye may spot the Stockton house from the original movie located across the street from the Dunaway house.

Though this is the eighth entry in the Witchcraft series, and that title appears in the movie itself, on the video box it only appears as "Salem's Ghost: Witchcraft." It doesn't have any continuity with the other titles in the series. It would be easy to overlook this entry in the (perhaps deservedly) overlooked series as a result, and apart from the couple short reviews at the IMDb, no one online seems to have reviewed this movie. I feel sorry for anyone who bought the $40.00 laserdisc... let this review serve as a warning.

This is the only title in the series not to even mention lawyer/warlock Will Spanner (who went by other names in the first two). He's not in part ten either, but one of the other recurring characters, Detective Lutz, does mention him.

In Salem in 1692, a muscular shirtless tattooed warlock named Simon is stabbed by a large cross-shaped dagger decorated with arcane symbols similar to his tattoos. Men dressed in monks' robes restrain him, burn him alive, then let his crispy corpse fall into a casket also decorated with symbols. He's put into a tomb behind the dagger, which is in turn locked behind a door decorated with a pentagram in a circle.

300 years later, a couple are moving into a new home, a moderately sized mansion (whose interior resembles the one a man moves into in the erotic horror movie Mirror, Mirror III: The Voyeur). They bought it from the Protestant Church of England! It has a weathervane with strange symbols. The man experiences claustrophobia in a closet, and they have some honey, grapes, spaghetti, and whipped cream and rather than becoming ill, they have a short sex scene. Their skin is dirty from food, and they wind up on the floor that is slick with sticky liquid and no doubt e-coli. It's not a very erotic scene at all, in spite of some nudity (maybe it would be different for someone with a food fetish). The music features a woman singing poor scat! From the end credits, that would seem to have been "Doo Die, Doo Die" by Miriam Cutler.

The man is Sonny Dunaway, who is teaching a class on witchcraft at Salem College, where a pretty redhaired student shows some interest in him. Sonny finds his house has a large cobwebbed basement, and they have a goofy neighbor with a ditzy (and badly dubbed!) blond wife who wants to inspect the plumbing in his basement. If you can't guess that the neighbor, Mitch, uncovers the locked door from the opening scene in the basement, you're pretty slow!

While Sonny is teaching his students upstairs (he's inexplicably brought them to his home), Mitch enters the crypt and pries off the bejeweled dagger, and red light emerges. He takes the dagger to his home (which even his ditzy wife knows is a bad idea), and they have a sex scene. These movies are almost certainly aimed at men, since the women are relatively attractive, and the men are at best of average looks.

Sonny and his wife have another sex scene, this time thankfully in bed and without food. This is much more of a typical sex scene, smoky and tinted blue, much more skin, and saxophone music. Sonny has a nightmare in which everything is white, and he falls into a bathtub filled with red water. He then sees the now fanged Simon floating in his bedroom, and watches helplessly as Simon makes out with his wife, and then throws him out the window. In the morning everything seems OK.

While the student starts to put the movies on Sonny, his wife imagines there's blood in the kitchen, and then she feels herself up in front of a mirror, and then in the bathtub (cue smoky haze and sax). After she gets out, there's a bunch of poltergeist-type activity, and coincidentally Clarence McArthur, a priest from the Protestant Church of England arrives in a taxi with a bad accent. Mitch shows off the dagger to a guy named Fred, and is now acting as sinister as a goofy person can.

McArthur is a witch hunter, warns them of the witch's ghost, and wants Sonny to become a witch hunter too, and they stake crosses all over the yard. Sonny has another dream in which he watches his wife make out with Simon, and after he wakes up they find unpleasant things in the attic, and meanwhile Mitch is growing weirder.

Sonny and Cathy have a sex scene, but is it really him? No, via a bad morphing effect a still of his face is transformed into a badly distorted and red-tinted photo of Simon, then back again. McArthur cooks up some green goo (why?), and a bad video transition takes us to some sort of ritual in which they sit in a triangle around a golden pyramid while he chants "OM." You know, like all Christian exorcists do!

There's an impalement, and a face-ripping, some stabbings, and someone is crated up in a coffin (bet you can guess who).

Can the evil Warlock's ghost be defeated? Will the priest get to have a sex scene too? What's going on with sinister goof Mitch? Do you care? Guess you'll have to watch it, you poor fool! I don't recommend it.

A thirteenth Witchcraft movie is currently in production. One wonders if there'll be a box set of all of them, and if they'll keep making as well. I think the only horror series that has outpaced this one is the Asian horror anthology series Troublesome Night, though Friday the 13th is starting to catch up.

Salems Ghost marks a turning point for the Witchcraft franchise, they dropped Willy the warlock and the excessive eroticism and instead deliver a standalone horror tale.

Here we see a couple move into a new house that holds a dark secret hidden in its basement.

With some terrible humour, painfully bad special effects and no originality this is clearly a Witchcraft movie but I'd consider it one of the best up until now.

Standing at 1.8 on IMDb it's ranked as one of the worst and don't get me wrong it is bad, but compared to the previous ones this was quite refreshing.

The Good:

Tries to leave the previous movies behind

The Bad:

Looks awful

Really bad characters

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

When transporting bad guys do it swiftly to avoid evil seeping into your soul

Mrs Bakers voice cut through my very being, I don't believe in god but if I did I'd be thanking him she wasn't in the film that much

Totally unnecessary follow-up (part 7 was supposed to be the final one) is about a young couple who are haunted, then seduced by a 17th. century warlock that used to live in there mansion. The first seven were really bad, but this entry hits an all time low for the series. Not even the sex scenes or nudity in this one fail to inject any life into this entry.

Unrated; Strong Sexual Content, Violence, Profanity, and Nudity.

It doesn't bother me that they tried a new storyline with this film, but the least they could have done was give it better actors. I mean sure, the actors in the previous films aren't great, but at least some were decent. Plus, some of them weren't boring(Like 1, 3, 5, 6, and 9), but like 2 and 7, 8 is.

A young couple moves into a mansion that's haunted by a 17th century warlock.

O.k. plot, but boring, and horrible acting. *1/2 out of *****.