Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh

If the first Witchcraft turned you off, because it was repetitive, boring and plotless, then join the club. In fact every Witchcraft movie is like that, but (with the exception of the first) each title has lots'a hot chicks doin' it for the sake of entertainment. In my opinion the fifth installment of the series illustrated this point best, but when you want a close second place, think Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh.

Two dead bodies are on the floor of a modern art gallery, one of them belonging to lawyer/ warlock Will Spanner. Spanner gets up out of his body, at which point his body disappears. Detectives Lutz and Garner find the other body, then later find the body of a woman who's had her heart cut out, and Egyptian symbols painted on the wall in black along with a triangle with an eye over it painted in blood.

Spanner wanders around as a ghost, until he finds someone who can hear (but not see) him. That person is Sheila, a hooker, who's gained some powers after having a car accident.

This being an erotic horror movie, or at least having ambitions in that direction, there are a few sex scenes with Sheila. There are also some involving Spanner's girlfriend Keli with someone using his body.

Spanner tries to warn his girlfriend, about whom Sheila has had a bad premonitory nightmare, and their story intersects with that of the police investigation. Stephanie Beaton plays Detective Lutz, formerly played by Alisa Christensen in Witchcraft 7. Being a Detective, evidently one is allowed to wear high heels, short skirts, and extremely low-cut blouses; good thing, too! Garner and Keli are played by different actors than in part seven as well, but David Byrnes returns as Spanner.

This movie picks up where Witchcraft 7 left off (also directed by Girard), though it rewrites how that one ended to some extent. Spanner's dead in a gallery instead of a home. There's another body with him, when the one in 7 was a not-dead-yet vampire who crawled away and died elsewhere. Lutz and Garner saw Spanner dead, here they didn't. Spanner has long hair and a goatee he lacked in part seven.

There are some confusing images during the opening credits of this one which are not in this movie, which are flashbacks to that one. Consequently, it may be better to watch 7 before this, though with most other titles in the series the order doesn't matter. Part Eight is unrelated.

This is fairly entertaining, although it takes a while to get moving. Will Spanner wanders around a lot in the beginning, and we meet some characters who turn out to be unimportant. The actress playing Sheila performs a bit unevenly, but that may have been the direction she was given.

This is by far, in my opinion, the best Witchcraft movie. This one actually has a story! The others are soft-core porn thinly disguised as horror movies. I'm not saying that this one didn't have any sex scenes. It did. Alot of them to. But it still had more of a story line. There were only a couple of downsides to it. One of them was the guy who played the pimp. Jesus! I wanted to smack this guy around more then anything! His acting was that bad! Also, they didn't show Stephanie Beaton that much! But I think that was because this was her first Witchcraft appearance. Other than that, this is the best Witchcraft entry!!

Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh (1997)

* (out of 4)

Detectives Lutz and Garner are investigating some strange murders, which seem to be influenced by Satan worshipers from Egypt (?). Meanwhile, the spirit of Will Spanner (David Byrnes) finds a hooker (Landon Hall) who has the ability to hear him and they team up for a good cause. WITCHCRAFT IX isn't going to be mistaken for the work of John Ford but then again it's not going to be mistaken for the work of Al Adamson so take that as you will. I'm really not sure why so many people kept renting these movies back in the day but I'm going to guess that it was 99% males just looking for some fast and cheap nudity while they drank beer with their buddies. Going through this series today I can't help but somewhat admire that the producers were ripping off Hollywood pictures more than a decade before The Asylum. This film here is basically PRETTY WOMAN meets GHOST, which in itself is pretty funny. The GHOST elements are oh-so-obvious but having the spirit team up with a hooker was just a good call. It's really too bad the film wasn't either better made or just played for laughs because this could have been something much better. Sadly, the entire thing is just downright boring, unerotic and quite confusing as well. There's so much dialogue that the characters are always talking about something new yet I must admit that I started tuning them out after a while. The plot never really makes much sense but then again it doesn't make much sense that this series was still going on at this point.

I don't know why I actually like some of the WITCHCRAFT entries, but I do. Anyway, this is probably the 3rd best of the low budget(And I mean low.)direct-to-video series behind 1 and 5. This time Will Spanner(From 1-7.)comes back to Earth as a ghost after the aftermath of part 7(Part 8 had nothing to do with the rest.)to find his killer. He seeks the help of a prostitute who is sick of her occupation, and his girlfriend Kelly. Plus there is a ritualistic killer who just happens to notice Spanner's friends and stalks them. Good story, and o.k acting, except for one of the bad guys who rapes the prostitute, what a terrible actor. *** out of *****.