WARLOCK (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical*

I saw a few complaints about the FX used in this low budget thriller, but I didn't agree. I'd much rather have a lean, clever movie with dodgy effects than one in which the CGI wonders have been so inflated that the writers let them do all the work.

In some ways the first WARLOCK-- followed by two "sequels in name only"-- resembles a lot of the old serials. The mission of the heroes is to stop a fiendish villain from gaining access to a weapon capable of dominating (in this specific case, of destroying) the world, and most of the story is a cat-and-mouse game, with the good guys trying to stymie the villain's efforts.

This time both the evildoer and one of his opponents hail from Boston in the late 1600s. The otherwise unnamed Warlock (Julian Sands) has been captured, in part by the efforts of vengeful warlock-hunter Giles Redferne (Richard E. Grant). However, on the eve of his execution, the Warlock escapes with the help of a demon.

However, the demon sends the Satanic sorcerer to 1980s Los Angeles, where he lands in the apartment of Kassandra (Lori Singer) and her roommate. Instead of being grateful for their ministrations, the Warlock kills Kassandra's roommate and departs to find out why the demon diverted him to a future era. The Warlock is charged to find the Grand Grimoire, a master spell-book which pious Christians could not destroy, and so divided it into three sections in order to keep the tome out of the hands of evildoers. 

By some unexplained magic, Redferne is able to follow the Warlock to Kassandra's era, and despite her general reluctance he's able to enlist the young woman into joining his cause, to keep the Warlock from assembling the grimoire and using it to bring about the ultimate blasphemy; uncreating the created world.

WARLOCK's direction by Steve "FRIDAY THE 13TH" Miner is efficient but unremarkable. The real star of the show is the script by David Twohy, which shows great resourcefulness in providing a system of magic that seems like something out of seventeenth-century America. The idea of sympathetic magic, for example, underlies a counterspell in which involves removing the shoes from the Warlock's feet, so that when he flees, his opponents can slow him down by driving nails into his footprints. I can't say that all of Twohy's clever concepts cohere into a greater whole, though, which would have boosted the movie's metaphysical mythicity to a higher level. But I'm pleased to see that I found the movie just as entertaining the second time as the first. Since I barely remember anything about the sequels, which I plan to re-view, that may not bode well for either of them.