Witches Night is Reminiscent of Horror Movies of Old
Witches Night has macho men, sexy women, tons of gore and red-hot pokers. This is one of the better horror movies about witches I’ve seen.
Written by The Horror Czar, Don Sumner
July 22, 2008
Release: July 8, 2008 (U.S. DVD)
Written and Directed by: Paul Traynor
Starring:
Gil McKinney as Jim
Jeff Christian as Bill
Wesley Walker as Rick
Jeff Alba as Ted
Betsy Baker as Marge
Witches Night starts out as the happiest day in young Jim’s (Gil McKinney) life – his wedding day. Joy turns to humiliation when his bride doesn’t show up at the church and Jim is left to drown his sorrow in booze with his two best buddies and brother.
Well, it doesn’t really start out that way… it starts out with some dude tied to a wooden contraption in a position appropriate for a gynecological exam. He is surrounded by women in black cloaks and wearing a bull skull as a mask… and has intimate relations with a red-hot poker wielded by one of his captors. His screams were felt in my gut. Then the credits role and we move on with the story…
Anyway, for whatever reason the fearsome foursome travel many hours by car into the isolated countryside in search of a diversion to take Jim’s mind off of his recent brush with matrimony. They stop for supplies at a small bate shop – Jim goes to the grass to puke as the others wander inside the deserted shop for sustenance – i.e. more beer. When nobody is looking Rick (Wesley Walker) snags the book about witches that was left open on the counter. Rick is pretty much the macho-man of the group and is quick with comforting words about Jim “dodging the bullet” as well as, apparently, theft.
As luck would have it, the roaming rangers encounter Marge (Betsy Baker, The Evil Dead) who rents canoes and is willing to take them 20 miles up river so that they can spend a few days floating back to the shop and camping on the banks. No supplies, no appropriate clothing, no cell signal… yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And talk about lucky, on their very first night they happen upon four lovely young ladies tending a fire just a few yards from where they have set up their tents. Not only lovely, but feeling frisky as well… this may be a nice diversion indeed.
Not so fast – after the encounter with the women strange things start to happen – sores, injuries, insanity, you know, strange things. The stolen book sheds light on the predicament these men are in – tomorrow is Halloween and the sacrifice of males and channeling of Satan are on the agenda.
Witches Night is a revisiting of a simpler time in horror. The men are non-PC pigs, the women show their bodies a lot, the kills are gruesome and the death-count is high. The story holds together well enough, and the effects work to pull things together without being a distraction.
The production quality is extremely good in Witches Night – not super slick but not choppy or cheap either. Just perfect, really, for an in- your- face horror flick about witches that want to sacrifice the male body with hot pokers, dance around the fire and channel Satan to conceive the “perfect male child”. Yeah, perfect for that…
The performances in Witches Night are all very good – the characters all work and the direction seems to be spot on. Moments of unbelieveability? Sure… but there is a certain amount of that I am willing to accept and this film did not cross that line.
I’m not 100% with the ending – I kept expecting Jason to jump out of the lake or something, but unfortunately there was nary a Jason to be found. No matter – Witches Night is a surprisingly good horror flick that knows exactly what it is, what it’s for and how to elicit the appropriate reaction. I’ll take 10 of these over any single horror intelligencia-inspired art-horror fiasco, any day. Questions or comments about Witches Night? Discuss it on The Ossuary Forums!
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