Review of Season of the Witch: James Ingersoll

James Ingersoll

Ms. Taylor

AP Language and Composition

February 12, 2012

Season of the Witch: A Review

            Season of the Witch seeks to tell the story of witchcraft, demonology, theology, the Crusades, and the bubonic plague all in one. After a short introduction to the movie, which included the executions of three accused witches in a European town, we enter into the main part of the story where we see Teutonic Knights Behmen von Bleibruck (Nicholas Cage) and his companion Felson (Ron Perlman) fight a series of battles during the crusade. During the final battle of the sequence, Behman and Felson along with other knights break into a city and unknowingly slaughter a large amount of women and children. The now disillusioned Behman leaves the Crusades along with Felson and returns to a Europe devastated by the bubonic plague. When stopping at a town to resupply and find out information about the plague, the two are discovered as being deserters and given the choice from an infected Catholic bishop to either serve the church – by transporting a suspected witch (Clair Foy) to monastery in order to stand trial – or be hung for desertion. The two recruit the help of a priest, Debelzeg (Stephan Moore), a knight who lost his family to the plague, Eckhart (Ulrich Thomsen), and a guide (Stephen Graham). They are later joined by an altar boy with dreams of becoming a knight (Robert Sheehan).  On the journey to the monastery, Eckhart and the guide are both killed, assumingly at the hand of the accused witch, Anna. Upon finally reaching the monastery, it is discovered that all the monks are dead to the plague and that the girl is not a witch but, rather, a demon who was hoping to be sent to the monastery in order to destroy any information that might help mankind defeat it. The remaining members of the group then enter into a battle with the demon that raises the bodies of the dead monks. During the battle the priest seeks to read an incantation that would defeat the demon but is instead killed. As the altar boy attempts to finish the ritual, both Felson and then Behmen are killed trying to fend off of the demon. However, just as Behmen is mortally injured the altar boy finishes the incantation and destroys the demon, leaving the body of Anna behind and purified. The altar boy, Kay and Anna then bury the dead and ride off into the sunset.

            Season of the Witch is a truly awful movie. The film’s main problem is that it lacks any uniform identity. About an hour into viewing it, I was unsure as to if I was watching an exorcist , anti-religion, pro-religion, action, romance, comedy, or historic movie. First Behmen adores the girl accused of being a witch, then he despiser her, then she pulls moves from the Exorcist. There was even a scene with a rickety old bridge that before it even panned out you knew it would follow the typical plot device of everyone making it across just as the bridge breaks apart and falls into an unreasonably sized crevasse. The filmmakers seemed to have borrowed liberally from successful movies and combined these ideas with any thought that popped into their heads and force fed them into a script that came out lacking any sense of direction that a film of quality would have.  Furthermore, Season of the Witch simply lacks any originality.

            To further add to the woes of the film, the acting was generally below par. Whoever was responsible for the casting of Nicholas Cage as the main hero (Behmen von Bleibruck) should be barred from ever working on another movie. When thinking of a 14^th century holy warrior on crusade and who might play the part, your mind goes to Orlando Bloom (Kingdom of Heaven) or Russell Crowe (Gladiator). Nicholas Cage would be the last person that anyone should think to play this part and there is a good reason for it: he is a scrawny man past his prime with a receding hairline who probably cannot even lift a sword let alone wield one as a deadly weapon. From the moment you see him in his goofy oversized helmet, you cannot take the rest of the movie seriously. In fact his character’s defining line where he stands up to the head crusader and asks “You call this glorious? Murdering women and children!?” almost seems like a joke.

            Ron Perlman as Felson also contributed to the poor acting. His one-liners after every action – such as the stating that the ninja undead monks (yes, that is right, I said “ninja undead monks”) were “Like cockroaches” – just added to the lack of seriousness that surrounded the acting. It is sad that the two stars of the film were the least believable. 

            There were two saving graces for this movie. The first was the great makeup and costume design. The infected dead were absolutely repulsive, which worked incredibly well to make the aura of the film dark and suspenseful when all other gimmicks failed. There were even times when the close ups of the huge blisters and sores on the dead bodies forced me to avert my eyes. Also (not including the ridiculous helmet pictured and mentioned above) the costumes actually flattered the actors and were made to fit to their forms.

            The single aspect of Season of the Witch which I thoroughly enjoyed was the acting of Clair Foy. Being an avid watcher of demonic possession movies, I can state without a doubt she played the best demon-infected girl that I have ever seen. Foy was able to jump in and out of the innocent and scared girl worried for her life to the all-knowing evil creature inside her with such ease that it was incredibly creepy. I was further amazed at how she accomplished this without having to make her eyes roll into the back of her head. When she asks Behman, “You’re not afraid of me are you?” the only thing I know is that I most certainly was.

            Clair Foy’s stellar performance was not enough to salvage this train wreck of a movie. Rotten Tomatoes gave Season of the Witch a 10% approval rating and I am inclined to agree. The storyline and acting make the overall direction of the movie confusing, and the constant gimmicks employed by the writers did nothing to help. The movie was plagued by poor casting decisions and the inability to look past the fact that Nicholas Cage did not at all look the part. The aspects of a good movie – which include believable acting, originality, and entertainment along with others – were all absent from the film Season of the Witch. One would only find pleasure in it if they watched it with extremely low expectations (Battlefield Earth expectations).

Works Cited

IMDb. n.d. 12 February 2012 <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479997/quotes>.

Rotten Tomatoes Season of the Witch. n.d. 12 February 2012 <http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10010694-season_of_the_witch/>.

Season of the Witch. Dir. Dominic Sena. Perf. Nicholas Cage. 2011.