Season of the Witch (2011)
Last Watch Date - November 27, 2023
Total Times Watched - Once
Comments
I had heard of this movie in passing but never thought that much about it. I'm not a big Nic Cage fan and I don't get the internet obsession with him, though that seems to have died down a bit over the last few years. People get oddly obsessed with random celebrities.
This movie is weird. I didn't read the genres going in and thought it'd be horror. IT WAS NOT. Initially it does come off as though it'll be horror. You have a few women being accused of witchcraft who are then thrown off a bridge with a rope around their necks. Then one of them becomes .. A THING? Cut to Nic Cage gleefully slaying infidels with Ron Perlman, cracking jokes, boozing with prostitutes. What? Wait.. HUH? Tonally, it's a mess. It tries to ride this line between goofy and serious and it never quite works.
From that point, it becomes more of an adventure movie. It's not until pretty close to the end that anything else really happens. There's a lot of wandering about, confusion on the witch they're transporting, and what have you, but nothing really goes on otherwise. When it does switch up, it felt pretty jarring. It stitches it nicely with the beginning of the movie I suppose, but the wackiness of the shift and the way it's played out is so bizarre.
From an acting standpoint, this movie has some real gems. Nic Cage, Ron Perlman, Christopher Lee makes a cameo, Stephen Graham. It's really quite good, though the script is a bit off. It's mostly American accents with some middle English sentences. It makes for a strange viewing. If you're going middle English, you have to go English accents right!? But if you want American accents, why not use more modern sentence structure? It adds to the odd tone of the movie. Maybe they wanted that.
Pacing is pretty good. The movie is only 94 minutes and things keep clipping along as it goes, so I have no real complaints there. I thought the ending was going to happen 4 times before it actually did. Kudos for keeping me guessing?
Recommended?
No. It's not bad but it's so weird that it's not something I'd recommend. It's like a swashbuckling movie with old dudes instead of spritely fencers.
