Warlock
                                       (1989)
                                          review by Head Cheeze


Warlock can best be described as a "fish out of water" story, which 
means that there are the obligatory attempts at humor as our characters
adjust to their new surroundings. When this happens in a comedy it can be
entertaining, however, when this happens in a "horror" film, well, the results
are decidely mixed. Army of Darkness and Time After Time are examples of 
when it all comes together nicely. Warlock is an example of when it...well..
doesn't.

Julian Sands is the Warlock, who is imprisoned in a Boston citadel in the 17th 
century for his crimes against a village. When the Warlock cooks up a scheme
to escape his confines by fleeing into the future, Witch Hunter Giles Redferne
(Grant) is sucked into the temporal storm with him and both somehow end up
in 1980's Los Angeles. The Warlock is taken in by Kassandra (the always awful
Lori Singer) and her gay roomie who takes a shine to the Warlock's taste in 
clothes and decides to make him an omelette, however loses a finger and his 
eyes in the process. Kassandra is then cursed with rapid aging by the nefarious
wiccan, and agrees to help Redferne find the Warlock before he manages to 
piece together a spellbook that will bring upon hell on Earth. Throughout the
film we are treated to many double takes, guffaws, and double entendres that 
make Three's Company look like King Lear, as our "visitors" run into modern
situations with varying degrees of slapstick results.

While it is impossible to determine whether or not Warlock is meant to be a 
comedy or a horror film, but one thing is certain, and that is
the fact that it fails miserably at both. The film's humor is pedestrian
and rehashes every cliche of the fish out of water genre, and since most of the 
"funny" lines are given to Lori Singer's Kassandra, they are delivered with doe
eyed incompetence, thus taking away what litte novelty these zingers may have
held. The horror aspects are limited to a few cheesy gore effects, some badly
done video paint bolts and flames, and one or two jump from the shadows bits
that aren't anything you won't see on your average episode of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer. 

The film's saving grace are the performances by Sands and Grant, who class up 
what is an otherwise sub-B-Grade film, but not enough for me to give it any 
kind of recommendation. Making matters worse is the Vidmark DVD, which not 
only is devoid of  decent extras, but is also a pan and scan full screen transfer
that looks no better than Warlock does on television, where it is shown every other
day on one channel or another. 

If the fact that Warlock is a sub-standard genre curiosity with a crappy pan and
scan transfer and nothing but a trailer for extras isn't enough to keep you from
wanting to add this coaster to your collection, maybe the fact that it retails just
north of $25 bucks will give you that little extra push in the right direction.