So the first dialogue in Witchcraft 2: The Temptress is a spooky witch's spell. It made me laugh, so why the hell not:
Fillet of venous snake
in the cauldron boil and bake,
eye of newt and toe of frog
wool of bat and tongue of dog
Adder's fork and blind worms sting,
lizards leg and (???) a charm of powerful trouble
Like a Hell grot boil and bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, witch's mummy and more engulf.
Of the ravine is salt sea shark, root of hemlock,
dig it in the dark, liver of blasphemy in June
gall of goat and slits of ewe slivered in the moon's eclipse
nose of Turk and Tartar's lips, finger of birth's strangled babe,
ditch delivered by a (???).
Make the gruel thick and stab.
Add there to a diver's children for the ingredients
of power cauldron.
Cool it with the baboon's blood
when the charm is burned and good.
And then you wave your hands over a person's stomach for a minute, drink that afterbirth looking mixture you just made in your cauldron - and BANG! You're now the Temptress!
Sorry if you want to be a temptress. I couldn't make out everything she was saying. Maybe just fire up your iPad and let Witchcraft 2 play in the background while you're getting all of your ewe slits together? And good luck with that dragon's scale...
Please note I just spent 20 minutes of my life transcribing the opening lines from Witchcraft 2: The Temptress.
Anyways, considering the Witchcraft series eventually makes it's way to horror/softcore porn (part 7 features a guy "[once] again battling sex starved beautiful demon vampires"), so I was wondering where it would take that turn. The Temptress seemed like it may be that point - it's pretty much about a witch wanting the fuck the (now grown up) baby from the first one. But other than a couple of topless scenes, and maybe a little more emphasis on late 80's lingerie than your standard witch picture, it's surprisingly tame.
My Synopsis: William, the little baby boy from Witchcraft is all grown up. He's "a man now," getting ready to go to college, and getting frustrated that his girlfriend won't have sex with him. But his secret past is about to catch up with him. Apparently the time has come for the witch from the first one (who claimed to be his "mother" in some weird way) try to mate with William to create some sort of demon super baby. How will she do this? By turning into a sexy young lady, of course! Does William have the willpower to resist the temptation of the beautiful (but *clearly* evil) temptress and save us all?
Overall: Not good in the traditional sense. It flirts with, and occasionally gets to, "so bad it's good" territory. It's not boring, at least. I started it late into the evening assuming I'd fall asleep while watching it, and I didn't. So that's something.
The most notable thing about The Temptress is that it's got some serious bad acting in it. Charles Solomon Jr. (playing William) in particular has a lot of groans and grunts of pain/anguish/whatever that come off as more funny than anything. And the titular temptress comes off as creepy when I think she's supposed to be sexy. But it's the kind of thing where I can't place the blame totally on the actors. Director Mark Woods (fresh off of the Playboy Video Playmate Calendar 1989) sets them up to fail. There are a couple of scenes where two characters are interacting where the camera doesn't move at all - it's just the most plainly framed, standard shot of the two that you could get. But there aren't any other shots cut in - it's just one slow, long, boring take of two people conversing - often about very stupid things. There's really no way any actor could win in that situation. Some of the line reads are just bad, but I guess they just kept going. I'm not sure if it was a budgetary thing or what. imdb has The Temptress at $80,000 in 13 days deal, so maybe some corners had to be cut. At any rate, there's enough bad acting on display here that it's pretty darn funny.
Since there needs to be a couple of victims for the Temptress (not to tempt - just to kill) William has got a couple of stock character friends that are also pretty funny. They're reliable old genre standbys that you're happy to see. You've got "nerdy girl that would be hot if she only would take off her glasses" (a fact even mentioned in the film) and "crazy practical joker doofus friend." He's named Boomer, and is introduced double fisting Twinkies, like we all do.
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| Guess which one is "Boomer" |
At any rate, Boomer isn't around too much, but it's a good thing. He threatens to steal the show, but a little of him goes a long way.
There's some cartoon-grade special effects and lots of recycled footage from the first film. Oh, and the music is worse than the first one, which I described as an "overdone synthy soundtrack." Someone must have thought the same thing and said "you know what would fix that? Adding more wanky guitar solos!" None of these are elements that add up to a good movie.
I (somewhat begrudgingly) complemented the first Witchcraft for earnestly trying to be a legit horror movie. The Temptress gets no such praise. There's not a lot here that implies that the filmmakers were trying to do much of anything other than get a quick sequel out on video. I can't imagine that the first one was a smashing enough success to warrant a rushed sequel, but what do I know about direct to VHS economics?
But still, there's an undeniable shitty charm to parts of Witchcraft 2. It's bad for sure, but it has its moments. I think it's a good movie to turn on if you think you might fall asleep, and if you do after 20 minutes? No big deal. Then you can decide if it's worth watching the rest of it or not. That's not much of a recommendation though.
I would probably not recommend this film.
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