Witchcraft 8: Salem’s Ghost (dir. Joseph John Barmettler, 1996)
So this film not only incorporates footage from the first Witchcraft, but is also about actual witchcraft. Refreshing. The story is predictable, and I think the acting is actually getting worse, but Witchcraft 8 at least feels kind of like a real movie. Kind of. It still takes long, long breaks for people to have humpy, panty sex.
And what awful sex! Friends, do not continue if you’ve recently eaten, because Witchcraft 8 contains one of the grossest sex scenes ever filmed, and I’ve seen Basket Case 2. The hero and heroine of the film (Lee Grober and Kim Kopf) are a married couple who move into a creepy mansion. To christen their new home, they decide to have sex, and re-enact the open-fridge scene from 9 ½ Weeks. Only rather than sensually stroking one another with berries and chocolates and champagne, they pour honey on one another, as well as something that looks like canned dog food. They then make out and strip and roll around in the meaty, goopy mess, palming up syrupy fistfuls of glop and smearing it on her breasts. It’s about as erotic as licking off a dirty oven grate.
It’s bad, but it’s nowhere nearly as depressing as the sex scenes in Witchcraft IX. We’ll get to that in a second.
Witchcraft 8‘s story seems very similar to some of the Amityville films, in that there is a secret compartment in the basement, which contains an evil spirit, and the spirit is disturbed when the chamber is opened. The ghost then goes about possessing someone (although the possessed character is not our hero, but a supporting fat weirdo neighbor who is, incidentally, married to a “funny” ditzy blonde nymphomaniac; it’s kind of comforting to see that they acting is getting worse). The ghost is the spirit of an evil warlock named Simon Renfro, who was burned at the stake 300 years before. His evil shenanigans drive most of the film.
Simon is played by Jack Valan who I recognized from Witchcraft 7. There was a sex scene in Witchcraft 7 that involved a sexy woman and a feisty ex-con who did the nasty while, uh, grinding up against a flashing blue police light. Valan was the ex con. Also back is an actress named Mai-Lis Holmes, cute as a button, who plays a pretty redhead who comes on to our hero. Holmes played a bereft sister-slash-dominatrix in the last film.
Witchcraft 8 is pretty insufferable. There are no goofy bat monsters, but the evil ghost man isn’t hot, the sex isn’t really erotic, and the story is predictable as can be. Yes, there is a ghost seduction scene. Yes, our hero must race against time to find the cross that the possessed neighbor has been squirreling away. Yes, the ditzy blonde is annoying as fuck. And yes, there is a final confrontation wherein our hero – previously kind of timid – overcomes his fear and stabs a guy to death.
Here’s something sexy and kind of fun: Kopf has a scene wherein she strips and takes a bath and pleasures herself openly. While the scene could have possibly been an indication of the sexual energy of the evil ghost floating around in her haunted house (and it very well could have been, although it’s not too clear), this could have just been a scene of a woman at home alone, bored, horny, and ready for some casual onanism.
What else? Oh yeah, the evil Simon is also part vampire and bites some chicks. He has awful tattoos. I liked the rubber corpse.
I’d linger more with Witchcraft 8 (the one that Obscurus Lupa referred to as “The Halloween III of the series,” in that it has no connection to the other movies at all), but I’d just be putting off the inevitable pain. Let’s bite the bullet and talk about…
