Series Overview
See 6 and see 11. Maybe 4. Skip the rest.
But then, perhaps you are intrigued. Perhaps you are oddly drawn toward this muck the way so many previous schlock pioneers have been. I have been seeking out this series for years, and I have finally found it. It is mine. I have these movies now rattling around in my skull, replacing dear memories and important facts. There is an apocalyptic badass integrity to this, I like to think.
I usually like to sum up a series of films with what kind of ultimate themes or lessons that permeated the series contributed to the world of film at large. Maybe point out what kind of comment the films were ultimately making. It’s hard with these movies because they are so bad and so cheap, no theme can be gleaned. As far as I can tell, the Witchcraft movies were, for the most part, tapping into our fears of black magic, and to our masturbatory fantasies of evil women with sharp nails. But even their attempts at softcore smut were foiled because they were presented so horribly.
What the Witchcraft movies did was present us with topless women, magical conspiracies, topless women, infidelity, Satan, death, topless women, and violence (i.e. what many horror hounds constantly seek) and distil those things onto home video without much rhyme or wit or comment. They took the purest essences of teenage horror nut fantasies and jumbled them up into a series of bad movies that remain a testament to the resilience and persistence of low-budget filmmaking.
Have you ever wanted to make a movie? It’s easy! I’ve seen 13 (13!) interconnected movies made for perhaps $1 million collectively. The Witchcraft movies provide hope for anyone who has ever wanted to point a camera at bare breasts. You can do it, man. Dare to dream.
And now, my friends, I saddle up. I saddle up my carnivorous horse, wearing a tattered loincloth and a rifle strapped to my back, ready to head out into the sloped plateaus of the uncertain night. Now that I have seen these movies in all their glory, I feel I need to seek out a new distant plane to conquer. I am the warrior of the wasteland. The barrel-chested, half-naked hunter of the plains. You may see me sometime, streaking across the distant horizon during a green-tinted alkali dawn. You may find the remains of a long-spent campfire, surrounded by the carcasses of the large beasts I slaughtered and ate that day. And you will find the VHS tapes of long-forgotten erotic horror pseudo-classics in my wake.
I have seen these movies. And I am strong.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and co-star of The Trailer Hitch. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
