The Magic Man

Horror is a very subjective genre of film. You can apply scary elements to just about anything, but whether it does, or should, qualify as horror is more a matter of taste than anything else. There will come a point where a film is scary enough that everyone that watched it would agree, “yep, that’s horror,” but you can have plenty of films that put themselves forcibly into the genre without ever actually being scary. Trying to be a horror film and then failing is a lot like trying to be a comedy film and not being funny: you can do it, but it’s hard to say you really nailed the genre in the end.

Warlock, filmed in 1988 but not released until 1989 internationally and 1991 in the U.S., is a supernatural horror film that feels like it forgot to be scary. It desperately wants to be a slasher film about a killer warlock (thus the name) but time and again it seems like the film forgets it’s actually supposed to have its main evil character actually kill anyone. He walks around, he makes threats, occasionally he curses someone, but there’s almost no death, practically no gore, and absolutely nothing scary going on in the film at all. It’s a horror film built entirely on vibes, and those vibes very rarely carry over on screen.

In the film we’re introduced to the titular Warlock (Julian Sands), incarcerated in a stone tower in Boston, Massachusetts, 1691. Accused of consorting with the devil and performing wicked acts, the town council condemns him to death. He’s held in the tower by witch hunter Giles Redferne (Richard E. Grant), who had previously chased the Warlock all over the countryside before finally catching him. He awaits the death of the Warlock so that his mission of justice (and, as we eventually learn, revenge) can finally be over.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Satan magically transports the Warlock free of his confinement, sending his sacreligious son to the future of 1989. Giles, rushing into the tower to see what is going on, gets whisked away as well, dropped into 1989 with the knowledge that if he’s there, the Warlock would be as well. The Warlock has but a single mission: two find the three sections of the Grand Grimoire, the Devil’s Bible, and put them together. Rejoined they would reveal the true name of God so that the Warlock could utter it and unmake creation. Giles, though, teams up with local girl Kassandra “with a K” (Lori Singer) to track down the Warlock and save the world. It’s a race against time for the fate of creation.

The best part of Warlock is Julian Sands. The actor, who had his breakout role four years earlier in A Room with a View, struts and scowls his way through the film, playing the villain with all the charisma he can muster. It’s an absolutely fantastic performance, one that audiences responded to favorably. Even with the movie making far less than its production budget ($9 Mil against $15 Mil), the reaction to his performance was more than enough to warrant a sequel, Warlock: Armageddon, also starring Sands. Hard to see that coming about without the actor in the lead (and considering there was a third, Sands-less film made as well, and then nothing further, you can see just how much he was the glue holding together this whole series).

By comparison, the worst parts of this film are, well, everything else. The single worst actor in the film is Lori Singer, and she is just straight up awful. She’s supposed to play this funky, wild, flighty chick, but there’s nothing interesting or fun about her performance. She’s bland, basic, and not at all engaged with the material most of the time. Plus, her line deliveries are awful. I recognize this was a low-budget film but, even by those standards, Singer manages to be even worse than you could ever possibly expect.

Apparently she was horrible to work with on set as well. Her character, Kassandra “with a K”, is cursed by the Warlock (just for fun) to age twenty years each day. This was supposed to be done via makeup effects and prosthetics, which would have helped to sell the look, but the day of filming for these scenes she refused, forcing the makeup artists to adapt and come up with something less impressive to cover for it. The effect is lacking, and mutes much of the thrills that could have been found from this horrific curse, and that rests at Singer’s feet. There’s a reason she wasn’t brought back for a sequel.

Richard E. Grant is better, although still not great. As co-lead and protagonist he should be a charismatic center for the film, someone that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the Warlock. This was one of Grant’s first lead roles and it’s pretty clear the actor was still finding his feet. He’s not bad, per se, as Giles, but he lacks the charisma, let alone the bravery and chutzpah, to really sell a warrior that has been chasing an evil creature across the countryside. He seems too passive, too lackluster, too simple to be this character.

Together Giles and Kassandra “with a K” are a sucking void at the center of this film. They’re supposed to be our protagonists but the film doesn’t really give them much to do and they can’t sell the material on their own. They honestly don’t even have character arcs, with Kassandra’s curse acting in place of her having a real storyline. She has to break the curse, so she follows Giles to the Warlock, but if she wasn’t cursed she wouldn’t have anything to do with the whole story. Meanwhile, Giles just has to kill the Warlock. All of his character growth happened before we meet him, and once he’s done he’s out of the story. They aren’t strong enough to carry this film at all.

When it was originally conceived, writer David Twohy expected the film to be about the Warlock, his story of persecution. You can see how that is reflected in this film as the Warlock is the only character actually motivated to do anything. He gets to have character moments, he nearly has an arc. He could, in fact, be the lead in a version of this film that focused more on him than anyone else. Certainly Julian Sands could have handled this version of the character as he’s practically carrying this film for all it’s worth as it stands. I think I would have preferred that film to this mess that we actually got.

Warlock really is just a bad movie. It tries very hard to be interesting, but fails at every turn. I’m not sure if a better budget, or a better cast, or a better script was needed to salvage this film, but I have a feeling it was really all three. If you replaced everything in this movie, outside of Julian Sands, then maybe you could have had a real film. This version, though, isn’t worth watching at all.