'Warlock' will cast a spell on you

Warlock (1989)
Starring: Julian Sands, Lori Singer and Richard E. Grant
Director: Steve Miner
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A powerful, evil warlock (Sands) travels from the 16th century to modern day America to escape the witch hunter hot on his trail. The hunter (Grant) is more tenacious than he gives him credit for, and soon their battle resumes in 1989, with a young woman (Singer) who finds herself cursed by the warlock caught in the middle.


"Warlock" is a fast-paced, thrilling horror movies with numerous great moments and excellent performances by all the principles. The witch-legends it creates and how it uses them give the script a tremedmous freshness, and I am extremely impressed with the screenwriter's talent for crafting dialogue: Each character has is own "voice" and each sounds perfectly realistic (as far as time-traveling warlocks and witch-hunters are realistic that is).

Julian Sands gives perhaps his best performance so far as the boundlessly evil Warlock devoted to undoing Existence itself, while Richard Grant is almost as excellent as his world-weary foe. Singer is also good as a somewhat bubble-headed blond, a part that probably anyone could have played, but even she gets to shine during the scene where she is "nailing" the warlock's footprints, and during the final scene on the Utah Salt Flats.

This film is a prime example of how Steve Miner is one of the most underrated directors working in film; this 20-year-old movie is far more entertaining and scary than the vast majority of horror films being released today.

Love conquers death and demons

A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Joey Wang, Ma Wu, Wai Lam, and Tsui Ming-Lau
Director: Siu-Tung Ching
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

In ancient China, a young tax collector (Cheung) takes refuge from a rainstorm in an abandoned temple. Here, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful girl (Wang). There's only two things standing in the way of their great romance: She's dead, and she's to be married to a tree demon. Will love find a way even in this case?


"A Chinese Ghost Story" is a wild supernatural martial arts period comedy. It mixes equal amounts of horror, comedy, and tragedy wrapped in great costumes, spectacular sets, mindboggling special effects, and presented with brilliant camerawork, exceptional lighting, and a great musical score. There is literally not a dull moment, as the film careens from magical martial arts duel to terrifying spirit attack to sweet romantic moments to a magical martial arts duel with terrifying spirits who are interrupting a tender romantic moment.

While the wild action and special effects are going to keep you watching in amazement, it's the touching love story at the center of the film that is going to sell you on it. Even if you think romance is "icky", you will, like the bumbling hero of the film does, fall in love with the beautiful, kindhearted spirit, and you will root for her to be liberated from the demons and evil ghosts keeping her trapped.

Both an expertly crafted haunted house movie and a romantic melodrama, "A Chinese Ghost Story" is bound to enliven any ghost-themed Home Film Fest at your house.

'Mrs. Amworth' is a decent vampire tale

Mrs. Amworth (2007)
Starring: Magenta Brooks, Jim Nalitz, Daniel Ross, and Christy Sullivan
Director: Frank Sciurba
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Recently widowed Mrs. Amworth (Brooks) returns from years abroad to take possession of her family home and lands in the quiet town of Wilton... and soon mysterious deaths start occuring. Is it coincidence, or, is she, as the town doctor (Nalitz) comes to suspect, or is she one of the walking dead--a vampire? And if he's right, will he be able to stop her from destroying a young photographer (Ross) and his journalist wife (Sullivan)?


"Mrs. Amworth" is a vampire movie that's worth seeing for its very strong feeling of a classic vampire tale. In fact, this film conveys more of the tone, feeling, and subtext of Stoker's "Dracula" novel than any movie adaptation of it I've seen, including the one titled "Bram Stoker's Dracula".

The film a bit slowly paced--there are a few scenes that I'd even accuse the director of arranging the way they are because he was padding the film's run-time--but it's because of the pace that it captures the feel of traditional vampire stories so well. It also brings to the screen more effectively than any other vampire movie I've seen the underlying fear of The Stranger/Foreign that so permeated Stoker's novel. In this film, Mrs. Amworth is the outside corrupting influence that enters into a peaceful community and happy circle of friends, bringing death and terror.

For all my talk about "Dracula", this film is actually a loose adaptation of E.F. Benson's vampire story "Mrs. Amworth." The film contains some of the key scenes from the story, but they aren't set up very effectively, and they feel like they're included almost to make sure that there's more left of original source than its title. For example, Mrs. Amworth's apparent death by car accident is set up in the story from the beginning, and it could easily have been done so in the film, but instead it just sort of comes out of left field. (The film also has a different ending than the short story, one that I supposed was devised partly due to budget, partly to not make the film COMPLETELY traditional as far as vampire stories go. Being something of a traditionalist myself, and given that this movie feels VERY traditional to me, up until the ending, I wish they'd gone with something closer to the short story.)


In the final analysis, "Mrs. Amworth" is a decent, if unspectacular, vampire movie. The actors in the film are okay, although no one in particularly stands out; they all do a creditable job. The same is true of the cinematography and overall direction of the film... it's a solid bit of work, but nothing particularly spectacular. The script could have done with a little more polish, as some of the dialogue is flatter than pancakes, and, as mentioned above, some of the scenes feel like they've been padded.

As low-budget vampire films go, "Mrs. Amworth" is a good effort that's worth checking out.




(You can also read the short story upon which the film was based at my Fiction Archive by clicking here.)