Warlock (1989)

Didn’t quite know what to expect out of this picture from Steve Miner, the director of Friday the 13^th Part 2, 3 and My Father the Hero, and writer David Twohy who penned The Fugitive, Waterworld and Pitch Black.  It turned out to be damn fun.

So in seventeenth century Boston a warlock (Julian Sands (Arachnophobia, Leaving Las Vegas)) escapes through a time warp along with his arch nemesis, witch hunter Redferne (Richard E. Grant (Dracula (1992), The Age of Innocence)).  They show up in 1989 California with the bad guy looking for Satan’s bible or some shit and Redferne hot on the trail.  Also, Redferne’s liaison to the 20^th century is Kassandra (Lori Singer (Footloose, Short Cuts)) and she’s your typical ditsy young’un.  Normally in this setup these two would fall in love but I don’t think they do.  It’s more like they finally fully respect each other in the end.    

If there’s such a thing as a horror adventure movie then this is it.  The story is simple and it moves well, there are a lot of nifty special effects, the bad guy’s pretty evil, the good guy’s pretty likable and you feel he can get the job done, there’s magic ‘n shit and the characters travel across the country chasing after the warlock so the scenery changes often adding to the sense that you’re on a journey.  Plus thankfully the fish out of water stuff isn’t the most horrendous shit you’ve ever seen.

One weird thing though is that this is rated R but it doesn’t feel like it at all.  I don’t remember there being language or particularly gory scenes or anything.  To me this seemed just as edgy as Temple of Doom so I don’t quite get the rating.

Anyway, I enjoyed this one quite a bit and I recommend it.