Nic Cage plays it straight and narrow in director Dominic Sena’s
Season Of The Witch (not to be confused with Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch).
Here, Cage plays a knight during the Crusades who loses his lust for conquest
when he takes part in an assault on a castle that kills everybody within--and
they all turn out to be helpless women and children. Leaving the Crusades and
heading home with his buddy Felson, played by the always good Ron Perlman, they
encounter an Europe that’s in the death grip of the Black Plague. Placed under
arrest by local officials because they had deserted, Cage and Perlman’s
characters are given an interesting choice.
They could either rot in jail, or escort a young woman (Claire Foy) to a trial
that will be held for her at a remote monastery. The young woman, who is kept
chained up and caged all of the time, is not only suspected of being a witch,
but it’s believed that she’s the very witch who had cast the spell which caused
the Black Plague to ravish the lands in the first place (wow, don't piss her off, huh?). Not wanting to spend
anymore time in the dungeon than they have to, Cage and Perlman agree to take the
witch, along with a guide, and several other escorts, to the monastery.
As one might suspect, this little excursion through the woods winds up being a
very busy one, as the film turns into a mixture of The Name Of The Rose meets the
Exorcist. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hold up as well as either of these films; for one
thing, it’s just not that intelligent, and when the fur begins to fly (the movie really
takes it's sweet time getting going), the filmmakers seem very hesitant to show
all. Instead, we wind up with a not-quite horror movie that makes good use of
the scenic Austrian castles and desolate, wintry countryside, but falls flat on
its face when it comes time to deliver the shocks.
Also, the underlying message that the film presents, that the countless women who were put to death by overzealous church officials because they were accused of being witches was true, is really a pretty odious one. It’s one thing to say that a particular character is a real witch for story purposes, but to say that all of the victimized poor souls of church inquisition in this dark era pretty much got what they deserve--as the opening scene does--is really poor taste. Not even a cameo by Hammer Horror legend Christopher Lee could enliven this dreary film, which is just as much stuck in the mud as its characters are.
--SF
