We're going to need some more holy water.

Season of the Witch

(2011)

Enjoyably trashy Nicolas Cage 13th century tale of devilry, with Cage and Ron Perlman as disillusioned knights tasked with escorting a suspected witch (accused of blighting the land with plague) to a distant monastery to stand trial. A lively supporting cast includes Stephen Graham, Robert Sheehan and a revoltingly plague-ridden Christopher Lee.

Cage and Perlman make no attempt to disguise their accents and are given the most anachronistic dialogue possible, but the film has a cheerful disinterest in anything approaching historicity across the board.

Dominic Sena previously worked with Cage on Gone in Sixty Seconds. He puts together some effective sequences (a ramshackle bridge crossing in particular) and creates a suitably scabby atmosphere. But it looks like the money ran out at along the way as there's some fairly rank CGI throughout, the use of which unfortunately becomes more liberal as the film edges towards its climax. Best line; "We're going to need some more holy water."

***

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Lieutenant, you run this station like chicken night in Turkey.

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3000 Miles to Graceland (2001) (SPOILERS) The kind of movie that makes your average Tarantino knockoff look classy, 3000 Miles to Graceland is both aggressively unpleasant and acutely absent any virtues, either as a script or a stylistic exercise. The most baffling thing about it is how it attracted Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell, particularly since both ought to have been extra choosy at this point, having toplined expensive bombs in the previous half decade that made them significantly less bankable names. And if you’re wondering how this managed to cost the $62m reported on Wiki, it didn’t; Franchise Pictures, one of the backers, was in the business of fraudulently inflating budgets .

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) (SPOILERS) I first saw A Nightmare on Elm Street a little under a decade after its release, and I was distinctly underwhelmed five or so sequels and all the hype. Not that it didn’t have its moments, but there was an “It’ll do” quality that reflects most of the Wes Craven movies I’ve seen. Aside from the postmodern tease of A New Nightmare – like Last Action Hero , unfairly maligned – I’d never bothered with the rest of the series, in part because I’m just not that big a horror buff, but also because the rule that the first is usually the best in any series, irrespective of genre, tends to hold out more often than not. So now I’m finally getting round to them, and it seemed only fair to start by giving Freddy’s first another shot. My initial reaction holds true.

He must have eaten a whole rhino horn!

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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