It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to find this was a script for a totally different film that with a few clips and revisions was turned into a 'Warlock' pic. In fact for much of the running time I was reminded frequently of The Prophecy films, even the music was pretty much a rip of the early Prophecy stuff.
The short version has a young woman with no immediate family inheriting a large run down home in the middle of nowhere. Initially she goes alone to sift through the home hoping for clues regarding her family heritage, but her boyfriend and boneheaded friends – among whom is a part-time witch and an S&M fetishist couple – show up unannounced to join in the fun.
Imagine our surprise when around half way through the film a pasty guy in a big black coat shows up to talk just like Julian Sands (but is really some guy named Bruce Payne, even Sands didn't need the cash this bad) and to look at people through his eyebrows in menacing fashion for a while. That surprise is short lived of course, and once the paint by numbers plot is mechanically laid out and we realise what the Warlock is intent on doing the film becomes nothing more than a serial killer flick where vacuous teens are outmatched by a calm killing machine with supernatural powers.
Why the Warlock is really there is irrelevant – it's about Chris's bloodline and a certain amount of human sacrifice is involved – in reality it is an excuse to throw every el-cheapo horror film cliché against the wall and see what sticks.
Not much this time.
We have mirrors that provide a distinctly more eerie reflection, banging shutters and whispered voices, visions and dreams with Hollywood production values (!) and of course the turn, turn, turn, there he is 2 inches away from you scare.
It's all very perfunctory and altogether unnecessary. I must admit thought that even though this was san-Sands I kinda enjoyed this more than the lazier W2, perhaps it was the Prophecy allusions? Warlock 3 is a better effort than Warlock 2, which was in itself a pale imitation of the only so-so original. When considered by themselves they are little more than dodgy B movies and a dated reminder of what direct to VHS horror once represented: a couple scares, some nudity and gore (come to think of it things ain't that different). But when considered as an overall work they are a prime example of how one mediocre movie can be converted into three – with the sequels both lousy – and yet still be extracting money and over 4 hours from this bozo almost two full decades on.
I am sad.
Final Rating – 4.5 / 10. Another lousy sequel, though this is slightly less lousy than the last.
