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La Casa 4 (Witchcraft)
Witchery
Witchcraft / Ghosthouse 2 / Witchcraft: Return of the Exorcist
Italy / USA 1988
produced by Joe D'Amato for Filmirage, Production Group
directed by Fabrizio Laurenti (as Martin Newlin)
starring David Hasselhoff, Linda Blair, Catherine Hickland, Annie Ross, Hildegard Knef, Leslie Cumming, Robert Champagne, Rick Farnsworth, Michael Manchester, Frank Cammarata, Victoria Biggers, Ely Coughlin, Kara Lynch, James Haynes, Richard Ladenburg, George Stevens
written by Harry Spalding, Daniele Stroppa, music by Carlo Maria Cordio, Randy Miller, special effects by Maurizio Trani
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Flix.com
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Gary (David Hasselhoff) and his virginal girlfriend Linda (Catherine
Hickland) are investigating the goings-on in an allegedly haunted house on
a deserted island when a family keen on buying the place - matriarch Rose
(Annie Ross), her sleazy husband Freddy (Robert Champagne) and their kids
pregnant Jane (Linda Blair) and young Tommy (Michael Manchester) - arrive
with their realtor Jerry (Rick Farnsworth) and their nympho architect
Leslie (Leslie Cumming) ... and before you know it, the house shows why
it's called haunted: A woman in black (Hildegard Knef), supposedly a
witch, appears out of nowhere repeatedly and disappears again, the water
taxi and only link to the main land, takes off without its passengers and
with its caaptain hanged by the neck on the main sail, Rose ends up
hanging down the chimney and burned by the fire in the fireplace, Jerry
and Leslie are whisked off to some parallel universe where they are
crucified and burned, and Freddy starts to bleed from pretty much
everywhere until he's dead. Furthermore, virginal Linda is raped by the
devil and Jane is possessed (can't the devil ever leave poor Linda Blair
in peace). And young Tommy starts acting strange too. In the
underwhelming finale, everything seems lost, especially when he-man Gary
loses his life too, though I'm not quite sure how, but then, thanks to a
tape recording of her voice, possessed Jane remembers her former self and
throws herself out a window ... and Tommy and Linda are saved. Thing is,
Linda now learns she's pregnant, and in all her life she has been with but
one man - who just happened to be the devil. It's not that the
screenplay of this film would have been too bad, it's a bit of a clichéed
but not entirely uninteresting haunted house story. Director Laurenti's
handling of the plot however destroys all the promise the plot might have
had, his direction is entirely free of atmosphere, his choice of special
effects is nothing short of unimaginative (apart from the scene of
the woman slowly burning to death in the chimney above the fireplace most
probably), and he doesn't even try to create any kind of suspense at all.
Add to that underwhelming camerawork and lighting that resembles
carelessly shot homemovies and a bunch of increasingly wooden actors
(David Hasselhoff - need I say more ?), and you've got one movie you
needn#t have seen. It's not even so-bad-it's-good, it's just
so-bad-it's-bad-again.
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