Witchcraft III: The Kiss of Death



William Spanner (formerly William Adams, and even more formerly William Churchill) is all grown up, out of school, and now a defense attorney, valiantly attempting to defend the unjustly accused innocent from the unscrupulous actions of local prosecuting attorney, Vivian Hill. But Ms. Hill seems to be the least of his problems once Louis and Roxy roll into town. Like Will, Louis is a Warlock. But unlike Will, Louis has embraced his evil impulses and is currently using his powers to suck the life essence out of young women and feeding it to his girlfriend Roxy, in order to keep her alive longer. William of course knows none of this at first. He just thinks the two of them are friendly newcomers to town. But as the pair worm their way into his life, William quickly finds out that Louis has insidious ulterior motives when he starts paying far too much attention to his girlfriend, Charlotte.


Give up now, dude. She’s clearly too good for you.

Well, due to popular demand I guess I’m watching more of these atrocious things. And considering the quality of the first two films, I gotta say, it’s really not something I’m looking forward to. But holy rice balls did I catch a mild break. Because believe it or not, I think that Witchcraft III: Kiss of Death actually ends up being the best of the three so far. Not by much, mind you, and certainly not enough to consider the film “good”, as most of it is still pretty bad. But it does show mild enough improvement that it can be considered a (slightly) better film. So thank heavens for that. Though it does lack the bizarre grace of the “Rock Music Video” ending of the previous movie, and I’m honestly kinda shocked to admit that I was sad to see that particular bit of insanity go.


The new bits of insanity just don’t feel as special.

On the plus side, the plot to the third film is leagues better than the last one. Because the story to that one can basically be summed up as: “horny woman pursues and confuses teenage boy.” But you can tell this film actually had a bit more thought behind it. Yeah, they’re all rather trope-y thoughts, but thankfully they were weaved together rather coherently: William is trying to move on from all the bad memories from years past and everything that entails. So now he’s trying to be a do-gooder. But he’s having some trouble due to unscrupulous assholes. But then he gets deceived by another unscrupulous asshole, who winds up helping him… but also blackmails him because he’s evil and shit. And of course, now the bad guy is after William’s lady-love. So our “hero” has about 2 hours to get over himself, or else lose his gal to the dark side for good. Oh, and he both finds and loses a mentor along the way. So, you know, nothing revolutionary or great, just your standard hero journey type stuff.


Well, you ain’t Yoda, but I guess you’ll do.

Also good? The villain this time is actually kinda creepy. He’s kind of like your standard vampire in a lot of ways. The handsome, suave, “I’m truly interested in you” type that could superficially charm the pants of anyone, but all he really wants to do is suck out your soul and feed it to his sex thrall. But he also talks to William like a creepy CEO who’s trying to make you think he’s cool or down to earth by mingling with his riff-raff employees, so it’s kind of a mixed bag. And his constantly walking in on Charlotte while she’s trying to change doesn’t help matters. Personally, I still prefer Delia Sheppard’s sex-pot archetype to the creepy soul-sucking CEO, but it’s still not a bad choice for a villain.


He’s one of, you know, those smarmy dicks. You know the type.

Now, the downside… Well, that’s basically everything else. While the plot’s okay, it also doesn’t feel like they had enough of it to fill a whole 85 minute movie. Maybe an hour long episode of some kind of horror series, but not a movie. So expect quite a bit of downtime in between the actual plot points. And the sad part is, they COULD have used that downtime to fill in the film with plot points related to the LAST film. But did they? No. So instead, I’m left with many questions. Why did William change his name? No idea. Doesn’t come up. What the hell happened to Michelle? You know, the girlfriend from the last film that went through all that shit with him and already knew about his past? No clue! She’s never brought up. But here’s Charlotte, she’s taller and has bigger boobs. But she’s also kinda needy and wants to get married and William clearly doesn’t, and he also doesn’t want to share anything about his past with her, so now we get to watch several awkward relationship scenes between the two of them that could have been avoided entirely if they had just recast the last chick, who was actually kind of likable. But did they? No. So instead we all get to needlessly suffer.


We wouldn’t have to go through this if you hadn’t dumped the last one, Will!

The acting? Much like the last film, not great. A couple of the side characters like the Voodoo guy are okay, and I actually kinda thought the bitchy prosecutor was pretty good. But everyone you actually have to spend significant time with is… not so good. They’re either trying too hard or not trying enough, and yes, that does include the bad guy (whoomp whoomp), so be prepared for that. Thankfully, Charles Solomon seems to have improved at least a little bit in the two years since the last film’s release, so he’s not doing dumb stuff like making weird faces at the camera any more. But his general lack of emotion means he’s still not a very compelling lead character, and is still about as engaging as a block of wood. Though he’s also thankfully not nearly as dumb in this film as he was in the last, so at least that’s a small improvement.


Hi Viv. Sorry you died so soon.

Oh, and unsurprisingly the special effects still suck too, though thankfully there are far fewer of them to mock this time around. The filmmakers seem to have smartened up and stuck to more practical things like dried ice or camera tricks that better fit their budget, so we don’t have to put up with things like hideously bad fire overlays in this film. They did, however, add fake snake eyes to Louis whenever he’s being particularly evil (He supposedly “poisons” his thrall victims in order to gain control of them? So I guess that’s where they got that from? But does that mean all warlocks are supposed to have snake eyes? I’m confused…), and yes, those eyes do look dumb. But they’re also used in moderation, so you don’t have to put up with them much.


And I’m only slightly annoyed that the eyes don’t match.

The thing that made me laugh this time though, was the titular “kiss of death”. Because it’s called a “kiss”, but what it looks like Louis is actually doing is opening up his gaping maw and then trying to suck the whole bottom of the woman’s face into it (those poor actresses…). Kinda like how a vampire opens its mouth right before it goes in to take a bite out of their victim’s neck. Except he’s not going for the neck. He’s going for the mouth area. So he’s literally sucking face. And it looks patently ridiculous. Why did they do it that way? He looks like an awkward virgin going into their first kiss, where their only experience in such matters is watching cheap grainy kink porn on an old, degraded VHS. One would think with all the nudity and sex on display in the rest of the film that they would at least TRY to make these scenes look sexy, but I guess not.


I would NOT want this to be the last thing I see before I die.

The worst part though, at least for me, was the ending. Because not only did I NOT get a crazy music video-like ending (Alas!), but it also ended up being kind of boring. It mostly consists of Louis and Will rolling around on the ground, with Will in a headlock for most of it, fighting over a magic stick. And then, after Will finally accepts his past by using his mother’s old necklace, in what I assume is supposed to be some meaningful gesture, does that finally end. The amusing part though is right after that, when Will lovingly takes Charlotte in his arms, telling her how much he cares and that it’s all over now. Then we cut to the very next scene where we see the happy couple taking their relationship to the next logical conclusion… by burying the two corpses of Roxy and Louis in the dark woods in the middle of the night. Because nothing says love like covering up a crime and hiding the bodies of your fallen enemies.


Love… So exciting and new~

So, okay, Witchcraft III: Kiss of Death wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. I mean, it’s still pretty bad, just not AS bad. But not so much “terrible movie” bad, but more like “cheesy anthology episode” bad, if that makes any sense. Which isn’t saying much, but it was at least more watchable than the last film, so it wasn’t as painful to sit through. The plot’s a little more thought out, the direction is better, I didn’t have to put up with as many crappy effects as before, and even some of the actors are a little better. Admittedly it’s a very MILD improvement, but I’ll be gracious and take the win. So now I guess it’s on to the next film in the series, subtitled The Virgin Heart…. I feel like that doesn’t bode well.

Witchcraft III: Kiss of Death is available on a variety of streaming services.

Witchcraft III: Kiss of Death is also available on VHS. And while I do see CLAIMS that a DVD exists somewhere, I can’t actually find any listings except for some offers from those “print on demand” services, which are questionable at best.

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