Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil



A couple of would-be thieves plan to rob some poor schmuck by luring him to a room and making him think he’s about to get his jollies off with the blond sexpot of the pair. Only the plan goes off the rails when the boyfriend of the duo smacks the guy a little too hard in the noggin and winds up killing him. Oops. The two panic and drag his body to their car, intent on dumping him somewhere in the desert. On the way there they run over ANOTHER poor schmuck who was just trying to cross the damn road. Deciding they have enough murder and mayhem on their plate, they speed off, leaving him to the care of Reverend Meredith, who just happens upon the scene. But it turns out that the poor dying wino isn’t normal, and before he dies he possesses the Reverend, leaving him dazed and confused.



Meanwhile, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber’s night is only getting worse. First, they have car trouble and are forced to ditch the vehicle and have to walk back into town. But then they run into Cain, a mysterious man living in the middle of the desert. The duo look at this scruffy looking fellow and his ramshackle hut and immediately get the bright idea to rob him, only maybe without knocking him too hard on the head this time.

But as further proof of their epically poor choices, Cain ends up being more than just some dude in the desert. No, in actuality he is an emissary of Satan, whose goal is to steal enough souls so that he can open a gateway to the Earth so that his master may roam free. And, well, he doesn’t need TWO idiots to do his bidding, so he immediately has the dude killed and keeps the blonde sexpot around to lure in unsuspecting horny men.


To be fair, it wasn’t hard to turn her to the dark side.

Enter our “hero”, William Spanner. William knows about absolutely none of the nonsense going on in the desert and ends up meeting Cain by chance when he accidentally winds up going to a magic show (yes, really.) Cain takes one look at Will and immediately knows that he’s a warlock. So he hypnotizes Will and uses him as a courier for his nefarious soul collecting. A plan that works utterly flawlessly, leaving William at the mercy of an evil megalomaniac, without any knowledge that he’s under his maniacal control. Good job, idiot. Now how are you going to get out of this pickle?


NO, NOT LIKE THAT!

SIGH

Okay, here we go…. Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil is an American made, supernatural horror film from 1993, and is the 5th installment of the currently 16 film-long (I’ve read they’re planning a 17th recently, why gods why?!) film series. And the question I keep seeing from most people is: why the hell are there so many of these things? Sadly, that is a question I cannot fully answer. But I believe that with this entry, we at least have a clue as to its longevity. Because while there have always been hints of the series true purpose, and while it’s taken a full five installments to get there, I think we’ve finally hit the point in these movies where we’ve gone from “cheap, cheesy, supernatural horror” films, to more of what I’ve read the series is primarily known for. Namely, being cheap, exploitative, softcore porn flicks with the bare minimum of story. So I guess the point now is a lot of boobs and skin. Which I’m sure will make some people VERY happy, but I honestly think is kinda silly, personally. Cause if that’s your primary goal, then at that point you might as well go watch a cheap porn flick and get it over with. But no, instead of just watching lots of sex, I guess people would rather watch suggestions of lots of sex instead, with said bouts of sex being occasionally interrupted by story beats. Meaning we’ve just gone from movies that already had plenty of nudity and very little plot, to movies with even MORE nudity and even less plot. Lucky me.



And to be clear, the movie isn’t all sex. There’s probably only around…eh…14ish minutes of smex, total. Which isn’t a lot, but is still around 15% of the whole movie, but I digress. Point is, there IS an actual, honest-to-god plot here. It’s just that, like the last couple films, there isn’t very much of one, and also like the last film most of it feels very rushed, and thus much of the story feels very dumb. But I guess that makes sense. Because you gotta remember, they were popping these films out at a rate of about 1 per year. And since it took about 6 months – at minimum! – to make and distribute VHS tapes, that means that the writing, filming and editing all had to be split into whatever remaining time they had. Meaning they were basically shitting these things out as fast as teenage boys could wank off to them. So most things like “finer details” (or hell, even main details) tend to get overlooked. For instance, why does Cain, who seems to be ridiculously powerful enough on his own, even need William to carry out his plans? Seems to me he was doing just fine on his own. And a follow-up question to that: Why did he need to send someone to seduce Will, if Will was already hypnotized? Wouldn’t the hypnosis be enough? Why does Keli ask if Will’s strange behavior is due to them moving into his parents house, when the house they show us is neither the old Churchill or Adams home (I know, I went back and checked!)? Also, does Keli have some kind of sleeping disorder that makes it possible for her to sleep through anything, including her own boyfriend having sex with someone else right next to her in bed? Or, perhaps most importantly, why is William, who the series INSISTS is supposed to be some kind of super powerful warlock, so easily flippin’ manipulated by every Tom, Dick and Henrietta off the street? No idea, as these questions are never addressed, let alone ever explained.


How you can simultaneously be so strong AND so weak is a mystery to me.

Nor is there really any point of the Reverend being possessed by some “fallen angel”, since it has no real impact on the plot. Supposedly Cain wants his soul because he thinks it’ll be worth more towards his soul quota. But the angel-dude up and de-possesses the Reverend (conveniently) right at the end (with no build-up at all, mind you. Just *Poof!* he gone), neither offering any help, or even being in any danger really, since he could apparently just bounce out of any situation whenever he so chose (which begs the question of why he was so worried about Cain to begin with …). So basically our fallen friend was just a giant MacGuffin and the movie killed some poor homeless man for no reason. Cause as far as I could tell the only other reason for the Reverend even being there, was so the movie could add yet another sex scene to the film, this time between him and the film’s THIRD buxom blonde.


No offense, but it would have been nice for at least one of you to have a different hair color, just so I could tell you apart more easily.

The most baffling plot thread though, may be why Will seems to be in such disbelief regarding all the magic going on around him. It honestly feels like a VERY weird choice. Cause it’s not like the dude doesn’t know he’s a warlock. He’s known that for the past three films. So he’s perfectly familiar with magic. And the concept of it. And that he’s connected to it. It’s literally been hounding him for years. The series has even made his discomfort with it a core tenant of his lame personality. Yet when he starts blacking out and acting strangely (which he acknowledges!) and his girlfriend (Oh, Keli is his girlfriend, btw!) seeks help from the Reverend, who says that there’s some dark magic at play, he immediately turns into your standard “magic” skeptic. “No. What? I’m fine. Magic? Pfft! That’s silly. There’s nothing wrong with me. This is dumb.” I can’t tell if the buxom Satan babe was just supposed to be THAT much of a draw for him, or if the filmmakers just suddenly unilaterally decided to replace his brain with Swiss cheese, but this may be the dumbest and strangest this dude has behaved in the entire series so far.



Also making a surprise return in film 5 are the series’ lame special effects. Some of them, like William’s glowing eyes, are subtle and bearable. Others, like the shiny sparks they added to the sword fight, look cheesy and stupid. But the real kicker is the “soul delivery process” which looks like…I’m not sure how to describe it. But it kind of looks like Cain is sucking a wobbly amoeba into his cape. I don’t know. It’s weird.


What the *&%$ is happening?

So, unsurprisingly, the story and special effects are very questionable. But that was expected. What about the acting? Well, if you’ve been following along with the rest of the series so far, then at this point you should know not to expect much. Or in this case, anything at all. Most of it is just…okay. But a lot of it seems forced, or unnecessarily cheesy. Charles Solomon has been replaced by (now TV Producer) Marklen Kennedy in this film, in what appears to be one of his earliest acting roles. And, I hate to say this, but his believability here actually made me miss Solomon’s blank stares and exaggerated facial expressions. I think he managed to show even less emotion than Solomon did, and it also doesn’t help that his face just screams “generic white dude” every time he’s on screen. To be fair though, his character was hypnotized for much of the movie, so he really didn’t have a chance to do much else. But I still think it’s telling that he doesn’t come back for a second film.



But then on the opposite end of that dull spectrum is Cain, played by David Huffman. This guy literally has two roles to his name, with the other one being a video game. Which is a shame, because let me tell you, he is clearly the only one in the cast who actually read the script and understood the assignment. Because while everyone else is trying and struggling to be super serious, Huffman probably read this thing and saw the frills, and glittery robes, and big hair they wanted him to wear and went,  “nah, this is nonsense,” and made Cain as campy as possible. The downside to this, is of course that Cain is often painfully campy and not as scary as a devil cult leader should be. The plus side though, is that he’s clearly the only guy having any fun. AND I get to see him with his big hair, bold gestures, and a sequin-studded cape paired with a fan and dramatic back lighting. You know what that means? It means I got a little of my cheesy rock music video vibe back! YES! You have no idea how amused I was to see that ridiculousness again. In my eyes, it may be the film’s one redeeming feature.


It’s all so gloriously stupid. I love it.

So – surprise surprise – Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil stinks. So much so that I think I’m going to have to take a break from the series for a few months after this. The plot is bare bones (and bare skinned), the effects are laughable, and the acting… Well, it could have been better. But believe it or not, it’s still not the worst movie so far. Because unlike the 4th film, I could actually hear what they were saying in this movie! So in my eyes that means it JUST squeaks out not being the crappiest film in the franchise. But only barely. And these movies are all so bad that being “the worst” doesn’t really mean much anyway. Skin fans will like this film more (and probably the rest in the series) because of all the succulent flesh on display. But if you’re actually looking for some kind of supernatural horror film like the movie genre suggests, then you’re going to be massively disappointed. Just like I suspect I will be when I eventually pick up more of the series some time next year.

Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil is available on a variety of streaming services, but free on Fawsome. It doesn’t always show up on a Google search though, so you may have to go to the Fawsome site/app and search for it there.

Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil is also available on DVD in certain territories.

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