Witchcraft VIII: Salem’s Ghost



AKA: Salem’s Ghost: Witchcraft

In Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, a group of priests and monks gather around a bonfire. The reason? They are about to put to death Simon Renfro, a notoriously evil warlock accused of the murder of countless children and the brutal assault of dozens of women. Unrepentant to the end, Simon curses the priests before their leader plunges a sacred, pointy cross into his chest and letting him turn into a crispy critter.


Well if there wasn’t any doubt that he was evil before…

The priests then seal Renfro’s body away in an underground crypt meant to forever lock away his evil soul. Presumably with the plan to keep it closed for all eternity.


Shouldn’t there be a cross on it instead of a pentagram? I feel like this movie is already giving off mixed signals.

But a lot goes down over the centuries, and apparently the Church of England was running desperately low on cash. Because over the years they built a huge mansion over the old crypt, completely forgot about it, and sold the property to Sonny and Mary Ann Dunnaway. Mary Ann really isn’t all that enthused with the place from the start, but Sonny talks her into staying since they got it for such a steal (gee, I wonder why?)


I also wonder how the DEAD warlock somehow managed to acquire leather pants in the afterlife

Unsurprisingly, weird things start happening, and they get even weirder when their nosy neighbor, who just so happens to be a plumber, offers to check out what the couple believes to be a pipe issue in the basement, and instead ends up stumbling upon that all important crypt that no one’s supposed to open.

They open it.


So, Mitch, why is my wall emitting an evil looking red light? That can’t be the pipes, right?
Who cares! Let’s keep going!

And then things get progressively worse from there on. Because Sonny and his foolish neighbor haven’t just released an evil warlock who has committed untold evils from his tomb. They’ve released the ghost of an evil warlock who has committed untold evils from his tomb. And as the priest who shows up eventually says, that’s, like, 10x worse than your regular evil warlock. Presumably on account of him now being a ghost and all. So now Sonny has to stop this thing by re-imprisoning it in its tomb, or else it’ll get out and commit untold havoc on the outside world.


The evil warlock’s first task shall be keeping everyone up at night by singing cringy rock ballads from the rooftops.

Well, here we are again with the 8th installment of the Witchcraft series, the appropriately titled Witchcraft VIII: Salem’s Ghost, yet another direct-to-video erotic/horror outing brought to you by our friends at Vista Street Entertainment and Troma Studios. This time we get to watch Will Spanne–…Oh, wait! This one has nothing to do with Will! Oh, thank goodness! I was getting kinda sick of that idiot. The series really needed to move on from… I’m sorry, what was that?….This is the only film in the series that doesn’t have Will in it or involve his stupid family nonsense? Well…. Shit.


NOOOOOOooooooo……!

So as it turns out, this film was never meant to be part of the Witchcraft series. In fact, it was filmed and completed an entire year prior to the 7th film, and was actually meant to be the start of a whole new series revolving around the warlock’s ghost. Or maybe some other ghost. I’m not sure. In either case some ghost was supposed to be involved. But either way that series never came to be, and the movie got re-branded as a Witchcraft sequel. The only connection to the rest of the series appears to be that they used the same house as they did in the 5th film. But that’s it and we get to go back to whiny Will from here on out. A prospect I’m really not looking all that forward to, since this film is actually… Quite a bit better than the previous one?

What? Really? I’m shocked!

No, really! It is! But you probably shouldn’t be surprised by that, since Judgement Hour was so god-awful that all any followup needed to surpass it was to put in a modicum of effort. Or at the very least a different writer. Both of which this film has. Though it still ends up not being very good and having a suspicious amount in common with the series it eventually got linked to.



For starters, the visuals fit in almost perfectly. There may actually be more ‘witchcraft’ in this movie then there was in the last…maybe three films combined. So that’s impressive. The acting? Also equally as bad as those movies. It’s all very cheesy and corny and will make you roll your eyes. The best one might be Jack van Landingham who plays the Warlock, and that’s mostly because he barely had any lines. And the characters? All extra stupid. Sonny is almost a perfect stand-in for Will. He puts everyone around him in danger. He doesn’t believe things after seeing them with his own eyes. And he’s absolutely useless until the end of the movie. It’s honestly amazing how close those two are in their mannerisms.


Even his reactions are unnecessarily over-the-top.

On the plus side though, this movie already beats out the last film (hell, maybe the last couple) for the simple fact that it actually has an honest to god plot that it’s focused around. There’s a distinctive beginning, middle and end. There’s buildup to plot points. There are subplots! There’s…. Well, there’s clearly a plan here that’s not solely focused around sex and boobs, is my point. And after the pain I had to go through watching the last film, that minor amount of effort makes a world of difference.



Now, is any of that effort good? Ehhh… Debatable. While it’s definitely an improvement over the last film, the movie still ends up being a cheesy, chintzy horror story. Not to mention one that’s horribly predictable. You have a couple who are moving into a new house, trying to start over in a fresh place. Their new neighbors are the quintessential idiot couple next door, with the husband also doubling as a greedy nitwit to boot. Once they discover the mysterious room with the creepy evil glowing light they don’t hesitate to go into it. The dumb neighbor desecrates a tomb. Weird shit happens and a priest miraculously shows up right on time. More bad things happen. The one thing that can protect them conveniently gets lost. The wife ends up in mortal danger because of her dumb husband. The priest boy ends up being useless. Dumb husband has to overcome his fears to save the day. So basically the movie is filled with multiple horror cliches and you should see just about all of them coming from a mile away. There are no surprises here. There is nothing you haven’t seen before.



But because it’s cheap, there’s also some weirdness too. Because of course there is. You can’t get away from that in these films, even the ones that weren’t originally meant to be part of the series. Some of it comes from plot threads that are either started or suggested. Such as the suggested relationship drama in Sonny and Mary Ann’s past, which in this case involves Sonny losing his previous teaching job because he had an inappropriate relationship with a student. Considering the clear difference in age between him and Mary Ann, we are never sure whether the relationship in question was with her or with someone else. But it really holds no real significance to the overall story other than to set up a sex scene. Mostly though it seems to be there to try to force the audience to believe that this young college student inexplicably has the hots for her 40+ year-old, balding college professor.




I’m sorry, but I refuse to believe she’s wistfully sighing over this guy.

But then there are other plot details that end up going nowhere. Like that really weird one where the Dean of the school Sonny is working at seems suspicious of Sonny’s current residence. Like, there’s a pause and a look that suggests he knows what’s up with that place. But whatever they were trying to set up with that knowing look he gave gets completely forgotten about by the end of the movie. Whether that’s because the filmmakers simply forgot about it, or because they were planning on implementing it in a follow-up story is unclear. But we never see or hear from him ever again, so the inclusion is pointless.

Then of course there’s the other shit. You know, the WEIRD stuff. The priest that originally doomed Simon to eternal hell? He seems to be a little too into his job. In the really creepy, ‘I’m not sure he should be a priest at all,’ kind of way–


Dude is a little too into his work if you ask me.

Sonny apparently has a crippling case of claustrophobia. As in, just stepping into an open closet to put a box on a shelf can cause him to freak out. And he also freaks out when he walks into the (rather large) ‘crypt’ for the first time. Again, with the door wide open. Yet he has no issue with the cramped space of the dark, dingy basement. So his issues seem to pop up sporadically, and only when it can add more needless suspense to the plot.



Sonny also makes assurances to the Dean that the ‘incident’ that happened at his last school (his inappropriate relationship with a student) will never happen again. Yet in almost the very next scene what is he doing? Inviting his entire class (that he teaches on ‘witchcraft’) over to his home instead of holding class at the school. Why? Who knows. They hadn’t opened the crypt yet, so it wasn’t like it was some sort of field trip. He just decided to tempt fate, I reckon.



Despite not technically being related to the Witchcraft series, there is still a scene that involves spilling tomato juice in the kitchen. This time at least it isn’t meant to be sexy, but with all these similarities to other Witchcraft films, I’m beginning to see why it was so easy to link these films together.



I don’t know why, but THIS is how the priest decides to introduce himself to everybody–


The Church of England apparently sees itself as more fashion forward.

The greed of our friendly neighborhood plumber predictably comes back to bite him in the ass. But remember that this guy is also kind of an idiot, so his whole transformation into the warlock’s evil flunky winds up being very amusing. The best way I can think to describe it, is to tell you to try to imagine what would happen if Cousin Eddy from National Lampoon Vacation slowly became possessed. THAT’S how this guy acts. It’s amazing.



The method the priest uses to try to trap the warlock’s ghost isn’t some sort of exorcism, but to put coins in their mouths and ‘summon’ the spirit into a summoning…triangle, and try to force him into some pyramid shaped box that looks like the filmmakers were trying (and failing) to rip-off Hellraiser.


Are you two SURE this guy was sanctioned by the church? Like, ANY CHURCH?


Cause frankly, I have my doubts.

And finally, on a more amusing and less weird note, this movie actually did two things I found to be very amusing. The first is that it actually made Gayle, the ditzy blonde neighbor, more self-aware than you would otherwise expect from a character like her. First, she calls her husband out for being a grave robber after he shows her the cross he stole. But then she also tells him to take it back, because that’s ‘how curses start.’ So bravo movie, for making me like this silly nitwit.


Ironically, she may be the smartest person in the film.

And the second thing is that when Sonny and the Priest realize they can’t get their important cross back from Mitch themselves, the movie allows them to take the most practical route to get their property back. No, they don’t steal it. They just call the damn cops on him.


With him looking like that, I would have too.

Oh, and don’t think I forgot about the erotic part of this erotic/horror film! Because just like the last few Witchcraft films, they can’t get away from showing somebody’s boobs. Which also means I can’t get away from them either. Thankfully though there are a lot fewer of them this time. We’re back to a much more reasonable 5-6 as opposed to the 14 in the last film. But they are still here. And they’re still rather poorly shot. And usually unsexy. Which I feel sort of defeats their purpose.

Anyway, the best filmed one is the one where Mary Ann is alone with herself (sorry, Sonny). And I say this knowing full well that she’s supposed to be pleasuring herself, but what it ends up looking like is that the audience is perving on her while she performs her daily moisturizing ritual. But they at least tried with this one to make it look sexy, and not gross or creepy, so I’ll give them a small gold star for effort.



But that doesn’t mean much, because they’re already at a deficit with me due to the first sex scene they forced me to watch. Which involved the couple messily feeding one another in the least sexy way possible –


Aw yeah, this is attractive.

– Before getting it on while rolling around on the dirty kitchen floor and smearing… Did they pour a bottle of olive oil all over the linoleum before they started or something? What the hell… Where did that come from? Why is that there? Where is that horrible music coming from? Who thought that was sexy?! Somebody help me!!


Argh!

Thankfully the next time they go at it they do it on a four-poster bed and spare me the horrors of further dirty kitchen sex.


You’re telling me I had to watch that hideously disgusting kitchen scene when you had this gorgeous bed upstairs? Now I’m just mad.

But if you don’t like watching the hot chick make it with her (old professor) husband or watch her get all hot and bothered before she takes a bath, the movie does try three other ways to get YOU hot and bothered. Unfortunately though, two of them end up involving the warlock bewitching women. The first by disguising himself as Sonny and tricking the student who inexplicably has the hots for him into having sex (Wow, rape, very unsexy). And the second is some grinding with Mary Ann while both of them have their clothes on (also unsexy.) And the last is between the neighbors, Gayle and Mitch. Which you may find sexy if you’re into roleplay, but since that scene is mostly played for laughs your mileage may vary.


But hey, maybe you find Mitch hot? What do I know?

Let’s see, what am I forgetting? Oh right, the effects! They’re unsurprisingly awful. Or…well, at least the computer effects are awful. There’s a particularly ugly instance of face warping that looks like it was made with the same technology as a Windows95 screensaver, and the evil literally ‘leaks’ out of the house in the form of this red, glowing…I think it’s supposed to be mist. Or maybe smoke. Whatever it is, it looks crappy.





Mostly though, the film is nice enough to stick to practical effects. Granted, they’re still painfully cheap effects, but painfully cheap is still more than the last couple Witchcraft films attempted. There’s that giant bonfire, for one. And they had that fake skeleton and those demon prosthetics. There are some dead animals, one decapitation, the creepy lighting, and they painted some dude white and threw him in a blood soaked bathtub. Oh, and someone ripped their face off at the end. That was kinda neat. Course they also had one of those scenes where the furniture starts attacking you, which was filmed in a way that clearly indicates it was just some dudes pushing, throwing, and shaking various fixtures around the house. But in the film’s defense they filmed those moments well enough that I couldn’t see the hands of any staff members wiggling chairs. So even if it was kinda stupid looking, at least it wasn’t bad enough that they bungled their execution.





And thus I have completed Witchcraft VIII: Salem’s Ghost. Was it worth going through the trouble to watch it on a smaller online platform thanks to a single user who managed to upload it and get it past the copyright scanners by horizontally flipping the film to confuse the AI algorithms?



Eh, not really. I only had to suffer a little. But I didn’t have to sit through porn ads to watch it and it actually had a plot. So in that sense, I am content with this cheesy, cliche’d mess of a film. It still wasn’t very good, but it was amusing enough that it got a couple chuckles out of me. I still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone though. Especially if you have to pay for it. It’s just not worth it. So, uh, unless you’re just really obsessed with supernatural films, or maybe even Troma, you can joyfully skip this. At this point in the series the only people who should be suffering through these films are completionists (and maybe masochists).

Witchcraft VIII: Salem’s Ghost is available on a variety of streaming…locations. Mostly to rent or to buy (please do neither.)

Witchcraft VIII: Salem’s Ghost is also available on VHS. It never got an official DVD release (no matter what the internet may tell you).

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