Out of Season

 

 (imdb)

SEASON OF THE WITCH-2011-During the Black Plague, two former Crusaders Bemant (Nicholas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) are dispatched by a dying, scarred cardinal (Christopher Lee) to deliver a witch (really a demon) to a group of monks who can destroy her power and break the plague. Good luck, I mean to the viewer, not them. 

Despite Nicholas Cage's deadpan performance, many of the characters dialogue seems modern and out of place. The CGI sfx are pretty LORD OF THE RINGS inspired. With the line: “We're going to need more holy water”. Director Dominic Sena had made GONE IN 60 SECONDS (2000), also with Cage.

Thanks for reading!

More Dead

I SELL THE DEAD-2008-In this comedy horror story a grave robber named Arthur (LORD OF THE RINGS's Dominic Managhan) awaiting execution for (of course) grave robbing and murder tells his life story to a priest (Ron Perlman who starred in HELLBOY 2 the same year). He learns his trade from Willie (indie director Larry Fessenden also one of the producers) (who has already been executed). They dig up many corpses mostly for Dr. Quint (PHANTASM's Angus Scrimm) but run into trouble when they unearth a woman who's wearing a garlic necklace. When they remove the garlic she comes to life and tries to kill them. Willie manages to drive a stake through her heart and they deliver the body to Quint who removes the stake and is killed. Later the two have a fight with another guy over the body of an alien. It turns out the guy is from a notorious group of grave robbers known as The House Murphy. Arthur's new girlfriend Brenda Cooney gets them into trouble on an island where some dead come back to life. The body snatching duo then have a falling out.  The ending is fairly ridiculous but before the final credits roll the old Universal Pictures tag line "A fine cast is worth repeating" is used. Directed by Glen McQuaid.

Thanks for reading!

Aliens & Vikings

OUTLANDER-2008-An alien named Kainan (Jim Caviezel; Jesus in Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST) crash lands on Earth during the time of The Vikings, who are lead by the old Hrothgar (John Hurt, acting a little John Carradine-ish at times). He thinks Kainan is a spy. Unfortunately for the violent unkempt barbarians Kainan has brought along a little extra company in the form of something called a Moorwen, sort of an ALIEN inspired monster that likes to eat people and animals. The Moorwen was a stowaway on Kainan's space ship when it crashed landed. Even though The Vikings believe in Norse gods, frost giants, Valhalla and such they have a problem with Kainan's story even after they are attacked and several warriors are killed. Later a search party kills a giant bear and they all think the trouble is over and Kainen becomes "one of them".

Zack Huston plays Wulfric, the rival to Kainan for the affections of Freya (Sophia Myles who was in the first two UNDERWORLD movies). Ron Perlman is Gunnar the leader of an enemy tribe who winds up teaming up with them to stop the still living Moorwen. Together they devise a trap to kill the creature but it doesn't exactly work.

Although this derivative nonsense was inspired by PATHFINDER and THE LORD OF THE RINGS it also owes props to Roger Corman's ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES! Director Howard McCain wrote the sequel UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS.

Thanks again to Tony and to anyone reading this!