good back-story, and good acting

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Blistering performances.

There are moments in Witchery that approach the madcap goofball lunacy of La Casa 3. But you have to really search for them. Just by looking at the cast - Linda Blair! David Hasselhoff! - that you'd be in for a much crazier ride. This has even been titled Ghosthouse II, but make no mistake. This ain't no Ghosthouse.An angry mob chases a pregnant woman to a house where she dives from a window, like Oliver Reed in Burnt Offerings. I say like because it's the exact same shot. Jane (Blair) wakes from the dream, which is never explained.Don't worry. This movie has no interest in story. And I don't mean that in a Fulci kind of way, like an absolute film. No, this movie does the things where you'd expect a story to happen and ignores them.But hey, let's talk about our heroes. Gary (Hasselhoff) and Leslie are a couple who have decided to head off to an island to do research on witchcraft. They are there because some weird lights show up on the beach. Also - Leslie is a virgin. That's right. A virgin. It will be mentioned again. And again. And just when you think it's been mentioned too many times, it will be mentioned again.Jane's younger brother and her parents are all coming to the island too. Her parents want to turn it into a club, so they bring the architect, Linda (Leslie Cumming, in her second straight piece of shit on our site after Robowar) and the realtor's son.Oh yeah - this method actress went crazy and haunts the island. She kills the boat captain who brings them there to start. She kills off the majority of the cast in ways that echo the seven deadly sins for reasons that are never explained. Yes, things like motivation, the hero's journey and the three-act structure are all ignored by this film. That's forgivable if crazy shit happens. Sure, there's demon sex, but it feels like too little, too late (the most out of context sentence I've written in 2018!). There's also a woman impaled on a swordfish and Hasselhoff getting a blood bukkake, so if you just edit down those scenes into a 3 minute or so supercut, this is a much better film. Like this scene, where Hasselhoff discusses his childhood friend.What blows my mind is that Tommy - the little brother - has a tape recorder that fits into the plot and it's totally a Sesame Street model. You'd think they'd want their brand to not appear in a movie where a demon's penis makes a woman's vagina start bleeding.Hey look - any movie where David Hasselhoff gets impaled can't be all bad. But Witchery sure tries. If only it pushed itself to be as deliriously stupid as Troll 2 or as devoted to gore as, well, take your pick of Fulci haunted house films. But you do get a pregnant and possessed Linda Blair - poor Linda - chasing folks around a house before doing a swan dive to her doom.The end of this film is a shock ending that has nothing to do with anything that came before. A nurse comes in to tell Leslie that Tommy is fine and so is her baby. She answers, "My baby?" The screen loses color and then a totally 80's schmaltzy love song plays. Seriously, you gotta hear this shit to believe it. It redeems much of the film.I watched the ending three times in a day to write this and I couldn't remember any of it. That should either point to how many movies I watch or how uninspiring this film is.

Where to start? This movie is such a mish-mash, such a hodge-podge. Hasselhoff plays Hasselhoff, including scenes with his shirt off to display his slightly hairy and muscular chest, ha ha ha. Linda Blair doesn't go topless, though, and that might have been her redemption for the performance she put in. Hildegarde Kneff was the star for me, with her bewitching accent and ominous posing. Delicious. The "plot" is a laugh. The rape scene is unpleasant. A few scenes of violence are quite well-done, e.g. the lip-sewing, while some others seem to be from the 1950s, lamentable and amateurish. This film dates from 1988, just before Hasselhoff made his mark in Baywatch, but years after Blair had spun her head around and thrown up green soup in The Exorcist. HA HA HA HA HA Rates a 3 overall for me... worth watching for the overall amusement, but it is a BAD movie.

Illustrious thespian David Hasselhoff co-stars with Linda Blair and assorted other American actors in this Massachusetts-filmed 4th entry into the "La Casa" series of Italian horror films. The plot centers around an old resort hotel on an off shore island that Freddy (Robert Champagne) and Rose Brooks (jazz singer / occasional actress Annie Ross) want to turn into a fixer-upper opportunity. Taking the journey with them to the island are his pregnant daughter Jane (Blair), his very young son Tommy (Michael Manchester), an immensely sexy blonde architect (Catherine Hickland), and a real estate agent (Rick Farnsworth). Already at the location are a would-be writer (Leslie Cumming), who's researching the history of the area, and her photographer boyfriend Gary (The Hoff). In ones and twos they get knocked off by a German film star / witch (the striking Hildegard Knef).You know you can't say much about the cast when The Hoff delivers one of the better performances. Some of these portrayals are pretty abysmal, especially from Cumming, who's very attractive but whose personality is utterly drab, and child actor Manchester. But director Fabrizio Laurenti and company make up for that with some general weirdness and atmosphere. 80s horror fans will be delighted to note that the horror is extremely sadistic, with some gruesome fates in store for some of our characters. One unfortunate has their lips sewn shut, and is tied up and hung upside down inside a chimney where, you guessed it, a fire eventually gets lit. Among the other highlights: The Hoff getting hit in the face with a splatter of fake blood, Linda getting possessed - again - and an ingenious cut around the 71 minute mark. The makeup effects by Maurizio Trani are pretty good, overall.Decent viewing for lovers of Italian horror.Seven out of 10.

An Italian horror movie with so many juicy AKA titles and starring both Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff... I mean, that has got to be worth it, right? "Witchery" is not even as inept as Umberto Lenzi's "Ghosthouse" - or maybe it is - and it's about as much fun. Hassle Da Hoff is always worth a few chuckles, if you ask me. Linda Blair gets to play her possessed self again, with an exploded hairdo this time. "Witchery" also features a handful of pretty memorable killings (lips sewn tight and burned in the fireplace, pulsating veins popping & squirting and bleeding to death, nailed to the cross and burned like a witch upside down, etc). This movie really ain't wrapped too tight, and there lies the beauty of it all: Italian genre movies from the 80's are usually a pretty bonkers affair altogether (that ghostly rape of a virgin was a winner! - yes, there's boobies). Safe to say I enjoyed "Witchery", more than I thought I would . Both Lenzi's first one (Italian title: "La Casa 3") and this unrelated, unofficial second film are recommended viewings if you like your haunted house stuff trashy, gory and Italian-style. Much like a big, greasy pizza, these movies aren't exactly nutritious, but they're tasty as hell.