Hotel do Terror

From the people who brought you Troll 2, here's another one that will make you scratch your head so much that you'll draw blood. Witchery, upon first glance, seems like any other haunted house/possession flick, but upon further inspection, it's anything but. Featuring both Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff (guess they were trying to target that German market?), Witchery is one of those movies you finish and, for the longest time, you think it was something you dreamnt about.

This is in no small part to the female lead's performance that can only be described as somnambulist. It's as if she's reading from cue cards or her performance is being channeled via another spirit that's possessing her. It's a thing of bad movie beauty.

Gore fans will find a lot to enjoy as people get their lips sewn shut in extreme close up.

An Italian/American co-production co-starring Linda Blair and David 'The Hoff' Hasselhoff: how could any fan of trashy horror resist such a treat?

Well, based on the uneventful, extremely tedious, and utterly nonsensical first forty minutes or so, I would have said 'very easily'; thankfully, however, things do eventually get a tad more entertaining with the introduction of several inventive death scenes, and for those lucky enough to find an uncut copy, a smattering of nudity too (unfortunately, my copy was optically edited to remove such offensive material).

The Hoff stars as Gary, a photographer who accompanies his beautiful girlfriend Leslie (Leslie Cumming) to a run-down hotel on a seemingly deserted island in order to take pictures for her latest project, a book about witches; whilst there, frustrated Gary also hopes to try and cure a bad case of blue balls by relieving Leslie of her virginity.

His plans for nookie are scuppered, however, by the unexpected arrival of property developers Freddie and Rose Brooks (Robert Champagne and Annie Ross), their pregnant daughter Jane (Blair), son Tommy (Michael Manchester), pretty nymphomaniac architect Linda Sullivan (Catherine Hickland), and estate agent Jerry (Rick Farnsworth), who have come to inspect the island's hotel.

After explaining their unexpected presence on the island, Gary and Leslie are welcomed by the property's new owners, and when a violent storm suddenly picks up, making it perilous to return to the mainland, everyone agrees to spend the night in the old building. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the hotel's new guests, the place is also home to the spirit of an evil witch (Hildegard Knef), who requires human sacrifices in order to bring herself back to life. One by one, victims are pulled into a swirling red vortex (which is guaranteed to provide unintentional laughs), before meeting a terrible fate.

None of this makes much sense, and the acting is atrocious (Manchester as Tommy is particularly bad, whilst Hasselhoff proves to be one of the better performers, which speaks volumes about the others), but those viewers who make it past the dreary first half are rewarded with some pretty decent moments of gore: Rose has her lips sewn together, before being roasted alive in a fireplace; Jerry is crucified and burnt alive; Linda is tortured by hags and impaled on a swordfish(!!); Freddie's veins pulsate and erupt in geysers of blood; and Gary gets stabbed in the back.

Oh, and Leslie is raped by a guy with no lips and Blair gets possessed (again).

Dear Lord, I wrote a brief synopsis but I guess most of it got edited out. I have got to give it another try. Let me start out by saying. Have you every wanted to rent a horror movie so badly because it was so awful, you knew it would make you laugh your head off?, Well my friends, this is the movie. Don't get me wrong, I Love Linda Blair but this film is a riot from hell. As I stated in my previous notation, Annie Ross who plays Linda's Mother "Rose" in the film actually makes the film hilarious. She is convinced that this abandoned Motel out on an island is going to really be an investment, when they all arrive to view the place, Annie Ross says, "This place is a wreck!, it's going to take a G-damn fortune to fix it up".

The driver of the boat that has to take the prospective buyers out to the Motel, says, "You had better be ready here before sundown or I am leaving". Annie says, "Hard Nose Bastard". Her husband in the film is a flirt from the work go, he makes pass after pass at the real estate sales person "Linda", who really is hot but she wouldn't give him the time of day, just tease the hell out of him. If you really want to see a horror movie that was done so poorly, please rent this one. I watched it over and over again because I needed a good laugh, and I get one every time I rent this film.

Linda Blair plays a pregnant lady in the film and goes up to the rest room and sits on the side of the bathtub and begins to open up a bottle of pills, can't get the top off the pills and drops them into this bathtub filled with black water. Something unknown grabs her hand and pulls her through the drain (can you believe it), and she finds herself underground watching some kind of Satanic ritual, passes out and then miraculously wakes up on the floor of the bathroom on her back saying, "My Baby, my Baby". What was that all about?, I sure can't figure it out. Back to "Rose", she is disgusted to the point of no return and says to Linda Blair, "Jane, give me one of your pills", Linda can't find them and believes they must have dropped on the bathroom floor", so Rose says, "WELL THEN, They must still be there"!!!! duh duh. Needless today, each member starts to disappear and of course Rose goes first, after they underground Satanic people tie her lips together, they hang her upside down in the fireplace.

The remainder of the family,(unbeknownst to them, supposedly,), decide they are cold and want to build a fire. Rose gets microwaved to a crisp, because get this, eventually they start to smell a funny smell coming from the fireplace and then within seconds Rose's body drops almost all the way down in plain view, and when the family realizes it's Rose, all they say is, "Oh, we've got to get out of here". Can you believe it? Gosh what a gas. Rose is supposed to be Linda Blair's' Mother but Linda calls her "Rose" throughout the entire film. There are so many mistakes on this film you would laugh your rear off just counting the mistakes. I would guess that It may have cost the producers about 5,000 dollars to make the film and I would guess it made about 2,000 dollars. That's about 100.00 dollars for each actor. Oh man, I've got to go because I am laughing so hard right now, I can barely type. Go get this film, you've just got to. And if you like Linda Blair, there are about eight or nine movie of this same quality, let me know I'll email you the titles. One is called Grotesque. You've have to get this movie at a movie place that specializes in dull old crap. I'll tell you another film, that it about 10 times funnier than Witchery, "A Woman Obsessed", now this film you will totally pass out laughing at this one, it puts Witchery to shame. I love ya Linda, but ya got to make better choices.

David Hassellhoff seemed to be lost in this film, not because it was a bad movie, but because it was so far from his days in knight rider, well only a few years, maybe his cash was drying up and he needed a top up, and Linda Blair, well you only have to look at her whatever movie she is in and the Exorcist comes flooding back. But even still this film was pretty good, and was still quite entertaining, especially the scene where the nagging old hag gets her mouth stitched together, and as if that was not enough is left dangling upside down in a chimney over a burning fireplace, just ignore the fuzzy picture and take it for what it is, A low budget gore feast.

A group of people are stranded at an isolated hotel by an evil witch (Hildegard Knef) who possesses them and kills them. I don't understand why the rating for this film is so low on IMDB. It's well made by the standards of the horror genre and featuring a good performance by Knef, some seriously scary scenes, and good effects. It is however unrelently mean and cruel. Unrated; Extreme Violence, Rape, and Profanity.