Witchville [DVD]

Here are three words that chill the soul and petrify the senses: "SyFy Original Movie." It promises schlocky plots, horrible acting, and slapdash production values that make movie snobs cry.

And "Witchville" is.... not nearly as bad as most of SyFy's original movies. Most of this is due to the presence of the ever-awesome Luke Goss, whose mere presence elevates any movie he's in. It's a schlocky, cheesy sword-and-sorcery story that needed a bigger budget than it had, but it tries pretty hard with what it does have.

After of years of exile, Malachai (Goss) and his buddy Jason (Ed Speleers) return to their homeland after hearing that Malachai's royal dad has died. Unfortunately, the kingdom is being ravaged by a famine -- and according to a wandering witch-hunter named Kramer, the famine is due to witches. He also has a magic book about how to find and kill witches.

So Malachai, Kramer, Jason and a small number of warriors set out to find the Red Queen (Sarah Douglas), who commands all the witches, as well as her daughter Jozefa. However, they haven't reckoned with the Red Queen's power and cunning, or the secret reason she wants to conquer Malachai's kingdom.

"Witchville" is pretty much your standard sword-and-sorcery schlock -- it has a lot of age-old cliches (oh look, the pretty young witch is being reformed by a hot shirtless guy), the costumes are Word of Warcraft castoffs, the fight scenes are painfully bad, and the budget was obviously tiny (Malachai's "kingdom" appears to be ONE VILLAGE).

It's cheesy, but unlike most SyFy movies, it's not offensively stupid. And I have to admit, the people behind it did obviously try to make as good as a movie as possible. The plot is decent and moves at a steady pace, and the writers do pull a impressive switcheroo at the end that reverses a lot of the ideas we had about the characters.

And then... there's Luke Goss. I would watch a laxative commercial if it starred Luke Goss. The man has incredible presence, charisma and deep talent, and he gives a depth to his standard character that a lesser actor couldn't. And yes, he appears sweaty, shirtless and tied up. Douglas similarly seems like a cardboard villain for the first four-fifths of the movie, but breaks out into a passionate, tragic turn near the end.

The rest of the actors are a mixed bag. Most of them such as Xiaofei Zhou and Andrew Pleavin are so wooden you could hammer nails in them. Ed Speleers has gotten a lot better since his stint in "Eragon," but his character is so annoying that you'll probably wish someone had set HIM on fire. As for Simon Thorp as the witch-hunter, he gives a solid if very underused performance.

"Witchville" is no "Lord of the Rings," but it's also no "Mega-Shark Vs. Giant Octopus" -- it's brain candy with bad fight scenes and a great performance by Luke Goss. Expect high-fantasy cheez, and that is what you will get.

Any kudos that Luke Goss gained from 'Hellboy' and 'Death Race' is flushed down the pan in this Syfy made for tv swords and sorcery film. Its obviously low budget is reflected in the lack of numbers, in one scene Goss is giving a rousing speech from horseback that could have inspired an entire army - to a dozen grubby villagers and so it goes. The story is about a prince who is recalled to his kingdom by his dying father. When he gets back he finds he is too late, dad is dead and the land is under a blight. A mysterious stranger tells him it is due to witchery and leads him on a quest to find the village of the witches. On the way they pick up some nifty martial arts skilled Chinese bandits who help them. They find the witches, get their ass kicked and flee home to prepare to defend their own village.
At first I thought it was completely stupid; a king of a village with about a dozen soldiers, but looking back through history there probably was a time like this. Parts of Africa certainly had tiny kingdoms so perhaps not so dumb. If Syfy had played it down to that level it might not have been so laughable.
Filmed in China with some Chinese cast members and martial arts moves a lot of the film looks quite good and there are some nice touches but overall it is a flop. Filmed on the scale of 'Lord of the Rings' it could have been superb.

This so-called series should've been much longer and more thought through. I had hoped for something better, considering Luke Goss is the main character and he usually ends up making movies, in my taste, better by making an appearrance at all.

I think the movie itself leaves the watcher behind with a ginormous cliffhanger by the end, and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't seem like there's actually going to be a sequel, however with this low budget it's not really a bother to me.

The cover so far is extremely misleading, because the Asian woman in the lower part of the picture has next to no importance in the movie or its plot at all.

It lacks story and multiple explanations to make the watcher interested, the few fighting sequenses the movie holds (which is surprising since this is a medieval movie, where swordfighting should be all over the place) are poorly and half-heartedly made, even with Luke's impressive combat skills I know he has. But all in all the movie does not bring justice to the talent Luke Goss has in his acting.

I'd personally stick to watching Braveheart rather than re-watch this..