Warlock: The Armageddon (1993)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Warlock is back. So is the threat of armageddon. A team of druids must stop him from collecting magic rocks that will summon Satan to destroy the world. Two of those druids are hormonal teens. And they are in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• TriMark pictures. The mark of excellence. 
• Kudos to Julian Sands to reprise his most famous role. I’m sure he was extremely busy or had to turn down many offers to do Shakespeare in the Park or something like that. But he loved this role so much and really agreed with Anthony Hickox’s vision for the character. Respect.
• A bit redundant to subtitle this sequel “The Armageddon.” The first one he tried to bring about the end of the world too. It’s kinda his thing. That’s pretty much all he knows what to do.
• “Throughout time, people known as the druids have used their mystical powers to protect the earth from evil.” No one knows who they were or what they were doing…
• That lady must be giving birth to a porcupine the way she’s in anguish. 
• One of the druids looks like David Crosby. 

• This is the best Medieval Times dinner theatre ever!

• Hey it’s the prefrosh kid from PCU. 
• And he has the hots for the reverend’s daughter Samantha. 
• A rival suitor bully is threatening and harassing Kenny for liking Samantha and a witness to this is the police captain from the Lethal Weapon movies who I’m assuming is a modern day Druid and uses his magic to activate the sprinklers to scare off the bullies. But wouldn’t that also make Kenny all wet too?
• Lightning strikes somewhere and the Druid guy notices something on the ground. He says it’s the “sign of his birth” but it just looks like an R. 
• Almost saw boobs. 
• This movie doesn’t want to explain much but I just watched some lady give birth to a giant alien brain after she saw a lunar eclipse.
• Never seen anyone give birth while wearing thigh-high fishnet stockings. Mixed emotions here.

• The brain kills her dog and grows into a full grown Julian Sands with a horrible pageboy haircut. It was actually a pretty well done effect.
• This lady, before the birth, was preparing for a nice candle-lit date in her apartment. Was she waiting for an actual date or is she waiting for the Warlock? Was she misinformed as to the arrival of the Warlock? She wasn’t pregnant at all (AT ALL) but after seeing the lunar eclipse and while wearing the rune stone the Warlock just came to life inside her magically.
• Oh the Druid guy is Kenny’s dad? Was he stalking his son earlier in case he was bullied?
• Warlock communicates to a dark lord of some sort through the dead body of the girl. Her torso then starts to flame up and peel. Warlock picks it up and turns it over revealing a crude map of the United States with magical blood forming a route from New Jersey to Chicago. Still more accurate than Mapquest. 

• Zach Galligan!!! He was the date. Now he’s dead because the Warlock is now wearing his clothes.Nothing quite like a Zach Galligan cameo.  
• This whole time I thought Kenny was having a dream since he was happy and kissing Samantha. But it was true. So he’s already dating her? Then what was that whole scene with the bully? This movie made it seem that Kenny wanted to win the girl from the bully who was kissing her on stage for a Romeo & Juliet production.
• Steve Kahan is friends with 2 other druids in this town. One played Norris from The Thing and the other guy was Pruneface from Dick Tracy. 
• This Kenny/Samantha lovers spat is going nowhere. 
• Too many closeups in this flick. 
• For some ritual, Kahan had to shotgun his son in the belly. Typical father-son bonding ritual, you know? Some like to play catch, learn how to shave, pump the kids guts full of lead buckshot. 
• Again this film doesn’t explain anything. The druids are preparing Kenny’s body with magic and bringing him back to life. With magic sparkles! No explanation. Kahan even tells Kenny that he should calm down so he can explain but then we cut to another scene. 

• You know what this supernatural Warlock movie needs? A scene with runway models at a fashion show. 
• Oh one of the models has one of the 5 runestones that the Warlock needs to bring the end of the world. Again this will barely be explained. 
• Thongs! Boobs!
• WarSchlock!
• Warlock can’t just take the runestone but the lady has to willingly give it to him. He levitates with her many yards up in the sky. She believes him that he’s a Warlock, gives him the stone and then he drops her. Seriously what was stopping him from killing her in the first place and taking the stone?!

• We get some exposition finally from Kahan that every 600 years the devil is allowed to escape hell but he needs his son, the Warlock, to help him between the lunar and solar eclipse which spans just 6 days. That doesn’t make a lick of scientific sense.
• God gave the druids special powers to protect the world from this happening every 600 years. I guess God goes golfing in those 6 days leaving the druids to mind the store?
• Oh shit I just realized the reverend is Bruce Glover—father of Crispin Glover!
• So this film, so far, has nothing to do with the first film. You can watch them interchangeably and it wouldn’t matter. This is essentially a reboot.
• The Warlock arrives in this cowpoke town in a taxi cab wherein he forced the driver to take him to Chicago. Pulling into the gas station we see the driver is now dead. Soon after the Warlock is asking the attendant if that obvious fast car is a fast car. Did he have to kill the taxi driver or did the taxi driver kill himself?
• The druids are performing some magical ritual at their house and whatever they’re doing is severely hurting the Warlock.  But do they know it’s hurting him or is this an added bonus to whatever it is they’re doing? And if they are planning this on hurting him why aren’t they doing this 24/7?
• The gas station attendant tells the Warlock that he needs to take him to the hospital because he’s losing a lot of blood. The Warlock then mutters, “Well fill me up.” Get it?!? Because his name is Phil!
• Is he a Warlock or a vampire? Make up your mind. 
• Kahan explains (finally) that his son was born at a perfect time and that means he’s a Druid warrior. This is the same actor that was John Candy’s oldest son in The Great Outdoors. 
• Great full moon visual. Was that photocopied?
• Kenny is now going through Jedi training. His dad tells him to not trust his eyes. And now he can control things with his mind. This took Kenny about 7 seconds to accomplish. 

• OK let me get this straight. The druids are protectors of the Earth right? But they are getting old and need a younger Druid warrior to defend against the coming Warlock. They know they only have 6 days to stop him but need some of those days to train the kid in the Druid-Jedi-magic ways. I guess my question is, why didn’t they train Kenny like months ago? Did they forget that this was the year? Even if they don’t know the exact year they should’ve expected it soon since the eclipse starts the cycle. Eclipses don’t just randomly occur. I mean Kenny is at least 17 years old so they had plenty of time to train him for a few years even. Terrible procrastinators these druids be.
• The funny thing is they don’t have that much faith that he’ll be a perfect Druid warrior either so they’re whole plan is FUBAR anyway. 
• Are they kidding me with that horrible matte painting of a circus tent?! They couldn’t get an actual circus tent to film in real life?!
• Hey it’s Michu Meazaros! You know, the dwarf actor from Waxwork and who played ALF!
• There’s no way this flick is going to explain how this carny got in possession of one of the magical runestones. I’d bet my kids’ college tuition that we will never know how the runestones got to where they are now.
• This is the second time the screen is showing a poorly done depth of field having both close-up actors and faraway actors in focus in the same shot.
• The Warlock grows annoyed at the dwarf and picks him up like he was a sack of potatoes and drags him over to the iron maiden with spikes and kills him. At least he didn’t toss him.

• Now he’s playing mind games in the house of mirrors with the carny like Mysterio in the Spider-Man comics. I love horror movies where the mystical villain has various unexplained powers.
• He tricks the carny into giving him the stone. And then he traps him inside the mirror. 
• Some time ago Kenny’s dad told the reverend that there needs to be two to stop the Warlock but the reverend forbids Samantha to be involved. So now a third of the movie’s conflict is going to be wasted with Kenny convincing Samantha AND her father in joining him on his quest.
• Is the Reverend really a Christian priest? But also a Druid? Did he convert?
• Ethan, one of the other druids, took the special Druid dagger without telling the others and he took it upon himself to go on a quest. He luckily finds himself in the same elevator as Warlock in some corporate office building. He tries to kill Warlock but he is annihilated with the whole elevator painted with his entrails and blood. But the funny thing is Kahan and company just realized the dagger is missing with Ethan. Did they never notice he was gone for a few days? And they never bothered to check on the one weapon that can kill Warlock?!
• The Warlock ignores the secretary, but then tells her to shut up and magically seals her mouth up. He enters the office of this executive and the shocked executive says “How’d you get past my secretary?!” Hahaha. Did he assume she was armed or had martial arts skills? She’s not a bouncer dude. 
• This guy has a runestone obviously but what I want to know is how either Ethan or the Warlock know how to find these stones?! I know the Warlock has a map made of human flesh but it’s not that accurate with town names or anything. Just a blood stain on an nondescript map. I doubt it gave an exact address.
• Wait a moment. The Warlock has 3 stones already? We only saw him get 2. Where’d he get the 3rd? Did they cut that scene out to save time?
• Some of these kills are creatively done. He just transformed this art dealer guy into an abstract statue. The effects were awful but A for effort. 

• Chris Young can’t even sneeze convincingly. 
• Now he’s chatting to a squirrel and kisses it. 
• Holy shit these effects are fucking terrible even for 1993!

• Samantha realized that she too is a Druid warrior and commits hari kari with a kitchen knife. 
• Now the two kids are ready and pumped to save the world. Go team Druid!
• We cut to a big rig truck and it drops off a very angry woman on the side of the road. She yells back at the truck “I bet you never let your wife do that!” Umm. What did that lady do for a ride? Wouldn’t it have made more sense if she said: “I bet your wife never let you do that.” Right?
• Not to fear, Warlock is here to offer the lady a ride. See, he’s not all bad.
• This lady is such a slut that she’s coming on to the Warlock despite him already being fine in giving her a ride. 
• Why did the Warlock pick her up anyway? He’s acting so indifferent towards her and not harming her in the least. He doesn’t even want to talk to her. Baffling.
• She’s complaining about her hair after he declines her advances. He then rips her hair off completely off her scalp and throws her out of the car killing her. Not too shabby of a death. Shame that this passes for a good kill so far in this flick.

• For some reason, Warlock’s flesh map (ewww) is decomposing and he wipes it with the lady’s scalp and it magically comes back to show him the way.
• This is essentially a Warlock road movie. He travels from NYC to Californ-I-A. It’s the Warlockball Run!
• Hahahahaha. Andy, the bully from earlier in the film, starts harassing Sam and Kenny and Sam uses her Druid powers to force choke him. When Andy leaves she says, “I thought we were supposed to use our powers to help people?”
• “You know, druids would often make love before going off to battle.” Oldest line in the book Kenny. 
• The Warlock comes to Kenny’s town and kills a woman. The next day the townsfolk are staring aghast at her body crucified upside down in front of the church. Will Travis (Kenny’s dad) and the reverend move the crowd away to see the woman’s upside down dead body and Will demands that they cut her down. The townsfolk then angrily yell that the druids should cut her down and that they’re Satanists. I’m just laughing because why didn’t they take her down when they first found her and why are they all standing around her just staring at her?

• HEY! It’s George “Buck” Flower! Crazy drunk druids.
• Before the mob gets violent Kenny uses his Jedi mind powers to distract them with a flying baseball. 
• So I thought they’re were 5 runestones total. I double-checked and yeah just 5. Earlier when I questioned how the Warlock got the 3rd when he was getting the 4th from the executive was justified because now he’s getting the 4th from Pruneface as he tortured him and just a scene back Kenny told Sam to guard the 5th. So either the Warlock had one fake stone when he got the real 3rd or this movie messed up. (*According to IMDb they say there are 5 stones. Wikipedia says 6. I think Wikipedia is right because how could they mess up like that? I’m thinking the first stone was from the woman who birthed him.) 
• Kenny confronts the Warlock and the Warlock simply uses magic to thrust Kenny out of the store and he lands on a pipe impaling him. But not killing him. It was a pretty big pipe right in his chest. Kenny’s chest, like Chris Young’s acting, is hollow.
• Now there’s a semi-interesting wizards duel. Kenny tries to set the Warlock on fire. Warlock easily extinguishes it and yells at the sky: “Is this the best you can do!?” I’m saying the same thing about the filmmakers.
• The Warlock then controls a car to try to run over Kenny but Kenny stops the car with a manhole cover. With Kenny still impaled and lying on the street, Warlock probably could’ve just stabbed him to death but sure control a car. And how does a manhole cover stop a speeding car like that?!
• Why are the Druid elders using simple shotguns? Aren’t they supposed to have powers? Are they loaded with Druid bullets?
• I should make a highlight reel of nothing but the shoddy special effects. Warlock is slowly walking down from the buildings roof as if he’s walking down a flight of stairs. He flew to get the stone from that one chick so why is he slowly walking down invisible stairs?

• Come to think of it, why did he drive cross-country when he has the power of flight? Too much energy depletion perhaps?
• Anyway the Warlock shoots them with his finger guns. I’m not joking. Wish I was. He even blows the smoke from his finger barrels.
• Somehow Will is still alive and brings Kenny back to life. This is getting tiresome. 
• Meanwhile Sam is luring the Warlock away from the town on a moped. You won’t believe how awful the Warlock’s flying effects look. 
• Is Julian Sands a pariah in English acting? I feel like he could have a greater career and seems classically trained but the fact I only know him from these Warlock movies and Arachnophobia (*AND VIBES!) leads me to believe he’s not well liked. Usually English actors get better roles than what he’s done.
• Kenny comes to Sam’s rescue but is easily dispatched by the Warlock using Sam Raimi’s tree limb attack powers. 
• Why the Warlock lets Kenny and Sam watch him summon the devil instead of just killing them is a question that will never be answered.
• The Warlock uses the 5 6 stones to summon Satan but Kenny tells Sam to turn on the truck’s headlights which somehow hinders the process and harms the Warlock. Really? Halogen light is the key to stopping evil? Not sunlight but car headlamps! Holy shit is this stupid.
• They forgot all about that dagger didn’t they?
• Oh here it is in the Warlock’s back pocket. You would think it would be too wholesome for someone evil to touch. 
• Now the Warlock and Kenny are fighting over the dagger with their mind control when the Warlock could very easily reach the dagger in the air and stick it in Kenny’s chest because he’s that close to Kenny. 
• Anyway goodness prevails and the Warlock gets the point when Sam and Kenny combine their Jedi mind powers.
• The Warlock just melts into a puddle of black goo that sinks into the dirt. What a world…what a world.
• Oh just end. We don’t need to see Sam pick up all the stones. 
• Hilariously the Warlock’s skeletal arm reaches out to grab one of the stones and actually drags it back down with him. Wasn’t it just turned to black goo?!

 

Was it Entertaining: The first Warlock was. This one?

Any Good Gore: Most kills are done off screen or done magically like the fella turned into the work of art. The hitchhiker getting scalped and thrown out of the moving car onto a street sign was the goriest we get.

Any Nudity: At the fashion show we got blink-and-you-miss-them shots of boobs and thonged behinds.

Best Quote: This being my 7th entry this month I’m very disappointed by the lack of decent quotes in the flicks I’m watching. However, this quote I found funny because Samantha is clearly annoyed that she had to harm the bully: “I thought we were supposed to use our powers to help people?”

Best Scene: When Kenny is training and failing and he falls down and talks to a squirrel. Just kidding, Warlock’s birth and transformation was probably the best. Maybe.

Worst Scene: The scene where the townsfolk are just crowded around a homicide scene in front of the church was laugh out loud hysterical. 

Final Thoughts: Sequels are hard. I get that. You want to honor the past success but also want to be original enough to stand on your own merits. It’s a tight-rope. While the first Warlock was fun and exciting to watch and was very well made, this sequel pales in comparison. Shoddy effects, weak plot, mediocre acting and forgettable score are how I would desire this flick. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t like it enough to ever revisit it either. Kinda wish they made this a direct sequel and continued from the last one with Lori Singer and/or Richard E. Grant instead of this stinker of a cast in this one. They still could’ve kept the druid magic vs. Warlock magic stuff. Oh well. Oh well indeed.

Score: 4 Squirrel Kisses (out of ten)