Season of the Witch is a 2011 supernatural-themed action adventure period film starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman as former Crusade Knights who must transport a witch to a monastery. Naturally things do not go well.Not to be confused with Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
The film provides the following tropes:
Actor Allusion: Felson would rather hang than be burnt to death. After all, he probably didn't have much fun the last time.
A House Divided: Subverted. It looks like the witch is trying to turn the group against each other, but she's only removing anyone who'll stop her from getting to the abbey.
Artistic License - Biology: The Black Death is portrayed as a leprosy-like disease that causes boils all over the face and hideously disfigures its victims. In reality, the disease, by most accounts, only caused swellings in the lymph glands (the throat, armpits and groin).
The Atoner: Behman feels guilty over accidentally killing a woman during a siege. The Demon later mocks him for thinking that saving the accused girl would atone for the far greater number of innocents he's killed.
Body Count Competition: Loser buys the drinks. You take the 300 on the left, I'll take the 300 on the right. However they note, that will just leave the score at 300:300.
Behman: Fine I guess I'll just have to kill all 600 myself.
Boisterous Bruiser: Felson, greatly enjoys his fights and is quite a fun guy overall.
Burn the Witch!: Averted in the prologue where three accused witches are shown being hanged, then drowned in case they're Not Quite Dead. Unfortunately for the priest carrying out the ritual, one of them definitely isn't.
Butt Monkey: Through the course of the movie, the all ready unfortunately named Debelzaq gets stabbed through his palm with his own cross, rope burns on both of his hands, a lot of accusations of molesting the witch. And he dies without much of a fanfare
Cardboard Prison: It turns out the girl could have escaped from her cage at any time.
Evil Plan: The villain is a demon that seeks the only book with the knowledge to banish it back to hell in order to destroy it and the entire movie is the heroes helping them find it. Also a case of Using You All Along.
Heel Realization: At the start of the film when Behman and Felson find themselves killing innocent women and children, they realize what they've been doing and decide to desert the crusades.
Heroic Sacrifice: both Behman and Felson die to give Kay time to complete the spell.
Irony: Early in the film, Ron Perlman said he would rather be hung to death than burned. During the climax of the film He is incinerated alive in the demon's "bear hug"
MacGuffin: The Key of Solomon, which is the whole reason for the journey.
Naked on Revival: When the Demon is destroyed, Anna — the girl it was possessing — reappears in its place naked.
Neck Lift: The Demon does this to Behman. For priests it prefers the Neck Snap.
No Name Given: The witch, though it's finally subverted at the end of the film when she's exorcised and introduces herself as Anna.
Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Nic Cage and Ron Perlman play 14th century Europeans with broad American accents. Bizarrely inverted with the supporting characters, most of whom were played by British or European actors. The director apparently instructed them all to speak with American accents, presumably to blend in with the lead actors. Unfortunately, none of them were using the same American accent. And very few of them were using it consistently.
Our Zombies Are Different: They're people who have died of plague who have become possessed by minor demons. Cutting off their head works just as well though.
In TV spots, it is revealed that the witch turns into a demon
The beginning of the movie implies that the girl might just be a misunderstood innocent caught in a witch hunt. Anyone who's seen a trailer for the movie knows this isn't the case.
The trailer gives away the fact that the inhabitants of the monastery have been turned into zombies.
Use Your Head: Felson is quite fond of this. Unfortunately it doesn't work on Demons.
Xanatos Gambit: The heroes are charged with taking their prison to a monastary for trial and possible execution but whether they arrive safely or not works to their prisoner's advantage. If any of them try to kill her before they get there, out of paranoia or whatever, murder is a cardinal sin. If any of them die before reaching the monastary, the Demon has less interference to destroying the book needed to send it back to Hell. The heroes are leading them right to it.
You Said You Would Let Me Go: In the prologue, one of the accused witches confesses thinking her life will be spared.
Accused: "Wait, you said you would spare me!"
Priest: "Your soul, child. But your body must be consigned to God for absolution."
0 reviews