Horror film directed by Steve Miner and starring Julian Sands,
Richard E. Grant, and Lori Singer. The story opens in the year 1691, where the eponymous villain (Sands) is sent 300 years into the future, arriving in
1991 (technically 1988, as the film was completed in that year, but didn't find a distributor until 3 years later). He is pursued by witch-hunter Giles Redferne (Grant).
The Warlock is tasked by
Satan with finding the three parts of the
Grand Grimoire, which contains the true name of
God. Redferne meets Kassandra, a young woman who was cursed by the Warlock to age rapidly until she dies of old age, and informs her that speaking God's true name backwards will cause
The End of the World as We Know It. So Redferne and Kassandra join forces to stop the Warlock before he finds all three parts of the Grand Grimoire.
The film was followed by two sequels,
Warlock: The Armageddon (1993) and
Warlock III: The End of Innocence (1999).
Not to be confused with 1959 Henry Fonda
Western of the same name.
This film contains examples of:
- Badass Normal: Redferne
- Blond Guys are Evil: The Warlock oughta be the poster boy for this trope.
- By the Power of Grayskull!
- Bury Your Gays: Poor, poor Chas.
- Chekhov's Gun: Kassandra's diabetes syringe.
- Dead Little Sister: Redferne's wife, who was killed by the Warlock.
- Deadpan Snarker: Kassandra
- Deal with the Devil: Of a sort, the Warlock is acting on Satan's behalf, but as his willing agent.
- Demonic Possession
- Evil Brit: The Warlock
- Evil Gloating: Really, Why Don't Ya Just Shout The True Name Of God Backwards Instead Of Gloat Your Victory?
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Or rather, Talking With The Dead Is Not A Toy, even if you're just pretending.
- Evil Laugh: Julian Sands has a very good one.
- Evil Sorcerer
- Eye Scream
- Fake Nationality: Swaziland native Richard E. Grant plays Scotsman Redferne.
- More like Fake Ethnicity, since Grant is British, but not Scottish.
- Faux Affably Evil: The Warlock
- Fish Out of Temporal Water: Subverted, as Redferne mostly adapts to our time surprisingly well, sometimes even better then its native residents.
- Flight
- Gorn
- Hell On Earth
- Hostage For Macguffin
- The Hunter: Redferne
- I Know Your True Name
- Kill It With Water: Saltwater, actually.
- Large Ham: "I KNOW THEE! I KNOW THY NAME! I KNOW THE WORD THAT CAN UNDO ALL OF CREATION!"
- Redferne gets his moment with this quote:
Redferne: (
to Pastor) Our interest lies in stopping those who would see all good falter. It lies in stopping the powers of misrule from coming of age. It lies in finding that damned book, and thwarting a vile beast of a man who shall not rest until God Himself is thrown down, and all of creation becomes
Satan's black, hell-besmeared farting hole!
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- The Other Darrin: Bruce Payne replaced Julian Sands as the title character in The End of Innocence.
- Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Pretty much the crux of Satan and the Warlock's plan. In the 1600s, The Warlock was being hunted by Redferne and everyone knew to be on the lookout for witches and their modus operandi. Sending the Warlock into the future to 1991, where modern people thought of witches as fantasy, would have allowed him to operate with impunity. That is until Redferne follows him to the present.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child
- Satan
- Saved from Development Hell: This film was completed in 1988, but didn't find a distributor until 1991.
- Spanner in the Works/ Out Gambitted: While Redferne is deliberately trying to stop the Warlock and defeat his plan, following the Warlock into the present was definitely not planned by either party.
- Spell My Name with an S: Kassandra
- Technicolor Fire
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Grand Grimoire
- Weaksauce Weakness: The warlock has a couple of weaknesses in the first movie that are easily exploited: The first is holy ground, which is obvious, since he's a minion of the devil. The other is one is salt, a ridiculously common substance that you can find practically anywhere.
- This weakness is actually taken from folklore. Salt was used historically in European countries and their derivatives in order to detect or fight witchcraft. In fact, one method of torture used to attempt to force a confession from a witch was to feed them salty food and deny them water.
- Whip It Good: Redferne's whip.
- Would Hurt a Child: Especially when it gives you the power of flight!
- Younger than They Look
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