Witchery (film)
Witchery (Italian: La Casa 4 (Witchcraft)) is a 1988 Italian horror film directed by Fabrizio Laurenti and starring David Hasselhoff, Catherine Hickland, Hildegard Knef, Linda Blair, and Annie Ross.[1]
| Witchery | |
|---|---|
 Italian film poster for Witchery | |
| Directed by | Fabrizio Laurenti |
| Produced by | Aristide Massaccesi[1] |
| Screenplay by | Daniele Stroppa[1] |
| Story by | Daniele Stroppa[1] |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Carlo Maria Cordio[1] |
| Cinematography | Gianlorenzo Battaglia[1] |
| Edited by | Rosanna Landi[1] |
Production company | Filmirage Production Group[1] |
| Distributed by | Aristi Associati/Gruppo Berna |
Release date |
|
Running time | 95 minutes[1] |
| Country | Italy[1] |
Plot
Gary (David Hasselhoff) and his gal pal Leslie (Leslie Cumming) visit an island off the coast of Massachusetts where a haunted resort hotel looms to do research on witchcraft. They are joined by Jane Brooks (Linda Blair) and other members of the Brooks family, prospective buyers of the property.
While Leslie and Gary work on their projects, another group of people travel to the hotel where they're staying. The Brooks family, composed by a greedy matriarch named Rose; her husband, Freddie; and their two children, Jane (who is pregnant) and Tommy are visiting the place, because Rose wants to buy the hotel and turn it into a private club. Joining the Brooks, there is Linda Sullivan, a young architect hired to provide assistance with the renovations.
Unable to leave the island, Gary, Leslie, Tony, Jane and the Brooks are subjected to the sadism of an evil witch, who picks them off one by one, because she is carrying out a gruesome ritual. In the end, Gary, Leslie, Jane, and Tommy remain. Leslie, who was a virgin, is raped during a satanic ceremony, while Jane becomes possessed by the witch and proceeds to chase the survivors through the hotel. She eventually corners the survivors and begins to choke her little brother, causing him to drop a tape recorder she had given him earlier in the film. The recorder plays a message he had created for her, saying "I love you, Jane". This succeeds in temporarily breaking the witch's hold on Jane, who throws herself out of a window to her death in order to prevent the witch from regaining control. Leslie finds herself in a hospital bed where she is horrified to learn that she was impregnated during the ceremony.
Cast
- David Hasselhoff as Gary
- Linda Blair as Jane Brooks
- Catherine Hickland as Linda Sullivan
- Annie Ross as Rose Brooks
- Hildegard Knef as Lady in Black
- Leslie Cummins as Leslie
- Bob Champagne as Freddie Brooks
- Rick Farnsworth as Jerry Giordano
Production
The financial success of Ghosthouse, which was titled La casa 3–Ghosthouse in Italy, led to producer Aristide Massaccesi and distributor Claudio Lattanzi to develop an in-name only sequel.[2] The director of the initial film, Umberto Lenzi suggested a story for a sequel which he described as being similar to Psycho, but felt that the producers had no interest in it.[2] The film's screenplay and story is credited to Daniele Stroppa, but Lattanzi had claimed to have had a hand in working on the story at Stroppa's location as he was going to direct it.[3]
Lattanzi pushed on producer Massaccessi to get actress Bette Davis for the role of the witch in the film, but later cast Hildegard Knef in the role.[2] Other cast members included David Hasselhoff who was popular in Italy due to his series Knight Rider and under Lattanzi's suggestion, Leslie Cummins who had previously been in Killing Birds.[2] Early on, Lattanzi left production and was replaced with Luigi Cozzi who left the film two weeks into pre-production finding the story "too predictable and banal".[2]
Cozzi was in turn replaced with Fabrizio Laurenti, who had previously debuted with his 30-minute vampire film titled The Immigrant.[2] Massaccesi said he liked The Immigrant enormously but noticed on set that Laurenti had difficulties working with an international cast including Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff.[4] Massaccesi agreed to finance Laurenti's next film, despite feeling the director "still has a long way to go."[4]
The film was shot in Scituate and Cohasset, Massachusetts.[1] The film's score by Carlo Maria Cordio was taken from Killing Birds and was used again later in La Casa 5.[5]
Release
Witchery was released as early as 1 December 1988 in West Germany as Hexenbrut.[1][2] This was followed by a theatrical release in Japan on 1 July 1989 and a home video release in the United States on 6 July 1989 before being released theatrically in Italy on 6 August 1989 where it was distributed by Aristi Associati/Gruppo Berna.[1] Film historian Roberto Curti noted that the film did very good box office in Italy, becoming the 60th highest-grossing film of the year with 1,283,194,000 Italian lire.[1][5] This placed the film below James Cameron's The Abyss that year.[5]
Following Witchery, Laurenti made another film for Massaccesi titled The Crawlers.[5]
Reception
In Italy, film critic Maurizio Porro wrote in Corriere della Sera recommended the film to genre fans who would "enjoy [...] the usual American-style doggerel on family neuroses"[5][6]
See also
- La Casa series - An Italian rebranding of several otherwise unrelated horror films, including Witchery.
- List of Italian films of 1988
- List of horror films of 1988
- List of works by David Hasselhoff
Footnotes
- Curti 2019, p. 157.
- Curti 2019, p. 158.
- Gomarasca 2008, p. 56.
- Palmerini & Mistretta 1996, p. 79.
- Curti 2019, p. 159.
- Porro 1989.
Sources
- Curti, Roberto (2019). Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1980-1989. McFarland. ISBN 1476672431.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Gomarasca, Manlio (May 2008). "Claudio Lattanzi, La verita secondo Claude Milliken". Nocturno Dossier (in Italian). No. 7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Palmerini, Luca M.; Mistretta, Gaetano (1996). Spaghetti Nightmares. Fantasma Books. ISBN 0963498274.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Porro, Maurizio (23 August 1989). "Quei Fantasmi maligni inclusi nel prezzo". Corriere Della Sera (in Italian).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)