I think the key part of my enjoyment of this series is something I just landed on and is a clear differentiator movie to movie but also the key difference of what makes these low budget schlockfests different from the Hellraiser low budgets - sleaze.
The Hellraiser films certainly dabble, especially the first one, and the ones that are into that are the best, and the thing with the Witchcraft movies is that most of the are into it, and most of them are good, so far.
We can even trace it back to the first and second Witchcraft films, which are incredibly light on sleaze and though I appreciated Witch 1 for what it was, it was not sleazy and it was not in the same vein of enjoyment as say a Witchcraft 5. Witchcraft 3 and 4 here are both pretty fuckin' sleazy, grimy movies which really REALLY match well in that ultra low budget, amateur made film sorta way - these things just absolutely go hand in hand, and really amp up the levels of enjoyment here.
Witchcraft 3 involves a dead lady that maybe her 15 year old younger lover murdered, and Will Spanner is a newly graduated public defender or something who is involved in the case. The plot is heavily involved in the slow seducing of Will's girlfriend by the evil guy Louis, and the cuckold angle and the weird sexual dynamics are where the sleaze comes from.
Witchcraft 4 is concerned with Will getting involved with Belladonna, who works at a strip club and is involved in a case with a dead woman. He uncovers a sinister plot where people are selling their souls, and there's a couple creepy rapists and weirdos. Definitely a bit more of a noir-inspired smoky hazy detective flick, this one is a tone shift from the first 3.
I mean, again, these aren't worlds better than your average Hellraiser sequel and these are lower budget and sometimes a lot less propulsive, definitely less scary violent or gory... But somehow I am still having a good time with these. I give Witch 3 a solid 3 stars and Witch 4 a 2 for being a lot less exciting in tone.
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