Witchcrap: Witches of the Caribbean

What can I say about a movie with this title?  I mean, every joke writes itself.  I mean, do you expect a serious film here?  Instead of trying to cover that, I'll speak on the director: David DeCoteau.  He got his start doing Full Moon films- including a couple Puppet Master films- before venturing into other works.  Many of them, well, are quite gay.  I don't mean that in the slang way either- they really are!  He's made a series of gay-themed Edgar Allen Poe films, including The Raven, House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum.  The hilarious part is that Wikipedia says that "many have questioned DeCoteau's sexual orientation, however, the truth remains to be seen."  Yes, clearly!  This leads us back to this film, a movie centered around an all-female cast.  The plot sounded really dumb, but, at least it might feature some H.L.A. to distract me from that.  Of course, I was wrong.  I guess I'm just stuck with a plot involving 'teens' dealing with past-life regression and some of them becoming witches- hurray?  Get out your heart-sized box for my review of...

Our story begins with a a Michael Phelps-looking guy swimming in a pool...next to the ocean before he hears a voice.  Naturally, he wanders around for a few moments looking for the source of it.  This is probably obvious to anyone, but I should note that the guy never puts on a shirt.  How to get ahead in Hollywood, Step #6: Be a buff guy who knows David DeCoteau.  After some padding and just general nothing, he walks into the empty hotel and gets his heart ripped out by a witch.  Okay, I'm awake now!  The film proper begins with a sepia-toned flashback to a woman being burned at the stake on a beach.  I hope you like this scene, because it gets more time on screen than about half of the film's supporting actors!  After that, we meet our cast.  They're...all people I don't recognize in the slightest.  I guess the six years since the film was made has not been too grand for you, huh?  The group includes our dull lead actress, a sultry blonde, a slightly-less sultry blonde, a brunette, a nerdy guy and a guy that DeCoteau only hired for his looks.  They were brought there by a redheaded woman who wants to help them with 'their problems.'  Apparently, most of them- but especially our heroine and the sultry blonde- share the same dream.  What effect does this have on their personal lives?  Well, the movie never says, but it must be important enough to fly them halfway across the world to fix it!  After some character set-up, the group wanders around.  We establish a few things: our heroine is almost always in a bikini (plus), the buff guy never talks much (plus) and the nerdy guy likes our heroine (meh).  As far as actual plot set-up, it's obvious that the sultry blonde is a witch, but the movie has not actually acknowledged that yet.

Our cast gets a little bit smaller when the brunette gets killed after wandering off to go bird-watching.  That truly is the world's deadliest hobby!  This all involves the same hooded witch that it is totally-not-the-sultry blonde.  As time goes by, they sort of gloss over her disappearance, as well as the Phelps guy from the beginning.  How important are you guys exactly?  Furthermore, we continue to get shown the flashback/dream in sepia tones.  The whole point is that they show you more each time- I get that.  However, they continue to play the same parts over and over again until I want to get into my car, drive to an airport, fly to wherever DeCoteau lives, punch him in the face and say 'Stop padding your damn movie, you hack!'  Anyways, the sultry blonde and the slightly-less sultry blonde try to bring our heroine into their group for some sort of activity.  Eventually, she relents when it involves lots of drinking.  Out on the beach, they form a circle and make their own coven.  By the way, how much of our heroine laughing do you think is scripted and how much do you think is just her actual reaction?  They do a silly ceremony involving lights shooting out of a box the blonde brought, which makes them all appear in the pool...at the hotel.  They tease some H.L.A. between the sultry blonde and our heroine, but it's about as tentative as the woman from Wishmaster 4.  Apparently that was all a vision and now they're part of a group.  Translation: they dress in black and rip-off The Craft.

Apparently having the group dress in black and use dark lipstick means that they're evil.  Mind you, the sultry blonde (I refuse to use their names here) is actually evil, but you don't really know that for sure until she kills the buff guy.  Why?  Well, all will be revealed soon enough.  Since I'm not the movie, I won't waste your time and will, instead, cut to the chase.  Basically, our heroes are all descendants of people in the flashback/shared dream.  The heroine is the descendant of the witch, so she is going to be used as a vessel for the dead witch's old heart, which contains all of her power.  The reason for killing all of the people earlier was to steal their heart and, thus, make them the witch's slave.  I'm sorry, but are you a witch or a witch doctor?!?  Because, you know, they're not the same thing!!!  Fortunately, the psychiatrist is the descendant of the witch killer from the flashback/shared dream and is there as a vessel to stop the ceremony.  By putting the witch's heart and a pure amulet together, the nerdy kid saves the day in a silly effects shot that I wish I could find my screen capture of.  When that ends, all but our heroes forget about the experience.  By the way, the people who got their hearts ripped out are fine.  How does that work exactly?  The End.

This movie sucks.  It's not entertaining, it's not clever and it's not well-paced.  The whole story is about forty-five minutes worth of material padded out to an hour and twenty minutes.  Besides the around ten times they show you the flashback/shared dream, we get a music video/montage of scenes from earlier.  In fact, one of the scenes in the segment actually took place less than five minutes before the damn thing started!  This movie could have been good, it could have been goofy or it could have at least had hot chicks making out.  The latter wouldn't have made it a good movie, but it would have been very distracting.  Sadly, I was left with just a dull movie full of a few silly effects and the promise of something good.

Next up, I celebrate 900 posts of sheer randomness with the sequel to the film from my 800th post.  I hope you like singing, dancing and robbery.  Stay tuned...