Season of the Witch: Blu-Ray with Digital Copy: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Review by JAM
Love him or leave him, Nicolas Cage is an actor who can elicit so many responses for his acting yet has had and continued with a successful career. Season of the Witch is one of his latest, with a setting in the medieval times with Behmen (Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) knights in service of the church during the Crusades who find themselves tiring of the endless destruction especially when ordered to eradicate a number of seemingly innocent women and children in the name of God. Feeling the need to not follow blindly the words of men, they find themselves back in a tumultuous homeland beset by the Black Plague, in the thralls of a witch hunt, and suspicious of strangers of any kind. Discovered by the Church, they are coerced into an escort mission to take an accused witch (Claire Foy) to a distant abbey where rituals and blessings, and the trial of this witch, shall remove the plague from their lands.
Behmen and Felson believe that the accused witch deserves the fairness of an actual trial rather than this seeming witch hunt and agree to accompany her more as protectors rather than escorts. Accompanied with a small group of men, all is not as it seems with this young girl as the party is turned against itself and placed in danger every step of the way leading to a crazed climax as her protectors must make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the accused witch from herself.
JAMS Ink on Season of the Witch
I actually really enjoyed this movie. I’ve had two violent medieval movies lately with this and Black Death from Magnolia Pictures, each of which deals with the plague and witchcraft. Black Death is obviously more realistic, violent in its truth and vicious in its actions. It dealt more with the witch hunt and the preying on the populace through fear and the unknown, while Season of the Witch ends up being a supernatural foray into fear, corruption, and CGI. And while Black Death will hold up to the historical perspective when I need the true violence of the time, Season of the Witch will be like a guilty pleasure, or an escape from reality movie which is needed from time to time as well.
Nic Cage. Yeah, he overacts, yes he can be hard to take sometimes, but I like him and his movies. There, I admitted it. This one is much the same in the Nic Cage vehicle, but the supernatural flair, Ron Perlman’s gruff witty mentality, and some cool CGI makes this a movie I enjoyed. If you don’t mind the Nic Cage school of movies, this could be a fun romp for you through the swords and sorcery of medieval Europe.
BLU-RAY ASPECT
The CGI on this movie retains its clarity on the blu-ray, but otherwise the grittiness of the film overall makes it seem that the high definition aspect is not really needed. The smaller portion of the film in daytime yields clear lights and darks, but the nighttime portions just seems not as clear, probably due to the absolute over abundance of darkness. I would still say BLU-RAY YES due to the digital copy included, but it is not an absolute necessity as with other films.
EXTRAS
The Deleted Scenes included on this set give some insight into both Behmen and Debelzaq which is kind of cool while Becoming the Demon shows the studio working on the creation of the demon for the climactic battle with both visual work and behind the scenes information provided. On a Crusade is another worthy addition to the extras with its discussion on the opening action scenes. And finally the Alternate Ending that is supplied shows the original incarnation of the demon with much less CGI. Overall, a good set of extras for the film, along with the digital copy that once again makes the Blu-ray purchase worthwhile.
SEASON OF THE WITCH Blu-Ray:
Street Date: June 28, 2011
Screen Format: Widescreen 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD-MA
French Dolby Digital
Spanish Dolby Digital
Languages: Dubbed English, French, & Spanish; Subtitled English, French, & Spanish
MPAA U.S. Rating: PG-13
Total Run Time: 95 minutes
Remember check out this review and more from JAM at www.hollywoodteenzine.com for teens and tweens, and at http://jammoviereviews.blogspot.com for movies of all genres and ages.
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