With actor Julian Sands still missing it seemed apt to revisit some of his most iconic film roles. People of my generation likely first discovered Sands via his Warlock films. These films were staples of video stores in the nineties and a go to rental around Halloween. In fact, one Halloween that I was working at a video store I popped Warlock (1989) into the VCR to help set that spooky vibe. Of course Julian Sands has appeared in better films like A Room With A View (1985) and Leaving Las Vegas (1995), but none of these ever made quite the same impact as Warlock did.
The premise of Warlock is great. In colonial America of the 1600s Julian Sands uses magic to escape execution only to be followed into a magic portal by witch hunter Richard E. Grant that transports them to L.A. circa 1989. Sands immediately sets about collecting the lost pages of the Grand Grimoire to bring about the end of all creation while Grant teams up with Lori Singer to stop the evil warlock.
Screenwriter David Twohy (who would later write The Fugitive and Waterworld) combines the plot of The Terminator (1984) with the humor and characterizations of Highlander (1986) in his script for Warlock. And just as Highlander and The Terminator are progenitors of Warlock, so too is Warlock a progenitor of the Disney film Hocus Pocus (1993). Suffice it to say that Warlock is a hybrid adventure film and horror spectacle; finding an even balance in the able hands of director Steve Miner.
Before making Warlock for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, Miner made a name for himself directing the second and third films in the Friday The 13th franchise as well as helming the cult classic House (1985). While Miner is competent enough at staging action sequences, his real forte is in the sphere of horror. The scenes of grotesque mutilations and macabre ambience are where Miner and Warlock really shine. The film may suffer from some budget limitations but it isn’t all that obvious due to Miner’s careful direction.
But the best part of Warlock are the committed performances of the leads. Richard E. Grant and Julian Sands, both cast against type, chew up the scenery and savor their preposterous dialogue with the same kind of relish as Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee did. Warlock is a nutty movie propelled by the charisma of these two actors. The fact that Warlock can be taken seriously at all is down to the very serious investment these actors have made in their characters.
Ironically, the Warlock franchise went on to fall into the same trap as Highlander did with its immediate sequel. Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) and Warlock: The Armageddon (1993) have nothing to do with the earlier films narratively speaking. Instead, both franchises simply imported popular characters into a new, unrelated story; essentially proving that the warlock and McLeod are the heart of these intellectual properties. The inferiority of these sequels is that, unlike the originals, the filmmakers knew that all audiences needed in these films were the familiar faces of Julian Sands and Christopher Lambert.
