Sorceress

You’ll never be rid of me.

Like the naughty big-bosomed bad girl she is, that vixen, Julie Strain is naked, rubbing baby oil over her body, and calling out a revenge incantation in a sort-of witchcraft ceremony against Edward Albert for scoring a Vice President gig at his law firm over her man portrayed by Larry Poindexter.

There’s this sex scene that bugged the stew out of me due to its continuity problem. Close-ups show Strain with her panties on while long shots have them off. Yeah, I was so aroused by the scene a continuity problem was bothering me. It’s all nice and soft and short, without really looking authentic, even as another woman gets involved, a birthday gift from Strain to him. A little kiss, Strain looking at him, and Larry realizing that her presence even after death still haunts him.

It seems Strain’s “bewitched” Larry with a love spell and even after he propels her from their balcony accidentally, she claims, upon dying breath, that she’ll never leave him. Don’t worry, all because Strain dies in the opening scene doesn’t remove the eye candy..no sir. Rochelle Swanson steps right in, blond wig and all, and is a delicious substitute for  when Strain is absent.

The convoluted plot has Howard (Albert) getting a fat promotion, put under a pain spell by witch Erica (Strain), nearly dying in a car wreck. Howard is paralyzed, tended to by his wife, Amelia (Linda Blair), who herself is a practitioner in witchcraft. Erica’s husband, Larry (Poindexter), will reap the benefits of this paralysis when Howard decides to not return to the firm. Amelia is pissed, and rightfully so because Erica caused all the shit and isn’t alive to pay for her use of witchcraft for the wrong reasons (Erica was using a protection spell and love spell but was not allowed to cast one against Howard). So Larry is the victim-by-default. As is Howard’s new lover, lawyer Carol (Swanson), who will be influenced to act bad, with Amelia’s grand design to see her husband’s “replacement” get seriously dead thanks to Erica’s behavior. Included are Blacula himself, William Marshall (as John Geiger, the made-man of the firm Larry works), Toni Naples as a “friend” of Erica and Larry’s, and Michael Parks as the tormented victim of Amelia’s, his family murdered, with a spell cast for him to kill Larry.

Linda Blair is, of course, the member of the cast with the juiciest part and gets to go all Dirty Harriet, putting bullets into Parks who invites himself into their mansion, waving a gun around of his own, and put down execution-style. Blair with that cold stare, not even blinking, just pulling the trigger, is laying on the unstable mastermind of witchcraft quite thick. It is cold-blooded in the grand tradition of the movie sociopath. She has snapped while watching her once promising law firm star husband reduced to a melancholy cripple in a wheelchair as Larry “takes his place”, his Erica responsible. 

You see, Howard finally realizes what Amelia is up to, tries to stop her the best a near-invalid without the use of his legs and lower torso can, tied to his chair, but freeing himself eventually. Meanwhile Amelia goes into her Devil Worship room, with the symbol of the demon she bows to while spellcasting on her knees, not knowing that her hubby has plans to put bullets in her before Carol is forced into killing Larry and his firm friends (a married couple helping him re-paint his condo).

Wielding a nice, shiny butcher knife found in the kitchen drawer (I like how directors never fail to get the light just right so that the knife emits a sparkle), not long after bopping one of her victims on the head with a hot rock before trapping him in the sauna, afterward clunking another over the head with a candlestick while she’s bathing in the shower, Carol, while under Amelia’s influence, sets her sights on plunging it into a wounded/bloody Larry. A necklace with the specific demon’s image inscribed (provided by Amelia, as it was on Sparks’ neck before it come off during a struggle to stab Larry, Carol finding it, picking it up, and wearing it) is Amelia’s way of controlling Carol. Anytime Carol wears it (which seems to be all the time..), Amelia has freedom to dictate how she’ll behave. Amelia’s causing Carol to act like Erica obviously freaks Larry out and he whines and laments to his best friend about it.

This is a Jim Wynorski film and so you know that plenty of beautiful women with big, fake busts will remove their clothes or be featured in fantasies removing their clothes/tops/gowns, showering/bathing their naked bodies, and a trio of them (Strain, Naples, and Swanson) gravitate towards Poindexter. Poindexter, to me anyway, never seems comfortable in his role, probably wanting to be elsewhere. I guess the idea of being the object of desire for hot naked women isn’t particularly his comfort zone. His character is trying to remove himself from the mere memory of Erica, a clinging, “no one can have you but me” kind of girlfriend who made his life miserable. The film ends with his waking up to Erica, her smiling at him wondering “if he was having a bad dream”. Wink, wink.

Edward Albert, for me, comes off best from the cast in regards to characterization. He even gets to be the hero at the end, crawling with all his might across a floor, pulling the dead legs, dragging the weight detrimental to his movement with a fierce determination, knowing that innocents are in trouble if Amelia is allowed to practice her black magic. His character doesn’t hold a grudge against Larry, supporting the replacement, and once he understands what Amelia has done and plans to do, Howard first tries to appeal to any humanity that might still exist, before having to use harsher methods to assure that Larry isn’t stabbed repeatedly.

What amuses me is that despite its less than stellar rating on imdb, Sorceress could be Wynorski's best film. It may have a plot that's busy, at least it isn't minor dialogue scenes that lead to screw sessions or girls fondling each other while staring directly at the screen giving their attention, their eyes to the audience, to us. It might have actors like Albert and Blair that may be frowned upon as B-movie jokes that have little relevancy (I don't look at them that way, but actors that show up in a Wynorski film normally are porn stars who aren't taxed with remembered very many lines, cast more for their looks than providing any sort of development of characters; so Blair involved in a tits and ass flick as a vengeance-seeking crackpot doesn't exactly endear her to those folks who judge Wynorski's work as unsatisfactory (to put it mildly)), but at least they're pros who can hold together a scene without getting undressed.

Swanson goes from bland blond with a radiant smile to feisty raven-haired, nonchalantly malevolent psychopath like the flick of the switch which didn't bother me one bit. That blond wig was laughable. Larry not happy with the change makes sense considering he's such a griping pussy; just poo-poo on you, Larry.

This was the title this version I watched was under.

Strain does sex kitten really, really well. It’s about all she knows how to do, but Strain knows why she’s cast in films and tries to live up to the expected nudity and soft-core sexcapades. She even licks and sucks on Swanson’s toes at one moment; God, I love such dedication to craft.

As you can see, that blond wig doesn't do her justice.

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The opening scene was rather amusing to me because of how Erica is sent flying from the balcony. She is unable to just let whining Larry walk out (it isn't like she couldn't easily land a hundred guys just like him if not with a little more personality..), but must insist he stay with her. He literally hurls her out the window (it is established as "Oh, no! Oh, my God! I didn't mean to!!!" but when you see him practically throw her overboard, it doesn't look as accidental as he sounds) and then races to her body in horror. It is so badly performed and executed for dramatic effect saying two different things. My curiosity wonders if its intentional or unintentional in how the film shows how Larry pushed Erica over that balcony. Was it that he subconsciously wanted her out of his life and that resulted in propelling Erica over the balcony or was it just lousy acting by Poindexter and execution on Wynorski's part?