In the five stages of dealing with bad Nicolas Cage movies, we have progressed through Denial (Lord of War), Anger (The Wicker Man), Bargaining (Next) and Depression (Bangkok Dangerous) to finally reach Acceptance. Season of the Witch, a perfunctory and uninspiring middle ages supernatural thriller, is simply another bad Nicolas Cage movie. You suspect it from the trailer, or even the poster, and the picture does nothing to improve your perspective. To be fair, the odd scene is dutifully average, and there’s some decent work in the supporting cast, but if there’s a film to be made about the Devil’s plotting surely at this point it should involve finding out when Cage sold his cinematic soul.
It is the year 1332 and the Crusades have wound up for another bloody round of religious warfare. 'I’ll take the 300 on the right, you take the 300 on the left," declares Felson (Ron Perlman) to his brother in arms Behmen (Cage), prior to a montage of battles that features an endless succession of enemy combatants being stabbed and sliced (the fight choreography throughout is bitterly repetitive). Seven years and various fictional battles pass – the one with snow was particularly historically confounding – before the two realise that innocents are being dispatched, and that killing for their God’s glory may not actually be guiding them to spiritual salvation. Yes, seven years.
Fetching up in the Balkans, they find a landscape beset by the plague. Apprehended as deserters, they’re given the chance to make amends by escorting a suspected witch, The Girl (Claire Foy), to a monastery whose prize possession is a book that will cleanse her soul and lift the pestilence. The plague’s effects are considerable: no colour except brown and a faded green survives in the colour palette. On their journey, where lesser characters fall to suspicious accidents and undead wolves, Behmen vaguely wonders if the girl is truly possessed, or has simply been driven mad by spending years in chains. The movie wants us to consider the nature of evil, something that will become important to you if you actually pay to see it.
Each initiative the film takes to distinguish itself notably falls short. Aside from the colour palette, there’s Behmen and Felson’s habit of alternating ye olde phrasing with some contemporary banter. 'Let’s get the hell out of here," one will remark to the other, which is also the attitude their accents routinely take. With her head dipped so that her pupils aren’t fully seen, Foy proves to be skilful at skipping between playful and maniacal, but it’s to little effect as the film is clearly going to end with the hard drive of an effects house getting a good workout. Cage himself – modeling a thick, straggly blonde wig that may well have been called 'Sean Bean #3’ in the catalogue – sticks to the hollow commitment that’s become a trademark. He approaches each scene with singular intent and appears to have forgotten how to blend and build a performance. He does brave, then anguished, then compassionate, and not one has a speck of psychological rigour on display.
Perlman, an old B-movie hand with a mocking half smile and the ability to linger a second or two with each line to bestow leverage on it, instinctively knows how to deal with this fare, but Nicolas Cage appears lost in his lack of genuine comprehension; he’s not even going through the motions properly. The supernatural scares are hardly bracing, and at 94 minutes this is depressingly meagre movie feels drawn out. The last blow comes when you leave the cinema: there’s a poster for Nicolas Cage in Drive Angry (3D), releasing May 5. We’re going to need more stages.
