“Welcome to the other side of reality.”

Justin’s rating: I don’t know much about magic compasses, but when the cockroach tells you to go north, you go north

Justin’s review: Warlock doesn’t strike me as a film that begged for follow-ups, but it actually did spark a mini-franchise of three somewhat disconnected films, a few comic books, and a pair of video games on the Genesis and SNES (believe it or not!) in the mid-90s before fizzling out by the turn of the century.

Because all the kids in ’95 were clamoring for a game adaptation of some obscure B-movie from 1989. Sure. I accept that.

Honestly, the only reason I wanted to push on into Warlock II: Armageddon is that it was directed by Anthony Hickox of Waxwork and Waxwork II fame. He had a fun streak of genre flicks for about a decade there, and I do want to cover most of them sooner or later.

Armageddon is only a sequel in the loosest of senses, in that Julian Sands does return as the titular Warlock. But everything’s different this time. A group of druids descended from an old order are tasked with protecting six stones that, when combined, will either form Voltron or summon Satan from hell. They’ve been a little lax in their duties, so when Warlock returns — via a rather disgusting 30-second pregnancy-and-birth — they’re caught off-guard.

Thus, it falls to the next generation of druidic warriors to thwart the Warlock and keep them stones separate. Enter Chris Young (PCU) as Kenny and Paula Marshall (Hellraiser III) as Samantha, a teen couple who just so happen to have druids for parents (although her dad is also a reverend, which makes me wonder about the job conflict).

So while there isn’t any hint of good Christian witch-hunters from the past here, at least this group has that handy Warlock-pointing compass to help point the way. I’ll admit that this movie threw me a HUGE curveball early on when Kenny is shot and killed by his dad. Apparently this is the only way to activate your secret druid powers, which seems like something that trial-and-error would be hard-pressed to discover, but oh well.

After his unwilling death and resurrection Kenny is trained up in the ways of the Force to become a Tree-Hugging Jedi. You think I’m exaggerating here, but that’s not the case. Warlock II veers so hard into Star Wars homage that I was blinking furiously in confusion. Kenny levitates and moves objects with his mind power while the soundtrack plays as close to a direct John Williams ripoff as the legal department dared allow.

I got really tired of how Kenny’s dad (who plays the police captain in all of the Lethal Weapon films) refused to fully explain important information to the two kids despite a critical one-week countdown to the end of the world. He’d just fold his newspaper, say something cryptic, and then walk away with a promise for another vague hint later. I can’t stand characters like that.

As this montage is happening, Warlock hunts down the current stone owners and enjoys offing them with his bag of dark magic tricks. Julian Sands gets to be more quippy in this follow-up, but his character is just as much of an enigma as in the first movie. Who is this guy? What’s his backstory? How did he become a warlock? Is there anything more to him than ironic murders? This franchise doesn’t seem interested in answering any of these questions as he shoves a little person into an iron maiden and traps another in a twisted carnival universe.

Eventually the Warlock’s quest is successful and Satan is summoned right as Kenny and Samantha level up. The showdown is pretty awesome, with both sides using all sorts of magic tricks to set people on fire, drive cars, blow up buildings, fire bullets out of fingers, convince trees fight on behalf of the good guys, and so on.

Warlock II: Armageddon is big on flash, style, and super-sparkly magic effects, but at the cost of any believable or relatable characters. Several scenes dip into melodrama and terrible ADR, which are very out of place for a movie like this. The teenage leads are really awful in their confused overacting, and this holds the film back from graduating from cult oddity to cult classic.

Yet I will say that I found more to interest me here than in the first film, as Hickox seems determined to unleash any ideas he had, no matter how crazy or inexplicable they were. So yeah, worth seeing if occult fantasy horror is your bag — or if you’re training to become Druid Skywalker.

Intermission!

• That mullet is so long that it’s got to be illegal
• That is one very rapid pregnancy… and one disgusting birth
• Yeah you know the little doggie was going to get it
• Super-scream!
• Stomach maps are the grossest maps, I think we can agree
• Turning taxi drivers into zombies is the way to get free long-distance rides
• “The birds.” “What about them?” “There aren’t any.”
• “Take over for me, darling. I think I’m in love.”
• So much slow-mo walking
• Trees talking seems like it would be very annoying
• I swear that music in the tree scene is Luke Skywalker’s theme, just a note or two off
• And now for a detour into a circus freak show with an actually functional iron maiden(!)
• The creepy mirror circus is incredibly cool, wish we got more of that!
• That is one very bloody elevator
• Warlock can fuse mouths together
• Living art made with magic fingerpainting!
• PUT YOUR 3D GLASSES ON NOW AS THIS MOTORCYCLE SENDS PARTS FLYING
• Random scalping… ok
• “Welcome to the majors” isn’t as cool of a line as Kenny thinks it is
• Satan is easily defeated by… truck headlights?
• Now that is one melty warlock! What a world! What a world!