Witching Wednesdays - Witchcraft 13: Blood of the Chosen

Witching Wednesdays reaches its end as Cody witnesses the thirteenth and final movie in the Witchcraft series.

WITCHCRAFT 13: BLOOD OF THE CHOSEN (2008)

After a six year wait, the thirteenth entry in the Witchcraft series finally hit video store shelves on January 8, 2008. Those who check out the DVD find that not much effort was put into making a menu, but I'm sure we can all let that slide.

Our only option is to press Play, and so the movie begins. Night in a dark house. A familiar Witchcraftian situation plays out as a man and woman enter the house, kissing and groping each other. The man, Clive, had been out at a club when he met the woman, Leandra. It was like she hunted him down, when she sees something she wants she goes for it, he says she's like a sexual predator. Clive likes that. As they disrobe, we notice that Clive is wearing a pentagram necklace. Eventually, Leandra pushes Clive against the wall and just stares at him. He asks "What's the deal?", she responds by jamming a hand into his chest and tearing out his heart. As Clive's body slumps to the floor, Leandra comments that he just had the mind and body of a man even though he had the heart of a warlock... She then devours his warlock heart.

The title sequence plays out Lethal Weapon 3 style, with flames burning and connecting into a pattern. Here it turns out to be a pentagram. The title appears slightly different from the usual style, we don't get the regular logo still picture. Witchcraft comes up and the burning pentagram turns into a red pentagram then fades from the background as a burning 13 appears. The flaming 1 and 3 then combine to form the B in Blood of the Chosen. The subtitle glitters and the red pentagram reappears faintly in the background. They did it up special for this one.

There's an office party going on at Will Spanner's law firm, but our hero is still hard at work at his desk. He's tired, his neck hurts. He's got a pentagram necklace on his desk, which he covers with papers when a female office worker named Laura enters. She informs him that the party is moving down to Sully's Bar & Grill and invites him along to celebrate the verdict. Will would like to, but he's got a ton of post-trial paperwork to do. Laura thanks him for giving her the opportunity to work for him and learn from him. She admires him, he really is something special. Will appreciates that. Sometimes he thinks he and Laura's uncle were the only guys who went to law school to help people out. Laura promises Will that he'll have a great time if he comes with her. Will can't. In addition to the paperwork, he's meeting with an old friend tonight and he has a feeling the friend needs his help. As soon as Laura exits, Will realizes that he's late for his meeting with the old friend and ditches his paperwork.

Will's friend Ben is waiting for him at Griff's Irish Pub & Grill, where he's approached by a girl named Skylar. She takes his beer and invites him to the table in the corner.

Will arrives at Griff's and grabs an envelope of cash off the passenger seat of his car. The pentagram necklace was laying with the envelope, but Will's grab misses it and it slides down into the crack of the seat.

Inside Griff's, Skylar and Ben are chatting. Ben says that Skylar is a very intriguing name. She responds, "You have no idea, Ben." Ben isn't sure he told her his name. When Ben spots Will entering the building, Skylar gets up and walks off without a word.

Will joins Ben at the table. Some work Ben did helped Will win his case, that's why Will is giving him the envelope of cash. Now that he's won the case, Will feels like a weight has been lifted off of him. Ben figures that the weight that flew off Will landed on him. There's been something on top of him, behind him, he can't shake it. All this power that Ben has inside, he feels like it's about to burst out of him. Does Will have problems controlling his powers? Every day. Will's powers come from evil, he hates that. He tries to use them for good, but it just doesn't work that way. That's why he buries himself in the work of helping people. He thought he had a good thing going with his fiancee Kelly for a few years, but his curse/destiny blew that too. Ben is so sure that something bad is going on with their kind that he feels physical discomfort. Throughout their talk, Ben glances at Skylar as she waits at the bar. Will offers to give Ben a ride, but Ben chooses to stay behind and resume his chat with Skylar.

As Will drives away from Griff's he notices the pentagram necklace on the passenger seat. "I wanted to give that to Ben." He turns his car around.

Ben and Skylar have already left Griff's. They headed out on foot down the street, so maybe Will can catch up with them. Will sees Ben and Skylar walk around a corner together and as Will approaches the turn there's a flash and a sound like magic thunder, if you can imagine that. Will runs around the corner to find Ben's body on the ground, his heart torn out. Will calls the police.

Standing in his office, Will looks at the pentagram necklace and asks "Why?" Officers White and Gentry, detectives who Will talked to at the crime scene last night, enter. Some new things have come to light. There has been a series of killings like Ben's in the surrounding counties, all victims have had their hearts ripped out. Ben was the fifth victim. Will wonders why they've come to him with this information. Gentry starts to tell them that the missing hearts had lead them to believe that these killings have been ritualistic, and well... White interrupts Gentry to tell Will that he knows Lutz. Will asks, "Lucy or her brother?" The continuity weirdness of Detective Lutz changing from a man in part 6 to a woman in all other appearances has finally been addressed and answered. White knows the whole Lutz family and in fact used to date Lucy. During their relationship, White would hear stories about Will. So with Lucy's stories and the other times Will has helped the police out, they figured Will might have some ideas about the case. Will admits that he has helped the police on bizarre cases and had strange experiences with the Lutz siblings, but he doesn't think there's anything mystical going on here. The detectives tell Will to contact them if he hears or feels anything weird.

As the detectives exit the building, White says that they should keep tabs on Will. He has a feeling that he might lead them somewhere.

Will sits in his office and continues to stare at the pentagram necklace. Laura enters to deliver some paperwork to him. Will thanks her for the extra overtime she's been putting in and tells her that she can go out and enjoy the night. She leans on his desk to tell him, "I want to enjoy the night, but I want to enjoy it with you." Will turns down her advances, saying that he hired her because he's a friend of her uncle and knows she has what it takes to be a fantastic lawyer. This wouldn't be appropriate. "I've watched you grow from a little girl into a woman." "That's what makes it so exciting." Will can't do it. Laura finally accepts this, apologizes and starts to leave. Will stops her to assure her that he doesn't think any less of her after this and still wants her to work for him as long as she wants. She exits.

Will looks over his paperwork. He's soon interrupted when Laura returns, wearing a black negligee. She wants him, she doesn't care what he says. She gets aggressive and he gives in. They prepare for some desk sex...

Will wakes up at his desk. He's looking at the pentagram necklace again when his hand is grabbed by a bloody Ben. Ben tells Will "You broke my heart!" and shoves Will's hand into his empty chest cavity.

Will wakes up at his desk again. And looks at the pentagram necklace again. This time a flash of light comes from the necklace and we're shown quick flashes of missing hearts and bloody mouths kissing.

 

The front porch of a home as been cordoned off with crime scene tape. Will ducks under the tape and picks the lock on the front door. He enters the home and finds a pentagram necklace on a coffee table. A noise comes from elsewhere in the house and Will goes searching for the source. His search leads him to the bedroom, where there are bloodstains on the bed. Will kneels beside the bed and places his hand on the sheet. A purple light fills the room and we see the murder that took place on the bed performed by shadowy images. Will jerks away from the bed and almost vomits. He spots a cigarette in a glass nearby. He puts his hand beside the glass, the purple light fills the room, and this time we see the faint image of a blonde woman putting the cigarette in the glass. Will steps away and we see the same blonde woman crossing the hall behind him. Sensing her presence, Will runs outside after her.

The blonde woman stands across the street, watching Will. He calls out to her. A car drives past between them and when it's gone the woman has disappeared.

 

A bespectacled business man is driving down a back road, singing along with a vulgar country song. He approaches Skylar standing in the middle of the road, her car pulled off to the side. The business man stops and asks Skylar what the problem is. "I think my tire went kablooey." The business man checks her car's trunk for a spare. Skylar steps up behind him, eyes turned yellow, and jams a hand into his back. Her hand tears out through his chest, clutching his heart.

Will is sitting outside of a cafe, being informed by Laura over his cell phone that there has been a sixth murder, when the mysterious blonde woman walks past. Will hurries after her, following her to a bar. White and Gentry are parked nearby, observing.

Will enters the bar to find the blonde waiting for him in a booth. Will asks if he can join her. "Please do." Her beer bottle flashes white light, then the woman addresses Will by name. How did she know his name? She has a knack for knowing these kinds of things. She slides the beer bottle over to Will. It's his favorite beer. She introduces herself as Keely. Will says it's a pleasure to meet her. She replies, "Well, not yet. But it might be." Will takes a drink of beer and the bottle flashes light again. After this, Will seems dopey and intensely into Keely. He asks her to tell him more about himself. He's a hard worker who likes to please people, whatever it takes. But there's a bad side to him, a powerful side that at times he feels he has trouble controlling. He has wants and urges. He buries them deep into his dreams until they just want to explode out of him. He has to take control of his urges and never let go. She puts his hand to her chest, then slides it down to the front of her skirt. She wants him. Guys like him have a heart - we see flashes of the murders and crime scenes - and she just wants to be a part of it.

Will and Keely go back to her place and have sex, during which 666 raises up in the flesh on the back of Will's neck. "You're the one!" "You bet I am!"

 

Will wakes up in Keely's bed that night. He seems to have a pain in the back of his neck. He gets out of bed and starts snooping around her apartment. Eventually he finds a pentagram necklace with blood on it. Another pain in his neck. Keely catches him and tosses him across the room. Chuckling demonically, she blasts him with some good ol' magic hand lightning. Will throws some magic hand fire back at her, which wraps around her and pins her arms to her sides. He then tosses a single fireball at her as the ring of fire disappears. Keely screams and looks at her hands, which are now burnt and smoking. She tells Will "You are nothing!" and disappears.

Clutching a pentagram necklace, Will goes to visit a man named Eldridge. Eldridge is meditating when Will enters. His back turned to Will, Eldridge still knows who it is and asks what he's there for. Will seeks answers, he's lost. "The only thing we can do here is help you to be found." After the men share a hug, Eldridge asks Will what the problem is and pours some white and black stones out of a sack. Eldrige hands Will a black stone as Will gives him all the information he has on the murders. The news that all of the victims had their hearts ripped out rings a bell with Eldridge. Will then tells him that all of the victims were connected to "this medallion". The pentagram necklace. Eldridge knows what this is - "This is the medallion from your parents' coven." "I know, the Adams. My adopting parents." "No, your birth parents were associated with this coven. Your father was the leader." This disturbs Will. "He drove them mad, he's the reason they're dead." But still, "That's all in the past. I'm not my father. I'm Ben's friend."

Eldridge tells a tale. Hundreds of years ago, there was a war between the two most powerful covens. For this time, the one that they worshipped flourished with evil. It was a horrible time for everyone else, no one could confront these powerful warlocks. The soldiers for the coven that initiated the war, the Order of the Crimson Hearts, would take their rivals' powers to take back to their master by collecting their hearts, ripping them out and consuming them whole. The soldiers couldn't use the powers absorbed, they were just vessels to deliver it to the master. The killings will stop if the soldiers locate the Chosen One. "They will then have enough power to rid the world of all of us." Their biggest concern is if the two most powerful ones fornicate, they will fulfill a prophecy and conceive a child that can rule the world under evil.

Will needs to find the leader of the coven. He accepts this challenge. Eldridge comments that it appears that Will is becoming more accepting of his "gift". Will asks him for some ancient advice. Eldridge merely tells him to "Be prepared", then takes the stone from Will's hand. The black stone has turned white.

Keely walks through a woods, grumbling about the Chosen One. She reaches an iron gate and opens it to enter her coven's lair. Skylar is holding a handful of bloody pentagram necklaces and Leandra is playing with fire while they chat about their murderous duties. They must continue the slaughter so they can rule over all. Keely wants to finish the war soon so they can experience the power their master speaks of. She believes she's found the Chosen One. Will Spanner. He has the sacred markings and he's a powerful warlock. A voice cries out for "Silence!" and a robed figure walks into the lair.

At Will's office the next day, he's sitting at his desk and you'll never guess what he's looking at. A woman enters and introduces herself as Dolores Stevens. "I guess you don't come across too many Doloreses nowadays." He references Witchcraft II, "I knew a Dolores a few years ago." This Dolores is here to ask for Will's help in finding her brother Jason, who's been missing by choice for a while. She has come to Will because Jason was involved in the goth scene, possibly a cult, maybe related to witchcraft. Because of this, some people in the police department recommended Will to her. Will is bothered to hear this, but he agrees to help her. To repay his kindness, Dolores invites Will to have dinner at her place. She could give Will some of her brother's things while he's there. Will doesn't agree to come over, but she leaves the invitation open. "You're a good man, Will Spanner. It's rare to find a man with a heart like yours." She exits.

White and Gentry are parked outside Will's office. Will calls and chews them out for recommending him to Dolores and telling people about his personal life. They don't know what he's talking about. After Will hangs up on them, the detectives are insulted that Will thinks they would break his confidence.

A drunk guy stumbles into his home to find Leandra sitting on his couch, waiting for him. She introduces herself as "a gift from a friend" and tells him to sit down beside her. When he sits down, she has him lie back and straddles him. When she kisses the guy, she senses that she's got the wrong person. The guy she's there for is this one's roommate. Leandra kills the drunk by sticking a finger into his neck. The roommate enters the house, Leandra rushes him and tears his heart out.

Will arrives at Dolores's place. She answers the door all made up and wearing a nice dress. White and Gentry are parked down the street, watching the house. Gentry asks White if Will ever hooked up with his ex Lucy. There was nothing going on there but professional respect. Why did White and Lucy break up? Lucy's whole family were cops; her father, killed in the line of duty; her brother, also killed in the line of duty. Here White was, another cop in her life. Lucy was called in on a serial killer case and had to go to England (in Witchcraft 10). That's when they broke up, the time she spent away in England making it easier to deal with. White still misses her every day.

Inside Dolores's home, she provides Will with a picture of her brother and one of his old phone bills. These will help narrow down the investigation. Dolores thanks him and pours him another glass of wine.

Will tells a story that finally reveals why he changed his last name between parts 2 and 3. He knows what it's like to lose someone, he lost his parents. Like everyone, when he was a teenager he questioned who he was and where he came from. That's when they told him he was adopted. When his adoptive parents, the Adams, died, he took Mrs. Adams' maiden name Spanner. He did it to help himself cope and put his past behind him. The Adams knew he was different, but it didn't matter, they always treated him with respect and tried to protect him. Dolores compliments his accomplishments and his looks. She finds him very attractive. "I find you very attractive too Dolores, but I don't think..." She shushes him. "Don't think, just drink."

They segue into having sex. Lightning flashes like a strobe light and we see a topless Keely watching them through a window, blood on her mouth.

At work the next day, Laura delivers a box of information on Jason Stevens to Will. Through the phone bill, Laura has been able to narrow down the potential Jasons to a few homes that aren't far away. She wonders how Will got the phone bill and is clearly not happy to hear that he met up with Dolores after work and she gave it to him. "I bet she did." Laura tells Will that if he needs anything at all, "just grab me."

Will visits the home of a potential Jason and finds that the front door is unlocked. He enters the house and looks around, finding Jason's rotting body on a bed, a pentagram drawn on a bedroom wall. Will touches the pentagram and sees flashes of disturbing but unhelpful images. Will identifies Jason by the picture Dolores gave him and leaves.

Will returns to Dolores's house to tell her the bad news. Jason has been murdered. Will is going to find out who did it. He assures her that he's there for her.

Will goes to work the next day and searches papers for clues, the boom mic reflected in the picture behind his desk. Pulling out a map, Will marks the locations where the body of each murder victim has been found. Will realizes that the locations are in a pattern and when he connects the dots it makes a pentagram on the map. Right in the center of the pentagram is Tulsa Road, the road Will's law office is on. Will needs to get some more advice from Eldridge.

Eldridge is meditating when Leandra enters. Eldridge tells her that he is not the one her coven is looking for. They know, but the leader thinks he's going to be a problem. Eldridge informs her that his powers are weak, they would not be pleasing to her master. "Maybe not, but it will still feel good ripping it out of you." Eldridge tosses a little ball of magic into her stomach. It hurts, but she laughs it off before throwing some magic flame at him. Eldridge is incapacitated. Leandra regrets that he's so weak, she would've liked to have taken him down in the bedroom. Eldridge isn't disappointed, "If I wanted to make love to a glass of water, I would've gone to my kitchen." Dissed! I guess. Leandra rips his heart out.

Will arrives soon after to find Eldridge's body. Eldridge cluthes a pentagram necklace in his dead hands. Will takes it and leaves. As he exits, he sees Leandra running to her car. Will follows. A car chase ensues.

The car chase ends in a wooded area and is followed by a foot chase, with Leandra leading Will right to her coven's lair. Detectives White and Gentry arrive in the woods not long after Will and heroes and villains converge in the coven lair, where plans are laid out, the identity of the coven leader is revealed, and the final battle happens... Both the final confrontation of this film and the Witchcraft series.

Will's libido and the 666 on his neck play important roles, powers are unleashed, and it all ties back into the story of part 1.

13 was a totally watchable Witchcraft installment, decently well-made with a standard story for the series. I appreciated and was surprised by the attempts to provide answers to longstanding continuity issues. If this is the final Witchcraft movie, it works and they went out on a good note.

But franchise hero Will Spanner is still out there, so you never know... Maybe we'll get a Witchcraft 14 someday. If so, I may now be qualified to make it if the producers are interested. After all, I have studied every scene of this series!

And now we've reached the end of Witching Wednesdays. This was a fun, though at times exhausting project to do. I'm glad the series held up so that I could do this without getting too negative. Sure, these aren't great movies. Maybe not even good movies. But they were never so bad that I didn't enjoy watching them, they never committed the cinematic sin that is impossible to get past - they were never dull.

I've had fun, and I hope anyone who followed along on this detailed journey through the Witchcraft series enjoyed it as well.