The detailed journey through the Witchcraft series nears its midway point as Cody takes in a viewing of the sixth film. Learn all about it within...
Cultists in hooded robes gather around an outdoor altar, where a victim lies presumably waiting to be sacrificed. A large syringe full of green liquid is held in the hands of one cult member. The cult leader's hand, wearing a bat-winged demon ring, is placed over the victim's navel and begins kneading the flesh until the form of a pentagram swells up on the person's stomach.
Marketing materials and case art refer to this film as Witchcraft 666, but the title sequence shows us only one 6 after the title. The subtitle gets special font, unlike 3 and 5's subtitles, but in general all of the credits look better this time.
A car drives along a dark road, moans and groans coming from within. A deep voice warns, "Keep your eyes on the road." A radio news report tells us that the dead body of a college girl has been found in the Hollywood Hills, the second body to be found this week. The next story is about an upcoming lunar eclipse, the first in sixty-six years. The last eclipse occured in 1928.
The car we've been watching parks on a secluded country road and a man gets out of the passenger side. He walks to the back of the car, opens the trunk, and pulls out the nude corpse of a young blonde girl, carrying her off into the night.
Later, Detectives Lutz and Garner speed up to the spot where the girl's body has been found, bickering about Garner's Mexican food-induced gas as they approach the sheet-covered corpse. Garner pulls back the sheet to look at the girl's face, comments that the body is warm "like a donut straight out of the oven", then disgusts Lutz by complimenting her looks. "The poor girl is dead and you think she's worth a roll in the hay." Their Captain arrives and they talk more about her condition. She looks like she's in a trance. No signs of penetration, no wounds. She's been embalmed. There was a gold cross around her neck. Just like the other two bodies found recently. The Captain chews the detectives out for not solving this case yet. It's a miracle that the press hasn't gone public with the story. If they don't stop the killer before they find a fourth body, they're off the case.
Lutz and Garner stop by a diner, where they get coffee-to-go in Wendy's cups that have had the E, Y, and Wendy's face scribbled over with red ink. Garner flirts with the waitress and gets shot down.
As Lutz and Garner walk out, they pass a man dressed like the one we saw carrying the corpse earlier. He sits at the bar beside an attractive blonde and kicks off a conversation with, "I really like country-western. How 'bout you?" She enjoys it too. He offers to buy her a shake, but she's waiting for someone. He introduces himself as Jonathan. She tells him her name is Mary, to which he says, "Like the virgin." She excuses herself and walks off.
At the police station, Lutz and Garner are getting frustrated while going over their case files. Betty, their secretary or a co-worker who they treat like a secretary, brings in new files on "cause of death unknown" and a box of donuts to get them through the night. Garner checks out her ass as she walks away. In the new file, Lutz reads that a body was found in San Francisco in the exact same condition as the ones they've been finding in Hollywood. Embalmed, cross around her neck, etc. Lutz tells Betty to give the San Francisco cop a call and Garner advises her to stop wearing her cross necklace.
Back at the diner, Mary fiddles with her cross necklace to assure us that she's a potential victim. Her date still hasn't arrived, so Jonathan joins her again and starts delivering some smooth lines to get her over being stood up. He says he's in the mood for a drink, a real drink, something with kick. He asks her, "Have you ever had a Screaming Orgasm?" "What?" "Well, it's a drink." "Oh, I don't drink alcohol." "Who said it was a drink?" OK...
Garner is smoking and pacing, worrying about getting taken off the case. He tells Lutz he wants to put an APB out on the description that a witness gave. "Six foot, muscular, cute ass." Lutz mocks his idea. Garner blows smoke in Lutz's face, Lutz slams Garner's thumb in a file cabinet.
Jonathan walks Mary back to her home and she invites him in. He tries to put the moves on her, but she turns him down. She hardly knows him. He's sorry, he's just very attracted to her. She offers him something to drink. He asks for something cold to cool him off. She goes to the refrigerator and bends over to look inside, her dress riding up to reveal her panties. She lists off the beverages she has. He chooses tomato juice. When she turns to hand it to him, he grabs her and backs her up against the fridge. "Pretend it's a Bloody Mary." He kisses her. This time she doesn't turn him down, she even initiates some Frenching. They move the action down to the floor, Mary's breasts are revealed, the tomato juice gets spilled.
Jonathan and Mary are still writhing on the kitchen floor when Jonathan pulls out a syringe full of green liquid and injects her with it. She loses consciousness immediately.
Lutz and Garner decide that they need to call in a professional. Betty informs them that the cop she was told to contact in San Francisco has been murdered. She's sent back out for files on every expert on the occult who has ever set foot in the police station. This supernatural mumbo jumbo gives Lutz the creeps. It reminds Garner of an old TV show about a man playing a game of pool with someone who's the devil in disguise.
Jonathan carries Mary's body out of her house and takes it to the car we saw at the beginning, putting her in the trunk. A woman named Cat is waiting in the driver's seat. Jonathan tells her he thinks Mary was a virgin. Since he said "was", Cat takes it to mean that he had sex with her. Jonathan assures her, "You know I can't touch any of them. Why do you think I need you so badly, Cat?" She climbs into his lap and they have sex. Cat has a screaming orgasm. Not the drink.
Betty brings Lutz and Garner a list of cases that had to do with the occult and a list of the people involved. She points out one person in particular - Will Spanner, divorce lawyer. This guy has helped the department out before. Word is his father was a high-ranking devil worshipper. Garner likes the idea of Will finding the killer while Lutz and Garner take all the credit. Lutz gives Garner a list of loonies to round up so they can question them while Will watches. They'll visit Will in the morning.
Flashbacks to the first Witchcraft and its 1687 prologue follow. A hand cracks an egg into a glass. Over 21 minutes in, franchise hero Will Spanner wakes up in bed. He's now being played by Jerry Spicer. Beside him is his girlfriend from part 5, Keli. She's also been recast and is now played by Debra K. Beatty. She looks nothing like her predecessor, but Spicer does sort of resemble a scrawny version of Charles Solomon, who played Will in 2 - 4.
There's a knock at the house's front door and the couple gets out of bed. Keli heads off to the shower while Will goes downstairs and slowly makes his way to the door as the knocking continues. He takes his time, even stopping to pour himself a cup of coffee on the way.
Will finally opens the door to find Lutz and Garner on his front porch. After checking their I.D.s, he lets them in and after some questions gets them to tell him why they're there. They hear he has special knowledge of the occult, they want to ask him some questions because someone is killing women for some ritualistic purpose. He tells them, "I'm a divorce lawyer, I deal with dead marriages, not dead women." Lutz tells him he could help save the next victim, then gets informed over his walkie talkie that a fourth body has been found. Lutz and Garner have to go to the morgue. Garner asks him to come along, maybe he'll see something they don't.
Will goes upstairs to get dressed and tell Keli what's happening. They had plans for the weekend, they'll have to postpone them until next week. Keli isn't happy about the sound of this situation, "We can't go through this again."
Lutz, Garner, and Will look over Mary's body in the morgue. Garner immediately finds a small pentagram branded on her inner thigh. Will sees flashes of images we've seen earlier in the film and tells the detectives, "She's marked for sacrifice." "Sacrifice to who?" "Satan." "Satan. The Satan?"
Garner interviews fortune teller Gubere, one of the loonies Lutz wanted brought in, while Will and Lutz watch through a two-way mirror. Will doesn't think Gubere's worth talking to. "This guy's a fruitcake. Get rid of him." Gubere eventually says that he's preparing for the coming of his Lord, which will be a week from Tuesday. Garner dismisses him, Gubere says his Lord will look favorably upon him.
Lutz shows Will a bra that belongs to his wife, then goes in to interview a series of loonies, telling them that the bra belonged to one of the deceased. Despite claiming to be psychics, they all believe him and each gives nonsense information about the victim and killer in their own nonsensical way. The interviews go nowhere.
Before their last interview of the day, Lutz complains to Garner about this all being a waste of time, then they berate Will for talking like it's been an inconvenient waste of time for him as well. Will goes out to make a phone call. When a man dressed in a white suit and walking with a cane passes him, Will hangs up the phone without making his call and follows the man.
The man, Savanti, sits in the interview room. He has long fingernails and wears a ring with a bat-winged demon on it. Lutz lays the bra on the table in front of him and Savanti asks, "Who does it belong to? Your wife?" Lutz shows him a photograph of a pentagram marking and asks if it means anything to him. Savanti says it doesn't. He clearly knows that he's being watched through the mirror.
Will is staring at Savanti through the mirror, spacing out and seeing flashes of images from this film and the first Witchcraft. He imagines Savanti's face morphing into something demonic.
Lutz tells Savanti he thought he was an expert in the supernatural. Savanti says he's merely a shop owner, dealing in ancient artifacts. Lutz asks why he's wasting his time then. "You called me." Lutz apologizes and dismisses him. Savanti exits, giving one last lingering look at the mirror.
Lutz goes into the next room and asks Will what he thought of Savanti. "Arrest him." Savanti's their man. Lutz is not convinced. He says that he'll check Savanti's alibi, then tells Will to go home, spend time with his girlfriend, put on his thinking cap, and look forward to seeing them tomorrow. Lutz and Garner scoff at the idea of Savanti being the killer.
Will goes home and finds Keli upset that he never called. He gives her an update on the situation, she tells him to stay out of it. He can't, the cops won't let him and he can't just stand by and let innocent women get murdered. He tells Keli not to worry, "They can't get me this time." "They can always get you, Will."
Savanti is relaxing in his mansion, filing his fingernails. Cat enters and Savanti tells her that he encountered a "most interesting young man", Will Spanner. Cat knows the name. Will was once one of them, but he rejected the path of their Lord. Savanti believes he could be a thorn in their side, he wants Cat to pluck him out. So to speak. He suspects that Will is in contact with their virgin sacrifice and is protecting her. He wants Cat to bring Will back to them "the best way you know how". Savanti picks up an egg. "In some cultures, they consider the egg to symbolize the human soul. Think of Mister Spanner as an egg, my dear." He cracks the egg into a glass and drinks it down. Cat sucks egg off his fingers.
After losing a case, Will leaves the courtroom and heads to his office. His secretary Diana informs him that a woman named Mrs. Renquist is waiting for him in his office. The woman was so insistent, she thought Mrs. Renquist knew him. Will enters his office to find Cat waiting for him, smoking a cigarette. She gives him a phony story about her husband wanting a divorce over suspected infidelity. Will asks her if she has been promiscuous, he needs to know the facts. She suggests that they test her promiscuity. She picks up a pair of scissors and cuts a loose string off the bottom of her dress, flashing her panties and a pentagram marking on her inner thigh.
Will doesn't think a promiscuity test is necessary. She wants Will to tail her husband and prove that he has also been sleeping around. She gives him a picture of Jonathan. Will's fee is $300 an hour. She hires him. Her husband bartends at The Black Cat, she thinks he's having an affair with one of the dancers. Will offers Cat a handshake as she leaves. She grabs his hand and pulls him into a kiss that he's not glad to get.
Will goes to the Black Cat bar that night. Jonathan is indeed tending bar, and Will orders a Scotch from him. While Will is distracted watching a scantily clad girl dance in a nearby cage, Jonathan roofies his drink. Will compliments the dancer's looks and Jonathan says that he's been having sex with her for the last year. Of course, by now he's getting kind of bored with her. If Will is interested, Jonathan could introduce him to her. Things get wobbly as the roofie takes effect and Will starts to seem panicky. He notices a pentagram marking on the dancer's inner thigh, and when the dancer exits the cage he realizes that she's Cat. She walks up to him, sticks her hand down his pants, and they start making out. She drops to her knees... Jonathan laughs and claps...
All of the bar patrons are clapping, and the dancer is leaving her cage. Will had just been hallucinating. He stumbles out of the bar, vomiting. Lutz and Garner walk up and Lutz tells him not to drink if he can't hold his alcohol, then berates him for being at the Black Cat. He's going to screw up the investigation. Will doesn't know what he's talking about, he's just been paid by a client to follow the bartender. Lutz tells him that Savanti owns the Black Cat. "A little too coincidental, don't you think?"
Savanti walks up to the bar and Jonathan serves him a drink. Savanti tells him, "How easily the flesh is corrupted. Cat will enjoy this conquest." Jonathan nods in agreement.
Will again tells Lutz and Garner to arrest Savanti. They can't, they've got nothing on him. "Then why did you call me? You know, go f--- yourselves." Will leaves and Lutz and Garner enter the bar, stepping in Will's vomit on the way.
Will returns home to find a trail of discarded clothes and undergarments leading to the bathroom, where Keli is waiting for him in the tub. She apologizes for the way she acted yesterday. Can she make it up to him? She can. Will disrobes and joins her in the bath. We see quite a bit of Keli during their sex scene. As Booger from Revenge of the Nerds would say, "We've got bush."
Meanwhile, Cat and Jonathan are cruising the city streets, looking for a fresh victim. An attractive blonde is walking down the sidewalk. Jonathan follows her in the shadows. As the woman reaches her car and starts to unlock her door, Jonathan grabs her from behind and pulls her into the darkness.
As Will and Keli's sex scene continues, Will begins to hallucinate again. Images of Cat and Jonathan. He gets rough, sitting up and holding Keli underwater. He snaps out of it at the same moment that Jonathan grabs his new victim. Keli is let up for air and asks Will what the hell's wrong with him. He apologizes and they embrace... Keli must be used to this, he did something similar to her in part 5.
In a repeat of the film's opening, hooded cultists gather around an outdoor altar, where a victim lies waiting to be sacrificed. This time we get to see more, like the fact that Savanti is the cult leader and Jonathan and Cat are members. "And now, my child, prepare your body for our Lord Satan." He kisses the barely conscious sacrifice, then puts his hand over her navel and starts kneading her flesh. She screams as a pentagram rises in her skin, then dies. Savanti walks over to Jonathan and gives him a talking to. "You have failed me once again. Dispose of her. And if you fail me once more, I will dispose of you."
At the police station the next day, Lutz and Garner also get a strong talking to from their Captain. The Mayor wants to know why this case hasn't been solved. It's been a month and they don't even have a suspect. He tells them they're off the case and almost runs into Will on his way out of their office, asking him "Who the f--- are you?" but not sticking around for the answer.
Will follows Lutz and Garner down a hallway, telling them that they have to keep working on the case, they're so close to solving it. Garner says "Close but no cigar, you ever hear that one?" and leaves. Will confirms again to Lutz that he thinks the killer is that nutso Savanti. Unfortunately, Lutz can't lock people up just because they give Will the creeps. Will says Lutz is making a big mistake by not believing him, how many more bodies have to show up before he realizes what the hell's going on? Lutz gives in, he's desperate enough to go along with Will on this. Will can count on him.
Savanti is hanging out in his lair when Cat walks in. He tells her that she's been a great disappointment to him. The eclipse draws near, but she still hasn't found the proper sacrifice. She says that he needs to trust her, she just needs more time. There is no more time, Satan must have his virgin mistress before the eclipse. "Only then will the forces of Hell be unleashed to lead the way to the apocalypse." They only have until tomorrow night. As Savanti has said, Will holds the key to the sacrifice. Cat has been too soft with him.
Cat goes to Will's office the next day and sneaks in while his Diana is out. She goes through the papers on his desk and spots a picture of him with Keli before Will walks in on her. She says she just dropped by because she was in the neighborhood. Will tells her that he paid a visit to her husband last night, and asks her what the connection is between him and Charles Savanti. She's not familiar with the name. It's too soon for her to be checking in with Will again, he's only been on the case for one day. "I don't work at the speed of light." "I bet you work extremely fast under the proper circumstances." She climbs onto his desk and drops the straps of her dress. She pulls him on top of her and he dry humps her all over the desk at super speed before she finally pushes him back into his chair.
Apparently Will was hallucinating again, Cat's breasts are still covered and she's on the other side of the desk. She's been standing there for a few minutes. "That must've been quite a daydream." They get back to talking about her case. He reveals that her husband did admit to having an affair with a dancer. "Well move on it." "I'm moving as fast as I can, Mrs. Renquist. I've just been a bit tied up." "Hmm, that's a thought." Diana's voice comes over the intercom to tell Will that Keli's on the phone. Will shows Cat out. She asks him who Keli is. "That's none of your concern." "But it is my concern."
Will picks up the phone and has a quick chat with Keli. She asks him if he's still up for seeing a movie tonight. He can't, he has too much work to do. When they hang up, he sits back in his chair and admires the picture that Cat saw earlier.
Will finds Diana looking mopey at her desk and asks her what's wrong. He's worried about her. She says he's such a good person, "Next to God, I think you're the nicest person in the whole world." The problem is the guy that she's seeing. She thinks she loves him, but he's going too fast. She just finished school and started this job, she's not ready to go so fast. Will thinks it will work itself out. The phone rings. It's Jonathan calling. Will can't talk to him about Mrs. Renquist's case, but Jonathan offers a settlement. They arrange to meet at the Black Cat in an hour.
Will enters the Black Cat bar an hour later and takes a seat. Savanti walks up and suggests he order an extremely dry vodka martini, straight up, with an olive. On the house, of course. Martinis are set in front of both Will and Savanti. Savanti introduces himself to Will and says it's "So very nice to see the face from behind the glass." He offers to shake Will's hand, Will does not accept. They banter about their reasons for being there - Savanti's the owner, Will likes a drink after work - and discuss Will's work schedule or lack thereof. Savanti calls a regular daily "punch in, punch out" work routine barbaric and inhuman. He asks Will again why he's there. "Looking for me?" This time Will says he's there on business with a client. He'd prefer not to talk about it anymore. "Something tells me otherwise." Savanti implies that he's psychic and asks if Will is as well.
At the home she shares with Will, Keli is getting in the bathtub. "We've got bush" again. Cat parks her car outside the house, Jonathan in the passenger seat. She wishes him luck with a kiss and he is about to get out of the car when he realizes that he doesn't have his syringe. Cat forgot, she left it in her purse, which he left in Will's office. She tells Jonathan to go in the house while she goes to get the syringe.
Keli bathes while Jonathan walks around her house.
Diana is still at her desk, arguing with her boyfriend over the phone and in fact breaking up with him. Cat walks in and says she forgot her purse. Diana has it waiting for her. As Diana hands her the purse, Cat notices her gold cross ring. It's her graduation ring, she just graduated from Sacred Heart. "You don't say. Have you kept all of your vows?" Diana has not broken her vows, despite her boyfriend's insistence.
Will and Savanti are still talking over their martinis. Will doesn't believe in anything - psychic, supernatural, extraterrestrial, astrological, none of it. Savanti calls him cynical and says that this is untrue, surely Will realizes that certain people have been chosen to possess such abilities. Will has to get going. "Does the subject make you uncomfortable?" "No, you make me uncomfortable." Savanti asks him if he's ever used any of his powers. He recalls reading articles involving Will and the supernatural. Will denies their validity and eventually gets up to leave. Savanti tells him that he should hurry home. Will starts hurrying.
As Will drives, Keli is still bathing and Jonathan is still trying to figure out how to break into the house. Keli hears him making noise, gets out of the bath and grabs a pair of scissors. Will and Cat stop at a red light side-by-side and share a glance before continuing on their ways. Keli walks through the house in a towel, scissors in hand. She reaches the front door just as Jonathan opens it. As soon as he enters, she stabs him in the hand. After a brief standoff, he retreats outside. Will arrives to see Jonathan running off and checks on Keli.
Parking in the country, Cat tells Jonathan that Keli wasn't their girl anyway, she's got their girl. Will's secretary, fresh out of convent school. "Let's hope she kept her vows." Cat finally pities Jonathan about his hand and starts licking his blood. They get out of the car and have sex on the hood. People drive past, they don't mind.
Will comforts Keli and takes the scissors from her. Staring at the scissors, Will flashes back to Cat cutting the string off her dress in his office. Will has to go. He tells Keli to lock the doors and call Lutz, tell him to go to Will's office.
Lutz arrives at the office to find Will standing at Diana's desk, where there are obvious signs of struggle, including blood spatter. Will tells him that Jonathan is the killer, working for Cat, both working for Savanti, and now they have his secretary. Lutz bets they're at the Black Cat, but Will says they have to be at the highest point of the city. They have to be as close to the moon as possible. Then there's only one place they could be.
Diana is strapped to the outdoor altar, Savanti standing over her. The only other cult members present this time are Jonathan and Cat. Savanti comments that Diana is rather sultry for a virgin. He places his hand on her navel and does his kneading trick. When the pentagram swells up on Diana, hers is surrounded by three sixes. Savanti rubs it and sniffs his fingers. "She is the one."
The lunar eclipse has begun as Will and Lutz speed up to the area of the altar and Savanti prepares to sacrifice Diana... The world hopes that our heroes will be able to stop the villains in time.
When the fight has ended, the credits roll, a song playing throughout. There is no soundtrack listing to let us know what this song is or who performs it, but they are kind enough to let the song play to completion, even though this means that there's more than a minute of black screen after the credits have finished.
Witchcraft 6 End Credits.
I have to say, Will is turning out to be one disappointing cinematic warlock. This guy is supposed to have powers, but he never busts them out. I said that nothing much happened in part 4, but I may have spoken too soon, as it felt like 6 really didn't have much going on. Still, it somehow manages to work as mindless entertainment that I can't say I dislike. It's "harmless fun", as an IMDb review says.
Softcore elements have seemingly firmly ensconced themselves in the franchise now, so much so that DVD distributor Troma doesn't include a regular "Scene Selection" on the disc. Instead, it's a "Nudity Selection".
This film was the directorial debut of Julie Davis, who also co-wrote. She went on to get some acclaim and have indie success in later years with films like I Love You, Don't Touch Me! and Amy's Orgasm. Still, she didn't just toss this skeleton in the closet and cut all ties, as several members of the cast and crew have been involved with the films she's made since.
Now we've come to the close of another Witching Wednesday. Six down, seven to go. The characters of Will, Keli, Lutz, and Garner all return in the next film, and all are recast. Word is that the story will involve some bloodsuckers. Low-key warlock vs. vampires. Place your bets, and return to read about how it goes in the next Witching Wednesday.
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