I watched Black Death and Season of the Witch a week apart, which gives some perspective on what goes right and what goes terribly wrong in both films. They both share a similar plot: during the Black Plague, holy knights (in both movies, Teutonic Knights judging from their attire) are sent to retrieve a witch who is to be put on trial for her crimes, a crime tied to the plague. In Black Death it's a town that avoids the plague and is rumored to bring the dead back to life; in Season of the Witch it's a witch who is believed to have caused the plague. In fact, Season of the Witch could almost be a sequel to Black Plague, as it starts with the with (Black Death's "necromancer") already captured.
Like Black Death, Teutonic Knights are drafted to return the witch for trial. In this case its two jaded Crusaders named Behmen von Bleibruck (Nicolas Cage) and his lifelong companion Felson (Ron Perlman). Captured for deserting the Crusades, they agree to accompany priest Debelzeq (Stephen Campbell Moore); grizzled knight Eckhart (Ulrich Thomsen), swindler and guide Hagamar (Stephen Graham), tagalong altar boy turned prospective warrior Kay von Wollenbarth (Robert Sheehan), and of course the cutie-pie witch herself Anna (Claire Foy).
Season of the Witch flirts with the idea that the witch might be innocent...for about five minutes. Then it simply gives up and makes it clear that something is definitely not right. Anna is supernaturally strong, has peculiar insights into the souls of the men accompanying her, and progressively becomes less dirty and disheveled as the film progresses.
Unlike Black Death, Season of the Witch delivers on the promise of a supernatural smack down. The special effects range from very good (the big bad guy at the end) to the passable (the mutated wolves) to the pathetic (at one point, Cage and Perlman have a discussion on supposed horseback in front of an obvious green screen). There's no rhyme or reason to the actors' accents. Season of the Witch makes no attempts at coherent dialogue. It's a low-budget film with a FX gloss.
But if you can look past that, Season of the Witch is basically a medieval version of movies that have trod similar territory; it's not as funny as Evil Dead II but has better special effects than Dylan Dog. It's not that Season of the Witch is terrible, it's just doesn't even try to be good.
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