Presents

 Jim Haggerty's WitchMaster General

When the occult is present, usually movies get a bit esoteric or sometimes even boring.  But, when it's done well, it can be both scary and entertaining, well, that's what's happened with Jim Haggerty and his new movie, Witchmaster General.  The story here is your basic occult tale of revenge, when Tom Morgan suspects that his wife is cheating on him, he's told to visit the secretive Dr. Gorgon.  It seems that Dr. Gorgon (played with scene chewing panache by L.A. Guns voice, Phil Lewis) has mystical voodoo powers that allow him to kill whomever he wishes from the comfort of his study.  Tom pays Dr. Gorgon with a vow of silence and is sent on his way, assured that by the evening both his wife and his best friend (who is doing the cheating with her) will be dead and he will be completely without blood on his hands.
	Enter Detective Stone, a tough street cop who's been handed the cases of both Tom's wife and best friend, who seem to have died with very little evidence.  Tom's wife is drowned, but no water appears in the body, and Tom's best friend has been burned to death in his car, but nothing is charred and there are no burn marks anywhere!  Stone is convinced that he's either going crazy or something weird is going on.  With the help of Dr. Harrison, the local coroner (who just happens to also be a student of the occult), Stone is sent to search for Dr. Gorgon, which will either end with Gorgon's killing spree ended or with Stone among the dead!
Witchmaster General is Haggerty's fourth film and it shows real progress from The Slasher, that Haggerty did in 2000.  The story is great (if a bit simplistic), the girls are all hot (and many of them get appropriately undressed!) and the acting is all great, but the real stars here are Phil Lewis as Dr. Gorgon and Vic Martino as Inspector Stone.  Martino shines as the tough but good-hearted Stone, although he seems a bit more Soprano's tough guy than street cop.  Martino manages to bring both a toughness and comedy to Stone, although his romance with Colleen Marie's character Rose seems a bit of a stretch (Come on Rose, you can do better than that!).  The real star of the show here, though, is Phil Lewis.  Lewis' Dr. Gorgon is old school warlock evil, and Lewis seems to be treasuring every second he gets to play the evil doc.
The bottom line here is the Jim Haggerty has done it again!  I was a big fan of his last movie, Grave Danger, which was a series of short stories.  Here he's done the same thing with one feature length tale.  Witchmaster General isn't perfect, in fact, if you watch any of the hundred thousand police precedurals on TV, you'll notice a few holes, but I'll forgive all that because doing all Jim has done here on an ultra-low budget is amazing, I won't fault him for some tiny errors that most people won't notice anyway.  I'm giving Witchmaster General three and a half out of four cigars, as I said, it's not perfect, but Jim gets more proficient and his movies get better with each one!  I honestly can't wait for his next movie, From The Inside.  If you're into the occult and want a great movie that no one else has seen yet, then click on the Yellow Ape Productions pic and be the first on your block to get a copy of Jim Haggerty's Witchmaster General!