Season of the Witch Information

Season of the Witch is a 2011 American fantasy adventure horror film starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Dominic Sena with extensive uncredited reshoots by Brett Ratner. Cage stars with Ron Perlman as Teutonic Knights, who return from the Crusades to find their fatherland ruined by the Black Death. Two church elders accuse a girl (Claire Foy) of being a witch and being responsible for the destruction and command the knights to transport the girl to a monastery so the monks there can lift her curse from the land. The film draws inspiration from the 1957 film The Seventh Seal. It reunited Sena and Cage after they worked together on Gone in 60 Seconds.

Development on the film began in 2000 when the spec script by screenwriter Bragi F. Schut was purchased by MGM. The project moved from MGM to Columbia Pictures to Relativity Media, where the film was finally produced by Charles Roven and Alex Gartner. Filming took place primarily in Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Season of the Witch was released on , 2011 in the United States, Canada and several other territories. The film received negative reviews but was a moderate box office success.

Plot

In the 13th century, three women accused of witchcraft are hanged by a priest. While one claims to be a witch out of persuasion from the church, one doesn't deny it and curses the priest. He kills them by hanging and implores the guards to pull them back up for a ritual that will make the so-called witches never come back to life, but the guards refuse, claiming them to be dead enough. Afraid that they would come back, the priest returns late at night alone and performs the ritual to prevent the bodies from coming back to life. While successfully completing the ritual for the first two of the bodies, the third one, who happens to be the one who claimed to be a herbalist, takes on a demonic appearance and kills the priest. Later, in the 14th century, Teutonic Knights Behmen von Bleibruck (Nicolas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) are engaged in a crusade, taking part in several different battles throughout the 1330s and eventually taking part in the Smyrniote crusades. After witnessing the massacre of civilians during the 1344 capture of Smyrna, the two knights choose to desert the Order and the crusade and return to Austria.

While traveling through Styria, they encounter the grotesque sight of people infected with the Black Death and soon discover that the Holy Roman Empire has been swept by the plague. Behmen and Felson enter the medieval town of Marburg, the German name for Maribor (once part of Styria, now in Slovenia). The two try to conceal their identity as deserters, but are revealed as knights by the crest on Behmen's sword. He and Felson are then arrested. They are taken to Cardinal D'Ambroise (Christopher Lee), who is infected with the plague. The Cardinal asks the knights to escort an alleged witch suspected of causing the plague to a remote monastery where an elite group of monks reside. These monks are capable of determining if the girl is truly a witch. If she is found guilty, the monks know a sacred ritual that can cancel her powers and stop the plague that is devastating Europe. The two knights agree under the condition that she will be given a fair trial and that the charges of desertion against them are dropped. The Cardinal agrees and they set out accompanied by a priest Debelzeq (Stephen Campbell Moore); Kay von Wollenbarth (Robert Sheehan), a young altar boy who wants to become a knight like his deceased father; Eckhart (Ulrich Thomsen), a knight whose family was killed by the plague; and the well-traveled swindler Hagamar (Stephen Graham) who is serving as their guide to the monastery in return for a pardon. The witch, a young girl later identified as Anna (Claire Foy), shows hatred towards Debelzeq and forms a bond with Behmen.

Shortly after setting off, the group camp for the night. Eckhart volunteers to watch the witch for the first night. After a while, Debelzeq comes to relieve Eckhart, who decides to remain with him. He tells Debelzeq about his daughter Mila, who resembled Anna. When Eckhart gets up to leave, Anna becomes hysterical at the prospect of being left alone with the priest. She attacks him and grabs his key to the cage. She escapes and flees toward a nearby village. The search for her leads the group to a mass grave, where Eckhart has visions of his dead daughter. Running after the visions, he impales himself on Kay's sword and dies. When they recapture her, the tearful Anna explains that she only ran away for fear of Debelzeq. However the group becomes less trusting of Anna. The group manages to cross a rickety rope bridge, during which Anna saves Kay from falling to his death by grabbing him with one hand, showing an unnatural strength. The group enters the dark forest called Wormwood, where Hagamar attempts to kill Anna so the group can go home, only to be stopped by the others. Anna appears to summon wolves, who chase the group and kill Hagamar. An enraged Behmen tries to kill Anna, but is stopped by Debelzeq and Felson, who point out that the monastery is in sight.

Arriving at the monastery, the men find all of the monks have been killed by the plague but locate the Key of Solomon, an ancient book filled with holy rituals used to defeat evil. The men confront Anna, with Debelzeq beginning to perform a ritual used on witches. However, as Anna begins precisely recounting Behmen's past actions during the Crusades, Debelzeq comes to the realization that she is not a witch, and begins frantically performing an exorcism. However, the demon that is possessing Anna reveals himself and melts the metal of the cage. The demon effortlessly fights off the knights, but when Debelzeq throws a vial of holy water on him, the demon flies out of sight. As the men search for the demon, they come to the realization that he isn't trying to escape, but trying to destroy the book so that nothing can stop his powers. When they find a room where the monks were writing copies of the book, the demon appears, destroys the copies and possesses the dead monks' bodies to use as weapons. The three men fight the possessed monks while Debelzeq continues the exorcism ritual. During the fight, the demon kills Debelzeq, then proceeds to kill Felson. Kay picks up the book and continues the ritual, while Behmen continues fighting the demon. Behmen is mortally wounded during the fight, but Kay is able to finish the ritual and the demon is expelled from Anna's body, freeing her. Behmen asks Kay to keep Anna safe and then dies of his wounds.

Kay and Anna bury their fallen friends. Anna requests that Kay tell her about the men who saved her. They depart from the monastery with the book in hand.

Cast

• Nicolas Cage as Behmen von Bleibruck
• Ron Perlman as Felson
• Claire Foy as Anna / The Girl
• Stephen Campbell Moore as Debelzeq
• Robert Sheehan as Kay von Wollenbarth
• Ulrich Thomsen as Johann Eckhardt
• Stephen Graham as Hagamar
• Christopher Lee as Cardinal D'Ambroise

Production

Development and filming

Screenwriter Bragi F. Schut wrote Season of the Witch as a spec script that was placed on the open market in 2000. Numerous studios bid on the script, and producers Charles Roven and Alex Gartner collaborated with the studio MGM to place a winning bid. MGM could not find traction to produce the film, and in 2003"2004 the studio "was essentially obtained by a number of concerns". Columbia Pictures earmarked several properties for themselves, including Season of the Witch. The producers worked with director Dominic Sena to perform location shooting throughout Europe. They sought a 14th century castle to use as a setting for the story; castles visited in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic could not fit the period. With the film yet to be produced, the project eventually moved to Relativity Media, and Sena was officially attached to direct. Business and creative discussions led to avoiding too much violence or gore in the film so a broader audience could see it. Actor Nicolas Cage was considered for the starring role but was unavailable during the time of the location shooting. Cage eventually became available in 2008 and was cast in the role. He explained his interest, "I wanted to make movies that celebrated actors like Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, and the great Roger Corman classics that are unafraid to explore the paranormal and the supernatural."

The crew began production immediately after Cage finished Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009). The film had a budget of approximately US$40 million, and much of the budget was covered by Relativity with pre-sales to distributors outside the United States. Filming took place in Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Most of the principal photography took place in practical locations, with several days committed to filming on greenscreen. Principal photography was completed by April 2009, but the cast and crew re-gathered a few months later to film additional battle sequences, filming on greenscreen to save on travel. The reshoots were directed by Brett Ratner.

Casting

Cage stars as Behman of Bleibruck, a Teutonic knight who returns from the Crusades to discover the devastation caused by the Black Plague. The actor had worked with director Dominic Sena on Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) and with producer Charles Roven on City of Angels (1998). Cage was interested in the film's fantastical subject matter, also having recently starred in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. He also described Behmen as "the first" conscientious objector, saying, "I admired... the idea of him breaking from whatever religious propaganda was forced upon him, and still finding an even closer connection with his faith and with God. Those iconoclastic elements to the character made him very interesting to me." For the role, Cage learned horseback riding from Camilla Naprous and her team of horse trainers in England. Cage also worked with a fight choreographer to learn swordfighting.

Perlman plays Felson, a knight who is Behmen's best friend and fellow combatant during the Crusades. Perlman said of choosing the role, "I love the character. I'm actually more comfortable being a sidekick, because I don't get blamed if it is a complete disaster. I really liked ... his mindset, I liked his irreverence. In the world of seriousness, he's a guy who thinks it's all bullshit. He's just in it for the whores and the sword fights." Perlman described Felson's religion, "Whereas Behmen has a very well-articulated idea of his relationship to country and church and spirituality and God, Felson has none. He doesn't bother to spend any time thinking about that."

Foy appears in her feature-film debut as the girl who is accused of being a witch. Known for her titular role in the British miniseries Little Dorrit, she met Sena and sought the role in Season of the Witch. She explained the choice, "It's quite a manipulative role; the character does a lot of manipulating. Pitting other people against each other, being quite mischievous... That was something I thought would obviously be good to do." Foy researched witchcraft and demonic possession for the role. She described its appeal, "Playing a character that was making things happen, and mainly in control of an entire group of men. And for once, be the character that is completely in the know about everything. There is nothing that she doesn't know. Nothing is a surprise. And she is able to deal with every single situation that arises the way that she sees fit. And I think that was quite refreshing to be able to play a character that wasn't entirely beholden to everyone else."

Visual effects

For Season of the Witch, Tippett Studio designed the demon that manifests in the film's denouement. The art directors researched woodcuts and other artwork for classic demonic appearances. The filmmakers requested an entity "lithe and feminine", and the visual effects crew designed a demon that had "cloven feet, a dog ankle and a fawn leg". Designing visual effects for the demon's wings was the biggest challenge since wings tend to get in the way or do not move convincingly. The filmmakers also requested holes in the demon's wings. The crew designed holes that appeared worn instead of ripped since ripped holes would require an added billowing effect.

The demon was also designed to have dark gray skin, which presented the crew a challenge in the film's dark settings. Tippett's Blair Clark said, "We played the skin like a rotten mummy: nothing too moist, with a lot of wear marks on it." The crew's final visual effects shot was the death of the demon, and they researched previous films and terminology for how demons' deaths have been designed. They drew inspiration from Hellboy (2004) where they focused on the buildup to the demon's death. Clark said, "We built it over a series of shots so it doesn't just happen in one shot. We had little patches on the demon that start to crack and result in a glow that looks like it's burning from within."

Release

Lionsgate scheduled Season of the Witch to be released on March 19, 2010, but five weeks before the date, the studio decided to pull the film from release. Lionsgate originally had an output deal with Relativity Media, but since Relativity had formed its own marketing and distribution arm in 2010, Relativity chose to release the film themselves and in October 2010 set the film's new release date for January 7, 2011. Season of the Witch was Relativity's first inhouse production.

Season of the Witch in January 2010 had been rated PG-13 (parental guidance for children 13 and under) by the Motion Picture Association of America, citing "thematic elements, violence, and disturbing content". The studio edited the film and re-submitted it to the MPAA in November 2010 for a new rating. The MPAA gave the film the same rating and reason for it as before.

The film had its world premiere in New York City on January 4, 2011. The film was released commercially on January 7, 2011 in several territories. Pre-release polling had indicated young men were the core demographic for the film, though more women than expected expressed interest in the film. Experts anticipated that the film would gross US$10-12 million on its opening weekend in the United States and Canada. The film was released in 2,816 theaters in the two territories. It grossed , ranking third at the box office after True Grit and Little Fockers, which were both released at the end of 2010. Relativity Media's exit polling showed that the audience was 52% male and that 61% were 25 years old and up. Los Angeles Times reported that an "unusually high" 69% of the audience was nonwhite. Entertainment Weekly reported that the racial diversity of Season of the Witchs audiences was common for supernatural thrillers; the breakdown was 36% Hispanic, 31% Caucasian, 14% Asian, 10% African-American, and 9% "other". According to CinemaScore, audiences gave the film a C+ grade. The film was the second release by Relativity and performed better than its first release, The Warrior's Way (2010). The opening weekend was not the lowest of Nicolas Cage's career; it was better than The Wicker Man (2006), Next (2007) and Bangkok Dangerous (2008).

Season of the Witch grossed in the United States and Canada and in other territories for a worldwide total of .

Home media

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (under a new output license deal with Relativity) released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on , 2011. 20th Television holds pay-per-view, on-demand, and television rights to this film under Fox's new deal with Relativity/Rogue.

Critical reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 10% based on reviews from 109 critics and reports a rating average of 3.6 out of 10. It reported the overall consensus, "Slow, cheap-looking, and dull, Season of the Witch fails even as unintentional comedy." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 28 based on 27 reviews.

Associated Press movie critic Christy Lemire called Season of the Witch "a supernatural action thriller that's never actually thrilling". She wrote, "The scenery is drab, the battles are interchangeable, and no one seems particularly interested in being here. At the same time, Dominic Sena ... never flat-out goes for it in a schlocky, B-horror kind of way. What we're left with is just bloated, boring and utterly forgettable." The critic found Cage and Perlman to be poorly utilized and said of the film's progression, "It's a slog from one challenge to the next, with no real tension building, and all the while the alleged witch plays coy about whether she's actually a witch, pouting beneath her bangs, Kristen Stewart-style."

According to the Los Angeles Times, critics said that Cage was the primary reason that "this swords-and-sorcery romp is a collosal waste of time". Andrew Barker of Variety said Season of the Witch was "both overblown and undercooked" and thought the film would have been more fun if it had a sense of humor. He called the film "too inert for midnight-movie schadenfreudists, and not nearly competent enough for even the most forgiving of fantasy fans". Of the film's production value, he said, "Witchs photography, costumes and production design are of good quality; editing, scoring and visual effects are most decidedly not."

Tom Huddleston of Time Out London wrote, "Despite its admirably straight face, Season of the Witch is a silly romp through Pythonesque medieval cliché and knockabout Hammer horror with a dash of cut-price Tolkien chucked in to keep things moving." Huddleston criticized Cage's performance but praised Perlman's. The critic concluded, "Season of the Witch is not for everyone: it's creaky, predictable and frequently idiotic. But for a tipsy Saturday night, this should tick all the right boxes."

Salons Andrew O'Hehir called the film a "Hollywood-by-Hungary" remake with the "B-movie aesthetic" of director Roger Corman. O'Hehir wrote, "Season of the Witch is an unremitting schlockfest, full of blood and filth, bloated, purulent corpses, ghastly one-eyed witches and undead monks. If there were more such Corman-esque thrills and chills, and a whole bunch less ponderous Bergman references, we'd all be better off."