Witch Hunt, 1994, staring Dennis Hopper & Penelope Ann Miller. Directed by Paul Schrader.

While looking for movies to review today, I stumbled across this piece of history from 1994, "Witch Hunt".

Being as I love movies from the 90's,  I was pretty excited just because of that, but then I thought about it more and I realized I also love film noir, movies about magic/ witch craft, AND Dennis Hopper, the icing on the cake was that at one point in his career Mr. Hopper had said "it was the strangest movie he had been in." It was natural after that, that I grabbed some popcorn and got to watching!

A few things you should know. This movie is in color, it was made for/ by HBO (Yay! Swearing and boobs!), the director (Paul Schrader) also directed "Cat People", and it is 100 Minutes in length.
The first couple minutes of the movie are a little stock footage news report, which I really enjoyed, it's no secret I love vintage advertisements, and it was eye candy for sure. After that I had high hopes, and although the movie didn't let me down, I can't actually figure out why I found it on a list of "40 horror movies I had to see." There was very little horror in it, and what there was, well, it was just awesomely funny.
This movie did make me happy with it's array of corny 1990's physical effects, the raven with the snake being my very favorite.  I am a huge fan of physical effects, I have yet to see a CGI effect that compares with the awesome gross drool of the Deadly Spawn. Don't get me wrong, of course, CGI is a modern staple and can make some awesome things possible in movies, but some times I just need real slime.
There are funny one liners sprinkled through out the story, my favorite being, "This isn't the first time I've been f***ed in a producers office!!" also if you pay attention peoples names, there are a lot of little jokes.
The sets are pretty interesting, very well done, especially the ones that are either in the Ennnis House, or are suppose to be, based on the pattern of the blocks. (For those who don't know, the Ennis House also appears in the 1959 "House on Haunted Hill", "Blade Runner", "The Thirteenth Floor" and a couple David Lynch projects.)


The story is decent but there were times I found myself wondering what was going on or how one part of the movie related to another. I did enjoy their nod the "The Big Combo" when they were at the drive in movie. The story gets a little confusing in the end, but as in all noir movies they sort of explain things in the end,  so all and all not horrible.

Witch hunt was a fun little comedy with hilarious effects and pretty sets. It was light on story and good acting, but it isn't like I could any better, so I think if I had a rating system I would give it a 7 out of 10.

If you like goofy comedies like "Beetlejuice and "Death Becomes Her" but with less gore, Give this a try!