'Season of the Witch' (2011) movie review

Season of the Witch (2011 film)

Season of the Witch is a 2011 American historical fantasy adventure film starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman, and directed by Dominic Sena. Cage and Perlman star 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 responsible for the destruction; they command the two knights to transport the girl to a monastery so the monks can lift her curse from the land. The film draws inspiration from the 1957 film The Seventh Seal. It reunited Sena and Cage, who had previously 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 January 7, 2011, in the United States, Canada, and several other territories.


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To start with, this film is anti-pagan so to speak. It's unclear to me as of yet as to why they system both promotes at least what they call witchcraft while at the same time depicting it as the very essence of evil on film. The film opens with a dark medieval scene of a city and landscape with the text City of Villach... 1235 A.D. Villach is located in modern day Austria. This scene depicts a Christian-administered witch trial, with phony confessions to avoid torture or death. Whether or not they confessed or not, they were put to death by hanging in the form of grotesquely throwing the women off of a bridge. At one point, the overzealous church authority, who was presiding over this kangaroo court, had to be reprimanded briefly by what appeared to be an official of the state. One of those hanged was indeed a witch, which in this movie meant a monster. So right from the get-go, a revenge motive is developed.

From that point, the film switches to the two protagonists; Teutonic Knights fighting against Muslims in the Crusades. The scene opens with an ensuing battle, with the text Gulf of Edremit... Age of the Crusades... 1552 A.D. The two knights are shown as killing machines; wiping out everything in their path. After a battle in north Africa, they observe a slaughter of innocent people by the Crusaders. They decide to desert. After returning home, they discover a countryside decimated by the Black Plague... which is portrayed as the curse of the black witch killed in the witch trial. Soon they are captured and jailed for deserting. However, they are offered a chance at freedom if they perform a service to the church by transporting an accused witch to a mountain monastery for trial.

They agree on the condition that she receives a fair trial. They don't believe that she's a witch. If they transport her, then all charges will be dropped. They embark on the journey on horseback, with the accused witch Anna inside of a horse-drawn jail carriage, and a convicted swindler from the jail as their guide. From this point, I would be giving away too much. None of the characters are especially endearing, except for the streak of nobility possessed by the two knights. They are certainly comparatively good in contrast with the spirit of the demonic black witch.

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Spoiler alert beyond this point!

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Anna escapes at one point, and they all eventually make it to the mountain monastery. Using a holy book showing how to fight demonic forces, they go to war with the black witch spirit. Anna is not a witch, but possessed by this demonic force. The film has a spectacular ending as they do battle with this supernatural force in the form of demonic beasts which it conjures up. I couldn't really say that this is any first rate film; probably closer to mediocre. I appreciated the dark mood of this time period, but the characters weren't well developed.

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