Season of the Witch (2011 film)
Season of the Witch is a 2011 American period action film starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Dominic Sena. Cage stars alongside Ron Perlman as knights who return from the Crusades to find their homeland ruined by the Black Plague. 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.
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. The film has received overwhelmingly negative reviews.
Plot
Set in the 14th century, three women accused of witchcraft are hanged and then drowned by a priest. He performs rituals to prevent the witches from coming back from the dead, only for the third witch to gain a demonic appearance and hang the priest. Cutting to several years later during the Crusades, knights Behmen and Felson become disillusioned with the war upon seeing women and children being mercilessly slaughtered and return to England as deserters. They discover that the Black Plague has swept across the land and most people believe it to be from Hell. Upon entering a town, Behmen's sword shows his crest and they are identified as deserters and taken to Cardinal D'Ambroise who is infected with the plague. The Cardinal asks the knights to escort an apparent witch suspected of having caused the plague, to a remote monastery where an elite group of monks reside, capable of determining if the girl is truly a witch; and if she is found guilty, these monks also know a sacred ritual that can cancel the powers of the witch, and stop the plague that is devastating Europe. The two knights agree, but under one condition, that she will be given a fair trial. The Cardinal agrees, and they set out accompanied by a priest Debelzaq, young man Kay, grieving knight Eckhardt whose family were killed by the plague, and swindler Hagamar who leads the way to the monastery. The witch, a young girl later identified as Anna, shows hatred towards Debelzaq and forms a bond with Behmen.[4]
Shortly after setting off, the group camp for the night. Eckhardt volunteers to watch the witch for the first night after a while Debelzaq comes to relieve Eckhardt, but decides to stay and keep watch with him since he had trouble sleeping after the death of his family. Eckhardt talks about his daughter Mila who by resembled Anna. As Eckhardt leaves, Anna escapes after attacking Debelzaq from within her cage and flees to a nearby town. During the search for her, Eckhardt has visions of his dead daughter and is accidentally killed by Kay. One man down, the group become less trusting of Anna including Behmen. The group manage to successfully cross a rickety rope bridge, Anna saving Kay from falling to his death by grabbing him with one hand. The group enter 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 because he stood in her way. An enraged Behmen tries to kill Anna, but is stopped by Felson when 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, Debelzaq beginning to perform a ritual used on witches. However, Anna starts show her real form and reveals she has been deceiving them all along, melts her cage and reveals herself to be a male demon, using Anna as a vessel. The demon plots to destroy the last version of the book. That was why she killed Eckhardt and Hagmar because they stood in her way. The only reason she didn't resist when she heard she was coming to the monastery was to destroy the book and cover the world in darkness. The men prepare for battle, but find a room where dead monks are writing copies of the book. The demon appears, destroys the copies and possesses the monks' bodies to use as weapons. During the fight, the demon kills Debelzaq by breaking his neck and then incinerates Felson. Behmen fights the demon and has Kay finish the ritual to destroy the demon, but is mortally wounded and dies shortly after, asking Kay to look after the freed Anna. After making graves for their fallen friends, Kay and Anna depart with the book in hand.
Cast
* Nicolas Cage as Behmen
* Ron Perlman as Felson
* Claire Foy as Anna (credited as The Girl)
* Stephen Campbell Moore as Debelzaq
* Robert Sheehan as Kay
* Ulrich Thomsen as Eckhardt
* Stephen Graham as Hagamar
* Christopher Lee as Cardinal D'Ambroise
source: (Thank you and credits to
http://en.wikipedia.org/
and all sources for the information and pictures)
