Monday, January 14, 2019

THE CAULDRON: BAPTISM OF BLOOD (2004) *


A cult of sexy witches holds an occult ritual where they dance around, sacrifice a man, and bathe in his blood.  Meanwhile, an aspiring singer named Stacy (Kellie Karl) wins first place on a reality show called “America’s Top Talent”.  The witches then set out to make Stacy their next sacrifice.

The Cauldron:  Baptism of Blood is kind of like an unofficial sequel to Ted V. Mikels’ Blood Orgy of the She-Devils.  It plays like a cheap Witchcraft sequel, what with all the cleavage and Satanic rituals and all.  (Although there is unfortunately no nudity, which might’ve been the only thing to make it worth a damn.)  Amazingly enough, it manages to be worse than either of those films. 

Like most of Mikels’ work, there’s way too many characters (a ventriloquist, a battered wife, a couple of cops, etc.) and the running time is exorbitant.  I mean witches in sexy outfits doing ritualistic dances is the kind of padding I don’t ordinarily mind in a movie, but there was no reason in hell The Cauldron:  Baptism of Blood had to be 102 minutes.  The America’s Top Talent show is practically shown its entirety (it looks like a public access TV show from the ‘90s) and stops the flick dead in its tracks.  I dug the gratuitous plugs for other Mikels films (in the form of posters, VHS tapes, and movies playing on television) though. 

The ending is pathetic.  The demon (or whatever it is) appears as a floating head with horns and shoots lasers at the witches who burst into cheap-looking CGI flames.  I guess it might’ve been okay if the film was only 75 minutes long.  As it is, The Cauldron:  Baptism of Blood is an often-excruciating endurance test.  At least the severed-head-in-a-fish-tank scene is priceless enough to save this from being utter garbage. 

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