Posted in: DVD/Blu-ray, Movies, Review | Tagged: blu-ray, dvd, lionsgate, Trimark Pictures, Vestron Video, warlock, Warlock Collection, Warlock III, Warlock: The Armageddon

The Warlock Collection: Looking Over All Three Films At Once

Usually, in a calendar month, I receive a few DVD and Blu-ray released to review the special features on and give you kind of a wrap up of stuff you may have been on the fence about. This month, between six different conventions happening around the U.S. and a couple abroad, a lot of companies were busy with their own promotions stuff and we didn't receive much. The one home media release that came to us that was released in July was the Warlock Collection.

Now some of you younger readers may be looking at this and wondering "What's Warlock?" Warlock was one of the last '80s movies where magic could happen and it didn't feel forced. The film's main protagonist is sent to the future from 1691 to put together a book that will reveal religious stuff, including God's name, and bring hell on Earth. A Puritan who was going to execute him follows him through time to stop him, which of course he does, and two sequels came of it. The original got mixed reviews but became a cult classic for the story.

A mere 28 years later and we have all three films under one Blu-ray set called the Warlock Collection. All of the films have been cleaned up and digitally restored by Lionsgate and Vestron Video, with the goal of giving fans an ideal experience for this collection. Every film in here comes with its own set of special features, which is fine considering ten years separate the films and one was a direct-to-video release. It's actually amazing that anyone was able to recover this much material from the now defunct Trimark Pictures.

The first film has the most by far—and why not, it's the film that started the entire cult classic run for the series, so of course it will have the best. You get an audio commentary from director Steve Miner, various interviews with crew members and actor Julian Sands, a look at all the special effects as well as the makeup materials, interviews with cast and crew, trailers and TV spots, behind-the-scenes footage, and a still gallery. What isn't here is the long rumored missing footage of what happened to the unbaptized child and a couple other deleted scenes that would have been nice to have.

The second and third films are okay on the special features, but not by much. Warlock: The Armageddon has director commentary, a making-of feature, behind-the-scenes footage, stills, and trailers. Warlock III has even less, just behind-the-scenes clips, trailers, promos, a gallery and a few interview segments. It's clear that the first film had a lot more saved as people thought it was going to be big, then the other two just kinda fell by the waist-side as washed-out horror films of the '90s that were getting beat by things like Scream.

Overall, the Warlock Collection isn't a bad set to own, but the primary reason for owning it is the first film. If you love this film and the sequels, all the best to you, but it's clear what the standout of the bunch is and who is just tagging along for the ride for the extra money to be made. I myself enjoyed going back and watching it, both for nostalgia reasons and to also see what people thought deserved an R-rating in the '80s. I recommend if you're a fan, but pass if you don't really care.

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