"In the old days, warriors would make love before going off to battle."

I haven't heard a howler like that in a long time. Here's another sample of dialogue from Warlock: The Armageddon:

"My father killed me and brought me back to life. Now I'm, like, a zombie, and I have to save the world from total destruction!"

If I told you those were two things the main character says to get into a girl's pants, would you believe me?

There are certain pleasures one can only derive from redundant follow-ups to mediocre horror flicks. The Prophecy II, for instance, was worth watching just for the line, "You brought me back to life because you don't know Windows95?" Leprechaun III saw the title villain getting chummy with an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. I admit that I was tempted to turn off Warlock: The Armageddon at various points in the film, not for a lack of entertainment value but because I could and should be doing better things with my time. If I hadn't toughed it out, I would've missed:

-A woman having her entire scalp torn off after asking how her hair looks
-A man getting turned into a sculpture
-A midget impaling
-A boy who is not Luke Skywalker being trained to lift rocks and the like with his mind

Julian Sands returns as the Warlock, the son of Satan. He's on a mission to retrieve some ancient stones that will release his father from imprisonment in Hell during a solar eclipse. Didn't the Warlock die in the last movie? you ask. Well, his spirit rapes a woman, who then births him. (This scene probably inspired Warlock: The Armageddon's double-entendre tagline, "When he comes--all hell breaks loose.") Covered in womb-goo, the man-sized baby queries his frightened mother, "Aren't you going to give your boy a kiss?" Luckily, a few old men (including R. G. Armstrong, a veteran of Peckinpah westerns) who own a bookstore are possessed of much spiritual wisdom: they're familiar with the prophecy and decide to train a teenaged boy (Chris Young) and teenaged girl (erstwhile "Cupid" star Paula Marshall) to fight Warlock.

To describe or dissect this movie further would be fruitless, really. If you've seen The Prophecy II, if you've seen The Bride of Chucky, if you've seen any of the Leprechaun films, you know what's in store, at least structurally. I am happy to report that Warlock: The Armaggedon is extremely violent, a throwback to slasher pictures of the early eighties. (Funny extremely violent, not disturbing extremely violent.) There's even a little bit of nudity. According to a recent magazine article, Warlock: The Armageddon is the one movie Sands wishes he hadn't done. I, on the other hand, have a real soft spot for bad cinema of this sort. I grew up reading "Fangoria" and watching the bloodiest movies I could find.

I'm not sure how Trimark managed this, but Warlock: The Armageddon is a special achievement in DVD for the following reason: contained within are technically three versions of the film (1.33:1 fullscreen; 1.85: 1 letterbox; and anamorphic widescreen). What's amazing is that the trio of aspect ratios are piled atop each other on a single side of a single layer. With a touch of the "aspect" button, one can switch between standard and widescreen 1 or 2. (The studio did not identify this forward-thinking feature anywhere on the packaging.)

The picture quality is not stunning, and in fact the 4:3 blow-up does result in increased grain and more noticeable compression artifacts. (4:3 is the default aspect ratio.) The disc is far from unwatchable, however, and the carnival slaying (chapter 14) looks terrfic. The image generally suffers from low contrast and breakup in complex lighting conditions. (The untrained eye is likely to gloss over these flaws.)

The audio is 2-channel Dolby Surround. There is distinct front left-front right separation and occasional use of the rear channel (especially during the third act); there is even a significant amount of bass. Dialogue is imbalanced: at times, Marshall sounds dubbed and dubbed in too quietly. Thankfully, Sands' lousy verbiage is never difficult to make out--the actor speaks loudly and precisely. The only extras are a trailer for Warlock: Armageddon, a trailer for Cube (I've ruined the Easter egg surprise, but I won't tell you how to get to it), and an animated menu whose soundtrack is so obnoxious I can't get it out of my head.-Bill Chambers