There are bad sequels, and then there’s Witchcraft II: The Temptress, the cinematic equivalent of buying a cursed VHS tape at a garage sale and realizing the real horror isn’t demons—it’s having to sit through 90 minutes of this dreck. Released in 1990 and directed by Mark Woods, this film proved that yes, direct-to-video horror could indeed sink even lower than you thought possible.
The first Witchcraft (1988) wasn’t exactly The Exorcist, but it at least had the decency to feel like a semi-coherent satanic knockoff. Witchcraft II? Imagine an after-school special about teen peer pressure, except with pentagrams, bad perms, and acting so wooden you half expect termites to crawl across the screen.
The Plot (or, “Who Needs Logic When You Have Shoulder Pads?”)
The story picks up 18 years after the events of the first film, though you don’t need to have seen it—and honestly, I envy you if you haven’t. William Adams, now William Spanner, is living the suburban dream with his adoptive parents, blissfully unaware that he’s actually the spawn of a powerful warlock. Because naturally, no one ever thought to mention this.
Enter Deloris, the kind of neighbor who doesn’t ask to borrow sugar—she leaves you occult objects on your doorstep and tries to seduce you into fathering the Antichrist. Suburban HOA meetings must’ve been wild. Deloris, played by Delia Sheppard in all her teased-hair glory, is supposed to be a sultry femme fatale, but comes across more like a Vegas lounge act that took a wrong turn into a Sears catalog shoot.
Her goal? Use William’s magical lineage to conceive the baby that brings about hell on earth. The devil must’ve been really cutting corners by outsourcing Armageddon to a horny neighbor lady.
William Spanner: The World’s Dullest Warlock
Charles Solomon plays William with all the charisma of a DMV clerk on Ambien. He’s supposed to be our conflicted hero, torn between good and evil, suburban peace and satanic destiny. Instead, he spends most of the movie looking vaguely constipated and asking questions with the wide-eyed confusion of a kid who got dropped into Algebra II without passing pre-algebra.
This is the son of a powerful warlock? This kid couldn’t conjure up enthusiasm at a pizza party.
Delia Sheppard: The Temptress Who Tried
Credit where it’s due: Delia Sheppard gives this dumpster fire her best shot. She struts, she pouts, she chews scenery like it’s made of fondant. She looks like she just wandered out of a Whitesnake video and into a satanic temple. Honestly, she’s the only one who seems to know she’s in a movie, let alone a horror movie.
Is she scary? Not really. Is she fun to watch? Absolutely. She’s the MVP of this slog, and you almost wish the film had ditched the whole William plot and just followed her as she tried to seduce half the cul-de-sac.
The Suburban Satanism Aesthetic
Most horror films try for atmosphere: misty graveyards, Gothic mansions, ominous forests. Witchcraft II gives us tract homes, cul-de-sacs, and living rooms that look like the set designer raided a JCPenney clearance sale. When William’s big showdown with evil finally comes, it looks less like the apocalypse and more like two kids play-fighting in their parents’ den while the dog barks in the background.
At one point, Deloris tries to lure William into evil by… making out with him under a flashing red light. It’s less Rosemary’s Baby and more “community theater interpretation of a Whitesnake concert.”
Horror, or the Lack Thereof
This is a horror movie where the scariest thing is the acting. The special effects? If you’ve ever seen a kid’s Halloween flashlight under their chin, you’ve basically seen the whole budget. The “occult” scenes involve a lot of candles, some dry ice, and extras who look like they were promised free pizza if they stood around in robes for an afternoon.
Even the climactic battle is a letdown: William discovers his powers just in time to fend off Deloris, but it’s about as thrilling as watching two cats fight over a dust bunny. The end-of-the-world stakes fizzle into a scene that could’ve been solved with a well-placed garden hose.
The Acting: A Masterclass in Bad Choices
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Charles Solomon (William): A charisma vacuum. If this guy is the savior of humanity, we’re doomed.
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Delia Sheppard (Deloris): Too good for this movie, too big for the screen, and the only reason you don’t shut it off after 20 minutes.
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Mia Ruiz (Michelle): William’s girlfriend, who spends most of the film fretting in the background like she wandered in from a bad soap opera audition.
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Cheryl Janecky (William’s mom): The only one who looks like she knows this movie will haunt her resume forever.
The Real Horror: This Spawned a Franchise
The worst thing about Witchcraft II isn’t the acting, or the writing, or the satanic PTA energy. It’s that it somehow worked. This movie spawned fifteen sequels. Fifteen. We’re talking Witchcraft XV: Blood Rose. Witchcraft XVI: Hollywood Coven. There are Marvel phases shorter than this franchise.
Watching Witchcraft II is like finding out someone greenlit a second Howard the Duck. You sit there slack-jawed, wondering how the hell this happened.
Dark Humor in the Ashes
Let’s be real: there’s unintentional comedy gold sprinkled through this mess.
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William discovering his satanic heritage with all the dramatic weight of finding out his parents never told him he was lactose intolerant.
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Deloris seducing him with the enthusiasm of a middle-school drama teacher auditioning for Cats.
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A climactic battle where “the fate of humanity” looks like two bored teens arguing in a rec room.
If you squint, it’s almost a comedy. Too bad the filmmakers weren’t in on the joke.
Final Verdict
Witchcraft II: The Temptress is the kind of movie you watch once, laugh at a few times, and then immediately question your life choices. It’s not scary, it’s not sexy, and it’s not particularly coherent. It’s the cinematic equivalent of reheated leftovers you didn’t want in the first place.
And yet, thanks to Delia Sheppard, there’s at least one spark in the darkness—a temptress who deserved a better movie than this bargain-bin nightmare. Everyone else? Wooden, forgettable, and apparently cursed to return for Witchcraft III: The Kiss of Death.
