Witchcraft has been a staple of horror films since the silent era. I remember a certain film called Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages quite fondly. However, the new age subject matter of witches and warlocks and whatnot has never really been done right, or well for that matter. I don't consider myself an expert of witchcraft, in fact I know very little, but most of the films dealing with this topic end up being hokey devil worshipper movies. This one, however, was written by a real warlock, and attempts to show a day in the life of an actual, practicing magician (and I don't mean David Copperfield Magic, either). Unfortunately, this lame, homoerotic film tops the pile of crappy witchcraft movies.

Just released on DVD, this lost (I wish it had stayed that way) seventies piece of celluloid was screened at the New Beverly Theater in Hollywood, and star Andrew Prine, who was apparently stoned out of his mind during the making of the film, was even in the audience for a Q&A session. Watching it under these conditions should be an optimal way to watch this film, right? Wrong, because it didn't help me appreciate the film one tiny bit. Prine, a shitty movie mainstay who I actually enjoy watching, is Simon Sinestrari, the supposed king of the witches (it should be warlock, but who am I to argue) who lives in a sewer (yes, a SEWER), and walks around LA looking for people to pay him for magic tricks. Basically, he's a magic hooker.

The film's plot is so all over the place that I think I would better serve it by giving you snippets of things that happen. Simon's goal is to use a glowing stick to open a portal to another dimension through a mirror. Along the way he meets a super gay Matt Damon kid, who introduces him to the rich socialites he hangs out with. After making the kid jerk off in a tin can to perform a spell that gains him the love of an old lady, they become fast friends and the Matt Damon kid starts wearing tight, revealing pants and ultra gay shirts as they prance around town together. Simon's arch enemy is a crappy-looking red ball of light that floats around dumbly and can be scared away by a dagger kept in Simon's crotch. After killing a rich jerk who bounced a check on Simon with a flowerpot, Simon kidnaps a super ultra gay guy (a real one!), strips him down to a Speedo, then bends him over and rubs a knife across his back in order to charge his glow stick (and I am not making any of this up). Now fully charged with purple light, the glow stick allows him to waste ten minutes of the audience's time as Simon travels into a cheesy laser light show beyond the mirror. When he returns, the film gets political, as all his drug dealer friends turn to him for help when his girlfriend's father, the mayor, starts cracking down on them. In the end, Simon tries to do some good for the drug dealers, but it ultimately backfires on him.

I think the plot pretty much says it all. This movie was retardedly bad, and, as you can see, overtly homoerotic. I am not a homophobe, though. I saw Brokeback Mountain, and my problem with it was that the love story was not believable enough, not gay enough. Well, this movie is gay enough for the both of them and it's all intentional! It has to be! Beyond this distracting theme, the film is listless and wanders around too much for it to be entertaining at all. That is, of course, unless you see it with a bunch of friends, then maybe it might work its magic on you. But don't let it fool you, that good time you just had was just an illusion.

- Jose Prendes