35 Years Ago, The Terminator Got A Kickass Medieval Knockoff

Six months before Arnold Schwarzenegger made good on his “I’ll be back” promise, Hollywood whetted audience appetites with a blend of dark comedy, Hammer Horror, and good old-fashioned wizardry, which played out like a medieval inversion of The Terminator.

Warlock had actually been released internationally in 1989, but, thanks to New World Pictures’ dire financial straits, it got stuck in Stateside distribution hell before finally hitting theaters 35 years ago today (explaining the scene where Mann’s Chinese Theater is still showing Harrison Ford thriller Frantic). Thankfully, Trimark Pictures saw its potential, allowing American cinemagoers the opportunity to witness two British thespians at their hammy best.

The unlikely franchise spawner lives and dies upon the swords of Julian Sands and Richard E. Grant, the former as the titular sorcerer determined to bring about the “uncreation of man” and the latter as the witchfinder hellbent on stopping him. Both parties appear to understand the brief, delivering performances that lean into the ridiculousness of the time-traveling plot but without ever veering into nudge-nudge wink-wink parody.

Wasting little time on exposition or build-up, director Steve Miner immediately thrusts viewers into what looks to be the deathly denouement of their 17th-century beef. But just in the nick of time, Satan saves Warlock from his impending hanging and propels him to modern-day Los Angeles, with Grant’s presiding Redferne swiftly following suit.

Unfortunately for Kassandra with a K (Lori Singer), a free-spirited waitress with a penchant for gnarly insults (“What a total ass burr”), both resurface in her apartment. Warlock, initially mistaken for a drunken reveler, gatecrashes her living room before roommate Chas (Kevin O’Brien) gets both his ring finger and tongue sliced clean off. If that wasn’t grizzly enough, he then gouges out a spiritualist’s eyes while she’s undergoing a demonic possession that also lays out his dastardly assignment: find the three separate parts of a Satanic bible named The Grand Grimoire, recite the godly name contained within backwards, and thereby destroy the world forever.

As with Arnie’s mean and not-so-lean fighting machine, Warlock stops at nothing to complete his mission, even skinning alive an unbaptized boy to achieve the power of flight (“I need no broomstick to fly,” he tells him moments earlier, with the perfect level of sinister foreboding). Yes, this is a film unafraid to knock off its kids, although the body count is surprisingly slim for a man who’d previously helmed the first two Friday the 13th sequels.

Much to her horror (“Nothing could be worse than this!”), Warlock also curses Kassandra to age 20 years every day, leaving her at the risk of dying of senility before the week’s out (although Singer’s geriatric makeover is as unconvincing as Warlock’s clearly animated ectoplasmic rays). Redferne eventually rocks up in her kitchen too, to help save humanity with the aid of a nifty little compass that forever points in his nemesis’ direction.

It’s here where Warlock puts its foot on the gas as they traipse around rural America — a Mennonite community well prepared for a supernatural invasion is a particular highlight — on a vengeful quest of their own, establishing the kind of mismatched buddy duos that were all the rage in the ‘80s. “Check this,” Kassandra proclaims after receiving some unwanted road advice. “Some guy from the 17th century telling me how to drive. How quick they learn!”

While other capers would have relied much more heavily on its fish-out-of-water set-up, Warlock swerves the obvious. Both its hero and its villain prove to be surprisingly adept in the 20th century, taking everything from car radios to well, cars in their stride and never failing to keep their eyes on the prize (although Redferne does struggle to comprehend the safety of air travel). They’re not quite as formidable as The Terminator — Warlock eventually comes undone by a vial of salt water — but they’re nearly as laser-focused.

And while Kassandra is no Sarah Connor, she’s far from the average damsel-in-distress. She holds her own during the surprisingly physical introduction to Redferne, proves her resourcefulness with a magical foot-nailing hammer (the film is particularly strong in establishing its mythical world), and even manages to resurface after being slung into a lake to deliver the fatal, universe-saving blow.

Of course, it’s the two leads who cast the biggest spell. Adopting a thick Scottish brogue, which makes Redferne seem as if he’s escaped from the similarly daft Highlander, Grant gets the best one-liners, whether it’s dismissing helpful flight attendants (“Over my rotten corpse”) or threatening taxi drivers (“Lest you favor throttlings to the ears and face, bear west here”) in brilliantly archaic style. And Sands, with his striking blonde ponytail and all-black attire, appears to be having a blast as the deeply malevolent evildoer; it’s telling that he was the only cast member to return for its unrelated 1993 sequel.

Unlike T2: Judgment Day, Warlock: The Armageddon (and 1999’s Sands-free Warlock III: The End of Innocence) failed to build on its predecessor’s low-budget joys. But the original Warlock still remains one of the original Terminator’s more enjoyable clones.