The Assignment: The Witches Talisman (2013)

THE ASSIGNMENT: THE WITCHES TALISMAN

WRITER: Kelly Helen Thompson and Jarrod Huffman
Edited screenplay by Iban Petric

DIRECTORS: Kelly Helen Thompson
Co-Directors: Iban Petric and Joel Wynkoof

STARRING: Kelly Helen Thompson as Cassy
Kyle Calwhite as Oliver
Joel Wnykoop as Professor/John Nolan
Bob Glazier as John Nolan/Kalizar
Abi Burgess as Stella/Twin Sister
Steven Singer as Priest
Bill Burgess as Derrick

QUICK CUT: Destiny calls for a young student who must fight against evil forces arrayed against her before they destroy the universe. Or something.

THE MORGUE - With the greatest will in the world, I actually manage to give you some character synopses.

Cassy: A student struggling to not fall asleep during class, constantly late on homework, and running afoul of her teachers. But when she is called to act, she grabs the master sword and goes to town.

Oliver: Cassy’s friend who spends all his time on the phone trying to reach her.

Kalizar: The big bad, a combined force of many evil minions, and their leader John Nolan.

It’s never a good sign when your title has screwed up the punctuation.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! We are already through January, and it is time for my yearly 'birthday' movie and... *sigh* When did my chosen birthday movie start becoming increasingly terrible garbage? Look, I've watched this movie twice already, three times as I write these words, and it is an incomprehensible mess. I do not know how this review will be more than WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK for the next 10k words or whatever. Let's...let's just get this over with.

......Look, before we even begin, if I am gonna sit here and break down every moment of bad editing, weird formatting, overlays, and everything else, I am never gonna get ANYthing done and we'll be here for years. I'll hit the highlights, the biggest WTFs an WHYs but this movie is a colossal pile of of mess. Just accept that everything is wrong, and let's try and make sense out of this.

And we are already off to a stellar start, with the punctuation I mentioned above, plus hard to read font on hard to read against backgrounds, plus typos galore. I AM STILL IN THE CREDITS.

We watch day turn to night via Google Earth, and then we meet Cassy, who tells us this all started with a dream...and apparently with a bucket of water, because that's what this movie sounds like it was filmed in. Not just a few lines. Not just a couple of scenes. But the entire. Squawking. Movie.

After those lovely photoshopped page flips, we watch through a melange of colours, until it settles on a blue filter as Cassy climbs over a gate, there's a priest, and then we're looking down a wormhole, staring at a woman telling "Child, time to wake up!"

Warning #2: This is gonna be a LOT of "and then this happened then this" because there is ZERO flow here to any of the plot. I also know I misspelled Cassy throughout this review, and I surely missed some in editing.

But then we are at a school or maybe a library, where a man comes in to yell at Cassie through the water bucket.

That is some really aggressive letterboxing.

It seems we're out of Cassie's dream now, but she overslept and is late for class. The teacher is, understandably, not happy.

The quality of this looks...it looks like low grade FMV games from the 90s. And with what's coming, I could just devote this to a visual guide to everything wrong but...then just go watch the movie.

And the editing is just...there's a shot of Cassie just sitting there and it like...drops frames, as if it was buffering. I...Grah. I said I won't get into every little thing wrong with this, and I'm not! This is still only a fraction of this disaster!

Whoa, calm down there, Professor Lewis Black.

She leaves, calls a friend I don't think we ever meet for help on the paper Professor McShoutsalot assigned her, and then her friend Oliver trips into the scene behind her.

After escorting her to her car, Oliver leaves and Cassy ponders about how everything keeps changing colour and Ohmygods this is on purpose. This is on purpose?? Are we seeing this disaster through Cassyvision??

She drove on down the highway, pondering "Day turned into night, night turned into day, I wasn't sure why..." Natural progression of time, Cassie!

As Cassy drives along, the movie drops in a random shot of a cackling old man in a cloak, and sure, fine, at this point I am already numb to the bullshit

She reaches home and watches tv, while we watch a robed figure stabbing the dirt, and told that 'the witch has killed John Nolan! When the solar eclipse comes up, all hell will break loose!"

..Okay, if you say so.

Cassie looks up information on Madison, her assigned paper, and reads off stuff about a witch and a curse, and is badly disbelieving of it.

She begins chanting and suddenly her laptop is on fire.

I just...

Hnngh. Okay fine, let's keep going. Because this next bit is at least not Cassy whining and arguably interesting.

We are with a man in what can only be called a cloak with the greatest of charity, surrounded by bad CG smoke and fire green screened in. But it’s at least better effects than Cassy’s burning map.

The man is displeased by his minions but now he needs none of them, for he has...something. Apparently that something is bad rotoscoped lightning, as things just get worse.

That’s not a cloak, that’s just a hoodie.

I have so many concerns with everything in that image...

So with a mighty HOOOARRGH he kills his minions, combining their powers into one evil Captain Planet to do his bidding for whatever that may be, because heaven forfend we understand the plot.

We then meet his summoned powerful minion, as he stands there trying to remember his lines. I believe it's the same guy they dropped in a few frames of.

"Thank you master for the power, you've given me the power, your power, the minions power!" ...Carl J. Sukenick, is that you??

So the baddie decides he shall add HIS power to Kalizar as well, and he...oh fuck me, he literally just ducks out of frame. Sigh.

And then like the eternal record scratch that is this movie, it suddenly has a few shots of Cassy going "Let me check the book..." DO YOU MEAN THE SCRIPT?? BECAUSE I AM SURE THAT NEEDS A LOT OF CHECKING. IF IT EXISTS.

Suddenly Oliver shows up and she's yelling about how the map (?) burned up, and John Nolan (??) built a city (???) and I have no idea. Okay, in fairness, that does clarify the earlier stuff, it wasn’t the laptop burning, etc.

Then Kalizar is shown again, and weird stuff starts happening...look, I know that is already a high bar but TRUST ME.

Suddenly Cassy runs outside and declares that Benny is dead, nothing but ash and WHO THE HELL IS BENNY??

Alas poor Benny, we knew him NOT THE FUCK AT ALL

The she gives some narration about how Oliver tried to call her while she was out, and why is she suddenly being wheeled away by Calculon??

*rewinds the movie* OH she does kinda fall over suddenly for no good reason.

We're told John Nolizar casts a spell on Oliver to make him fall, and...suddenly there is just a random collection of images because WHY THE FUCK NOT.

"I continued to dream, strange dreams in fact." Can we stop to try and get a baseline here, because 'strange' is losing all meaning.

"Can't he just kill me and get over with it?" I KNOW THE FEELING FUCK ME

We see Cassy laid out atop a burial plot, and suddenly there is a GREEN OVERLAY SPEWING BLOOD?? I don't...I don't even know anymore.

The "Child wake up" woman is also running around somewhere, and apparently casts a spell she's been waiting hundreds of years for. Please, please I am *begging* you give me a plot to grasp onto here.

And...shockingly? I get some? John Nolan died some time ago, swearing vengeance as one does, including upon the witch, I guess.

Somehow we are suddenly in the witch's place, her name is Stella, and she saved Cassy nursing her back to health. I missed a lot somewhere??

Cassy is confused and fed up - relatable - and tries to leave, and please take me with you.

WAIT GO BACK THE ANSWERS ARE RIGHT THERE

As she leaves, it's suddenly a fight between Stella and John Nolan, in which he blasts her force field, off camera, and again, Carl?? Also, he goes FVVZZ! as he zaps and I... I am swinging wildly between major frustration and so much amusement.

Suddenly more strange colour overlays and fire show up, and why does this keep happening??

But then the music builds, she makes jerky hand motions that make me long for The Magicians, and there's MORE colour overlays as she summons a blue ball of flame??

After this tour de farce of animation, Calculon decides the 'girl' must have 'it', and leaves Stella for later. Because that won't come back to haunt him.

Suddenly he confronts Cassie, and they fight, badly, clacking their plastic weapons against each other, with the now expected bad editing.

I...cannot even begin to describe this fight. It's everything I've already destroyed and more, including the SHIELD FROM LEGEND OF ZELDA.

Just...am I having a stroke??

Finally Oliver wakes up to return to the plot, and goes to the library which had "become magical, going from dimension to dimension" because OF COURSE IT DID.

And I...everything about this scene, I hate. Oliver is filmed against green screen, and inserted over plates from the library. I SUPPOSE this is an attempt to convey its magicalness and other dimensionality, but it's so so bad.

Like a metaphor for the movie, Oliver walks, but goes nowhere in the library, since it's all background plates.

He eventually finds the librarian to try and take out books on Madison, but they're all checked out. And like every helpful cryptic person in a fantasy movie, they have no answer and vague riddles.

We are told Oliver keeps jumping in and out of reality, inside and out, inside and out, inside and out, inside and out...LOOK KID MAKE UP YOUR MIND, I AM NOT HEATING THE MULTIVERSE!

Suddenly, we're with a priest, reading a letter, about a girl who will 'change our world into another' and that 'he will try and kill her' and uurgh.

The priest is compelled to go outside, so he can meet Oliver, shouting about his missing friend. And the priest says "when the book glows, you'll know" KNOW WHAT. I KNOW NOTHING JON SNOW. AND THERE WAS NO GLOWING BOOK.

We get more random shots of randomness, as the priests drives to EPIC DRIVING MUSIC until oh hey, Calculon is in the back seat.

Suddenly Calculon is outside the car, running the film in reverse, until the priest stops the car, gets out, and shouts DEMON BEGONE!

And hey! It works! Why didn't we do that 40 minutes ago?? All right everyone, time to go home!

We spend an awful lot of time with Oliver just shouting into the phone. Until he starts to freak out, saying too much is going on! YEAH NO SHIT.

But ah ha ha, Cassy interrupts, "In another reality, THIS would be going on!" NO. NO NO NO. You get back here in this reality RIGHT THIS INSTANT and explain things IN THIS REALITY FIRST.

The priest is given a message in the sky, and I shit you not...THIS happens.

CAP: YEAH BIG HELP THERE, GOD. WE KNEW THAT ALREADY.

Also, who knew God had trouble spelling?

He arrives at Stella's place, who was expecting him, and OH YEAH she and Nolan were lovers. Because of course they were. OH and apparently so were she and the priest??

Suddenly Calculon is chanting, and 'the witch and the priest's realities begin to shift" and I don't even care anymore.

WHICH IS A GOOD THING BECAUSE THE NARRATION EXPLAINING THINGS IS DROWNED OUT AND STILL UNDERWATER. Something about walking through other realities??

The priest runs into Calculon again, and gets TECHNICALLY killed but...

Stella arrives and tries to save the priest, but to no avail. He is long dead, and unable to be brought back, I guess.

But now it's time for backstory, about how Nolan wasn't always evil, but seduced by...Oh fuck offff. By Stella's twin sister?? NO YOU DO NOT GET TO BRING IN A TWIN SISTER WITH 14 MINUTES TO GO. I CALL FOUL ON THE PLAY.

But Cassie returns to her own story, face down on the sidewalk, until she's helped up because "she has always depended on the kindness of strangers." Oh fuuuuuck off, just because your movie has a Stella in it too...

Then we cut back to Nolan, but I thought he was combined with Calculon, why is he hoooaaarghing back into the movie??

That is like...someone watching the movie in a theatre, and filmed it on their flip phone.

But we get told, "In that moment it became clear that Professor Fritz had jumped into Kalizar's body, and then he became John Nolan" That...that isn't clear at ALL.

Cassie wakes up at Derek's place, who patched her up from wounds we never saw, and we will never see HIM again.

But she is being led around by a medallion around her neck that was barely mentioned at any other point in this movie.

And yes, that is overlaid rain comped in.

Cassie mentions Derek, Oliver wants to know who that is, WE ALL DO BRIAN, and she goes on and on about how nothing will ever happen with her and Oliver. WHERE IS THIS EVEN COMING FROM?

This movie is like all pay off and no setup!

As she hangs up, Oliver slips into another dimension, because WHY THE FUCK NOT until he fades from existence.

Then it's back to Cassy saying she feels a song coming on and NO NOPE NO NO NO. That's another foul.

It takes REAL SKILL to get knocked out and carted around in a wheelbarrow by the same guy twice.

We get another "in another reality" bit then there's garbled stuff, so I don't know what happened before we return to this reality for the final confrontation...

...A SILLY STRING FIGHT BETWEEN MAGES FOR THE FATE OF THE MULTIVERSE.

Sadly, Stella bites it, and now it's all on Cassy's hands. We are so screwed.

But wait! SHE HAS A FLASHBACK THAT TELLS HER HOW TO DEFEAT HIM. ...The fuck...

Man, the CW really ran out of money for the Crisis finale…

Stella shows back up, to a young Cassy, and tells her the chant needed to defeat Calculon, and she will remember when the time is right.

IF STELLA KNEW THE CHANT ALL THIS TIME WHY DID YOU NOT USE IT.

When her great great great grandaughter wakes back up...YES THAT IS RIGHT ONE MORE TWIST!! Cassy can't remember the chant. Because of course she does.

Until she DOES remember it finally, and...fuck FUCK fuck FUCK.

The movie goes Meta in the final moments to say this is how it ends? What was the point?? It was just some fucked up terrible film??

YES YES IT WAS AND THAT IS HOW IT ENDS

Well, I guess they DID warn me at the start of the movie…

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: …Do I even need to say anything? This might not be the WORST visual presentation, but even if it wasn’t close, it reaches new lows by being baffling and frustrating. Did I mention this was made in 2013?

Audio: gurglegurlge

Sound Bite: “Do you feel strong? Do you feel...EVIL??”

Body Count: Almost unremarkable.

1 - 13 minutes in, I guess? We see a figure stabbing something, and told "The witch killed John Nolan" so I guess?
2 - Benny gets turned to ash.
3 - Priest gets not stabbed
4 - Stella is killed by silly string or something.

Best Corpse: Benny, since something actually happens to him, I guess.

Blood Type - F-: Was there ANY blood in this?

Sex Appeal: Nope

Drink Up! Every time the narrator says “Meanwhile…”
Anything else might kill you

Video Nasties: Amazing fight choreography.

Movie Review: What is there left to say at this point? This movie is an incoherent mess. No plot, randomness, badly made, in almost every concievable way. The only explanation must be that I am being punked and they deliberately tried to make the worst movie ever. WELL MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. 0 out of five colour overlays

Entertainment Value: Normally a movie this bad has an entertainment score that is inversely proportional, but this movie is so mind numbingly terrible, so obtuse, so impenetrable, that it manages to not do that. There is SOMEthing here that you keep staring at like a trainwreck, hoping it makes sense, being fascinated by every piece of badness, but in the end, it just amounts to a convoluted mess. But at least it’s an assault upon the senses from start to finish that does have some genuinely mind boggling moments that make it worth while. Two out of five alternate dimensions