Simon, King of the Witches (1971)

Simon, King of the Witches (1971)

Directed by: Bruce Kessler

Starring: Andrew Prine, Brenda Scott, George Paulsin

Just think, while the Turks where making the brilliantly awful Tarkan vs the Vikings, America was turning out just plain awful movies like Simon, King of the Witches. This is one war I’m afraid we just can’t win, fellas.

The titular “king of the witches” is actually just some weird hobo guy who does magic party tricks for eccentric rich people (who may or may not be drug dealers, which I normally wouldn’t mention, but I think “don’t do drugs” is the end lesson of the film). He also does real magic, of course, and basically uses this to kill people and put curses on them. His main goal is to charge up a magic rod with magic pink stuff that will apparently allow him to become a god or something. Unfortunately, the cops arrest him and he misses his time for… becoming a god or something, and then he gets stabbed to death in an ally by a panicky drug dealer for no reason whatsoever. Hooray!

This movie is simultaneously confusing, pointless, and boring. It’s a trifecta! The guy who plays the main character seems like he has potential playing this sort of character, but every time he has screen time he either does nothing at all or goes off on insane, hyper-verbose monologues, neither of which are entertaining in the slightest. Also, they rip off that crazy ending sequence from 2001 at the end of this film, which just adds insult to injury. In other words, Simon, King of the Witches is in no way worth watching.