
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 29, 1993                   TAG: 9309300056
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DESMOND RYAN KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ANOTHER 'WARLOCK' THE WORLD DIDN'T NEED

Hollywood's history lesson for the day - courtesy of "Warlock: The Armageddon" - tells us that there were Druids in colonial America.

Did they wear their flowing white hair in druidlocks so that they wouldn't be mistaken for pilgrims? It's something to think about during "Warlock," which is a horror picture with absolutely nothing on its mind. It says here that the American Druids spent most of their time guarding sacred rune stones, which were presumably chips off the old block back at Stonehenge.

The Warlock, whose business card reads "Son of Satan," wants the rune stones back so that he can free his father. He is played once again by Julian Sands, star of the dreadful original two years ago, who is currently giving new meaning to the idea of going out on a limb as the crazed surgeon in "Boxing Helena."

"Warlock: The Armageddon" is a second serving of pseudo-theological claptrap that ought to earn its authors a sentence of eternal damnation or permanent denial of a table at Spago - a fate they would surely consider more terrifying. The rune stones have passed down the generations to a clan of modern Druids, who have cunningly disguised themselves to look like Baptists.

The Warlock is chauffered around the country in a New York City Yellow Cab whose driver is dead. But real Manhattan cabbies run red lights at 50 m.p.h. even after they have passed on. This is certainly useful information for travelers, and "Warlock: The Armageddon" is to be credited with opening up a whole new field of history in Druid-American studies for desperate publish-or-perish academics. "Homesteading and the Druids." "The Druid's Charge at Gettysburg." "Druids and the Great Depression." The possibilities are endless, and I look forward to the Druid movies such scholarship will inspire.

\ Warlock: The ArmaGeddon: A Trimark Pictures production showing at the Valley View Mall 6 and Salem Valley 8. 1 hour, 38 mins. Rated R for graphic violence, nudity.

by CNB