A group of people are killed one by one while participating at a million dollar treasure hunt in a mysterious Italian castle.Despite being written by Dennis Paoli (who has achieved fame for writing or adapting "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond"), this is one of the lesser-known Empire films. Is it deservedly lesser-known? Well, I suppose it would be hard to compete with Stuart Gordon's work. But the Empire years were still the best work Charlie Band ever had his hand in.We have Adam Ant as "Diablo" and horror veteran Bill Butler also appears. And, like many Empire and Full Moon films, we have the entire thing shot on location at Band's Italian castle. We have a sort of "House on Haunted Hill" theme going -- locked in a mysterious location, hoping to get rich (if they survive).I enjoyed this one. I saw another review call it a snoozer, but I thought it had a good pace ("Puppet Master" is slower). And it is decently bloody with fair effects. Director Rafal Zielinski deserves more recognition than he gets.

OK kiddies, before we begin, let me explain what 80's movies were like: Bad hair with way too much product (can someone say "mousse abuse"?); Stereotyped characters; Synthesized music with the chorus repeated at least 6 times; Legwarmers and/or Spandex ... and on more than one occasion, Adam Ant.Spellcaster is a horror movie that was made in 1988, but for some reason, was not released until '92. It has all of the above, including Adam Ant (who shows his hands several times, but his face for only about 5 minutes).RockTV holds a contest where 7 "lucky" people will be flown to a Medieval Italian castle to spend the weekend with the extremely stereotypical alcoholic Brit rocker Cassandra Castle, and have a chance to win $1M. (Wow, that was a witty idea ... meet Cassandra Castle at the "Cassandra's Castle" contest).The 7 contestants are also stereotypical: The fat American slob; The prissy California girl who thinks she's better than everyone; The rich, snobby Brit woman who hunts game; The slutty French girl who shows lots of skin in her outfits and obviously doesn't wear underwear; The criminal Italian guy who pushes himself on the ladies more than once; The boy- and girl-next-door American brother and sister team who just lost their jobs, and who could really use that million bucks.Their host, Signor Diaboli (how the Italian guy didn't understand the man's name literally means "Mr. Devil" is beyond me) is the owner of Castle Diaboli. However, every time he is supposed to meet or greet his guests, for some reason the butler says he can't make it.The contest begins, and each contestant (and a few RockTV employees) end up getting offed in various supernatural ways. The effects for each murder, I will admit, are good ideas ... but the execution of each effect is bad. For example, one person is eaten by a chair that has a lion's head and paws carved into it. When it bites the person, it's fang squishes like the latex foam it is. Like I said ... good idea, bad execution (but you can see the FX people really tried hard, so I can't complain TOO much).Of course, the girl-next-door has to save the day, and she does. Diaboli ends up quitting his "normal" devilish day job for one even MORE evil ... Head VJ on RockTV ... with a great new contest for aspiring rock stars.Hey, wait a minute ... maybe Simon Cowell is really Adam Ant! {pause} Naaaah ... couldn't be ... :P

A brother and sister working as dishwashers win a Rock TV channel contest to participate in a reality TV show. They will be two of seven people joining a pop music video star and a VJ in an Italian castle, to search for a million dollar check. (Finding a check in a house, or even a room might be pretty challenging, but in a castle...?)When they arrive, the camerawoman sends the only two other people from her crew to Rome to get an HD camera. After they've left on their journey, an unseen man in front of a crystal ball causes their car to stop and explode in flames.The video star is stuck up and an alcoholic, and she makes some kind of deal with the VJ whereby he doesn't even hide the check, but gives it to her. Besides the aforementioned team of siblings, there's also a sex-mad stiletto-wielding Italian car thief, a snooty upper- class English huntress, a vain blonde vegetarian cocktease, a sexy French girl, and a fat food-obsessed New Jersey guy.The camera-work is pretty unimaginative, and the lighting uniform throughout, so every scene looks pretty much the same. The exteriors of the castle are nice, and the props within are pretty good, particularly a chair that comes to life, but it really is let down by the direction.Adam Ant eventually shows up towards the end (it's no secret that he's Diabolo, the man behind the crystal ball). Unfortunately, he did not do any of the soundtrack work.I'm surprised this was rated R! The most skin on display were a couple of bare backs, and the worst word "bitch." There's very little violence, and it's pretty brief and cartoonish. I'd have rated it PG.Definitely not one of Full Moon/Empire Pictures/Charles Band's better ones. Pretty mediocre and unimaginative.

I am a fan of, now bankrupt, Full Moon Pictures but this Empire Pictures film by Charles Band just plain sucked. You either like the B-horror or you hate it and this one had HATE written all over it. First why did Adam Ant only arrive in the last 10 minutes of the movie? Hard to say, the only conclusion I could come to is that they couldn't afford to pay him so just hired him for the final scene? This movie was just plain junk, the only thing it had going for it is that it was shot in a castle over in another country. So had some cool scenes but everything else just fell flat on it's face. I do like some of Charles Band's movies but this is NOT one of them. Slasher Reviewer gives this one a thumbs down, and why was is rated R? No nudity, no gore? Should of been rated PG!