Season of the Witch is a 2011 American supernatural action-adventure film directed by Dominic Sena, written by Bragi Schut, and starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman.

[3] Cage and Perlman star as Teutonic Knights who return from the Crusades to find their homeland devastated by the Black Death.

The project moved from MGM to Columbia Pictures to Relativity Media, where the film was finally produced by Charles Roven and Alex Gartner.

The Cardinal asks the knights to escort an alleged witch who is suspected of causing the pestilence to a remote monastery where monks can perform a sacred ritual to cancel her powers and stop the plague.

The group camps for the night, and when Johann decides to give up the mission and to convince the others to do the same, Anna attacks him, grabs his key to her cage, and escapes.

The search for her leads the group to a mass grave, where Johann begins having visions of his dead daughter calling to him until he accidentally impales himself on Kay's drawn sword.

They cross an old, crumbling suspension bridge, where Anna saves Kay from falling, grabbing him with unnatural strength.

[7] With the film yet to be produced, the project eventually moved to Relativity Media, and Sena was officially attached to direct.

[8] Business and creative discussions led to avoiding too much violence or gore in the film so a broader audience could see it.

[7] He explained his interest, "I wanted to make movies that celebrated actors like Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, and the great Roger Corman classics that are unafraid to explore the paranormal and the supernatural.

"[9] The crew began production immediately after Cage finished Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009).

[10] Cage stars as Behman of Bleibruck, a Teutonic knight who returns from the Crusades to discover the devastation caused by the Black Plague.

The actor had worked with director Dominic Sena on Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)[8] and with producer Charles Roven on City of Angels (1998).

[12] He also described Behmen as "the first" conscientious objector, saying, "I admired... the idea of him breaking from whatever religious propaganda was forced upon him, and still finding an even closer connection with his faith and with God.

The filmmakers requested an entity "lithe and feminine", and the visual effects crew designed a demon that had "cloven feet, a dog ankle, and a fawn leg".

[19] Season of the Witch in January 2010 had been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America, citing "thematic elements, violence, and disturbing content".

[26] Entertainment Weekly noted that the racial diversity of Season of the Witch's audiences was common for supernatural thrillers; the breakdown was 36% Hispanic, 31% Caucasian, 14% Asian, 10% African-American, and 9% "other".

The opening weekend was not the lowest of Nicolas Cage's career to that point; it was better than The Wicker Man (2006), Next (2007) and Bangkok Dangerous (2008).

[25] 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (under a new output license deal with Relativity) released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on June 28, 2011.

The site's consensus reads, "Slow, cheap-looking, and dull, Season of the Witch fails even as unintentional comedy".

[30] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 28 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

[26][28] Associated Press film critic Christy Lemire called Season of the Witch "a supernatural action thriller that's never actually thrilling" and added that "the scenery is drab, the battles are interchangeable, and no one seems particularly interested in being here".

[33] Andrew Barker of Variety said Season of the Witch was "both overblown and undercooked" and thought the film would have been more fun if it had a sense of humor.

[34] Tom Huddleston of Time Out London wrote, "Despite its admirably straight face, Season of the Witch is a silly romp through Pythonesque medieval cliché and knockabout Hammer horror with a dash of cut-price Tolkien chucked in to keep things moving".

[35] Writing for The Observer, Mark Kermode described it as "like a cross between Michael Reeves's brilliant Witchfinder General and Renny Harlin's abysmal Exorcist: The Beginning, with a fair (if unintentional) sprinkling of Monty Python and the Holy Grail thrown in for good measure...

It's all utter balderdash from start to finish, with everyone sporting terrible period haircuts, and characters appearing and disappearing in a manner which suggests that the editors' minds were on other things; namely, the big finale which is, sadly, a bit rubbish".

[36] Salon's Andrew O'Hehir thought the film "resembles a Hollywood-by-way-of-Hungary remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal filtered through the B-movie aesthetic of, say, Roger Corman".

[37] The film earned a Razzie Award nomination for Nicolas Cage as Worst Actor, but lost to Adam Sandler for Jack and Jill and Just Go with It.