Set in 14th century Europe, Season of the Witch follows two knights battling their way through the bloody Crusades who end up being deserters after they witness the massacre of several innocent civilians upon the conquering of yet another village. They are soon found, arrested and forced by the Cardinal (Christopher Lee, who else?) to escort a young woman to a monastery — a woman whose supposed mastery of witchcraft is believed to be the cause of the Black Plague that’s sweeping across the land. Of course Ron Perlman is in this thing, but Nicolas Cage is laughably miscast, way too modern and eccentric an actor to pass for a mighty Teutonic Knight (even for Halloween); it really doesn’t matter, though, as this bloated, cheap-looking mess is just kind of wallowing and drowning in absurdity in general with its preposterous screenplay and obnoxious over-direction by Dominic Sena (who previously worked with Cage on the equally silly Gone in 60 Seconds and, once upon a time, showed such promise with Kalifornia). Season of the Witch had been stuck in development hell since 2000 until it finally went into production in 2009 with about one third of the budget it needed to bring its ambitious vision to life; it was ultimately dumped into theaters this year during the first week of January, a month known as a notorious wasteland for unwanted misfit movies.