Season of the Witch kicks off the new movie year with a resounding thud as Nicolas Cage, in a wig of blond ringlets seemingly snatched from Gwyneth Paltrow's Country Strong collection, portrays a knight of the Crusades on God's duty. It's the 14th century, baby, and Behman (that's Cage) and his comrade in arms, Felson (Hellboy's Ron Perlman), must deliver a witch (Claire Foy) to a monastery so a hotshot monk can read mumbo-jumbo at her and end the scourge of plague that has the population popping oozing postules.

Peter Travers reviews Season of the Wtich in his weekly video series, "At the Movies With Peter Travers."

The real plague is the movie, a sci-fi hodgepodge of bad history and worse special effects. Director Dominic Sena allows the actors to mug outrageously in accents that range from fake British to bogus Jersey Shore. I may be making Season of the Witch sound like more fun than it is. Trust me, it's as bloodless as a starved vampire. Instead of a review, it deserves a stake in the heart. Die, monster, die.

The 10 Worst Movies of 2010

“Let My Love Open the Door”

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."