Starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, and Claire Foy. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, January 7

There is some excellent, superfun stuff to be learned watching supernatural adventure Season of the Witch. First of all, the plague infamously known as the Black Death that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages was probably caused by, you guessed it, witches. Second, one way to fight Satan is to headbutt him. Third, if you’re casting Nicolas Cage as a knight of the Crusades, give him a freaky, curly wig with delicate blond highlights for your audience’s maximum entertainment value.

So, did director Dominic Sena and Cage think it had been way too long since Gone in Sixty Seconds and they’d better find another mindless movie to hang out on together? You know, swap the hot rods and empty L.A. cool for some gory swordplay and plague pustules, knock knuckles, and keep a straight face?

Actually, that’s the great thing about Cage. No matter how insane the movie, he fully commits. Here, he and Ron Perlman play buddy knights who slice and dice men, women, and children in God’s name until they suddenly feel really guilty and go AWOL. A plague-infected cardinal (Christopher Lee, covered in such elephantine growths that he’s unrecognizable) commissions them to transport a witch (Claire Foy) who’s being blamed for the, um, entire plague to a remote monastery.

Everything pretty much gets completely nonsensical after that. If you like this sort of stuff—you know, pissy demons and zombie monks and CGI-creepy forests—you probably won’t mind. (Although you should mind talented Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen appearing in a humiliatingly idiotic role.) But, seriously, don’t you always think that the powerful demon or witch or whatever could really just zap the humans immediately and go have lunch?

Oh, bonus cheap-laugh homage to Jaws: “We’re gonna need more holy water.” Yes, and a bigger brain.