Cast a Deadly Spell

I went down a well the other night and watched two HBO tv movies from the 90.

Cast a Deadly Spell and it’s sorta sequel Witch Hunt. I saw one and possibly both of them when I was a lad in the 90s and I wanted to check them out again.

And then I saw Paul Schrader(!) the writer of Taxi Driver and the director of some of the emotionally wrenching movies of the last 30 years directed Witch Hunt. Seeing that my brain responded, “Well, that’s unavoidable now, you gotta watch these things again.”

As I have said before I pick out people sometimes and try to go through their entire filmography. I only have a few Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood flicks left. I’ve got 40 Nic Cage movies still on the list and will probably never watch them all.

But this week was Schrader and after watching Light Sleeper I moved over to these supernatural detective romps.

Can you believe it took ten years for Cast a Deadly Spell to get made? It’s Chinatown but with magic! It should sell itself. 

Sure, it’s not great but it was never gonna be great, you know. It’s passable and amusing. 

You judge this thing on a curve, I think, accepting that it’s a horror comedy about a detective named Harry Phillip Lovecraft (get it) in 1950s supernatural Los Angeles chasing the Necronomicon (get it). 

His buddy is a police captain named Bradbury (get it). Who at one point interrogates a werewolf under those 1940s police spotlights and complains, “I hate full moons.” (Do you get it!)

There are special effects in this HBO movie that they just can’t do anymore. Not necessarily good special effects but … unique. Visually interesting. 

I’m not sure I would recommend this to anyone. It’s either not as funny as it thinks it is or it’s actually too graphic at times. The regular budget was minuscule but the fake blood budget was astronomical. 

Clancy Brown, very late in the flick when the bad guy (Clancy is just the heavy) is making his villian speech, rolls his eyes and sighs. 

It’s like two seconds of screen time. And I howled with laughter. But that’s maybe the biggest laugh in the thing. 

You either think this is a good line or you don’t: “Nobody’s got a mortgage on my soul! I own it free and clear!”

And this one too, “You’re a funny guy Phil. I bet your dying words are gonna be a scream.” 

But as someone who watched every episode of Buffy and Angel this is mostly up my alley.

Anyway, Fred Ward does alright. Clancy Brown and Raymond O’Connor make stuff work that shouldn’t. Julianne Moore has ton of fun being the femme fatale. But this probably won’t go down on her list of great movie roles.

But freakin’ David Warner is out of this world. 

Everybody else is playing around but Warner took a cheap money job and delivered his ridiculous lines like he’s doing a classic at The Old Vic.

Tomorrow: Witch Hunt