Cast A Deadly Spell (1991)

The video release poster for CAST A DEADLY SPELL came with a "crowd pleaser" seal of approval which guaranteed that if you didn't enjoy the movie you'd get a refund of the cash it cost you to make the rental. Such a thing may be little more than a nostalgic novelty now, but it might as well have been an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That's right, CAST A DEADLY SPELL lives up to its promises. Yes indeed, it really is a crowd pleaser. At least in my book.

Picture CHINATOWN by way of Stuart Gordon. The story takes place in 1948. But it sure as shit ain't the 1948 you and I are familiar with. This is a version of 1948 from an alternate timeline, a parallel dimension similar to our own but different in some very important ways. Chief among these changes is the fact that, in this incarnation of Earth, magick, and I'm talkin' magick-with-a-k here, is not only real, but commonplace. Here, the criminal underworld is literally from the underworld. Ghosts, ghouls, and gremlins are everyday annoyances. Voodoo doll homicides, zombified construction workers, and diabolical deals with the devil are all par for the course. Everybody uses magick, man. Everybody.

Everybody, that is, except for our all-important main character. Natch.

Fred Ward (TREMORS, HENRY & JUNE, etc.) plays private investigator H.P. Lovecraft (call him Harry), a gruff, grizzled, hardboiled outsider with a jaded worldview, a penchant for acerbic wisecracking, a solid right hook, a face full of stubble, and a crooked fedora sittin' lopsided atop his unkempt hair. Harry doesn't use any o' that fancy-shmancy hocus pocus mumbo jumbo. Doesn't even like the stuff. Instead, he pines for the salad days when men were men, personal honor actually meant something to people, and things in life were accomplished the old-fashioned way: through hard work n' honest labor.

Harry may sound a tad Amish in his ideals, but he doesn't give a fig. Nowadays, you can pull almost anything you want out of a handful of fairy dust and a puff of smoke, which means that pretty much everyone in the world has turned into a corner-cutting con artist. After all, when esoteric secrets conjured up by ancient forces offer shortcuts to everybody's hopes n' dreams, every last ounce of arcana is closely guarded and fiercely coveted. Illusions and glamour spells hide the truth from prying eyes. Paranoia and backstabbing opportunism reign supreme. No one can be trusted, and no one is necessarily who they say they are.

Of course, the ubiquitous presence of magick in society means that, if any P.I. is gonna have a chance in hell of makin' a name for himself, he's gotta be both quick on his feet and quick on the draw, not to mention hardy, observant, intelligent, and just plain goddamn good at his job. The fact that Harry refuses to use magick to aid in his investigations, and that he's still around, only shows how just plain goddamn good he really is (even if he does nest in a seedy run-down apartment/office in the same building as a mambo priestess/tap dance instructor).

That's why ol' Harry's been hired by Mr. Amos Hackshaw, a wealthy wizard played by the freakishly prolific and ever-reliable David Warner (STRAW DOGS, TIME BANDITS, etc.). Ardent cult film fartknockers will note, by the way, that Warner's chalked himself up a genuine freakin' threesie here, what I like to call "The David Warner Lovecraft Trilogy." Flanking CAST A DEADLY SPELL, the guy's got both NECRONOMICON and IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS coolin' their heels in his filmography. Now, izzat good shiznit or izzat good shiznit?

That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, David Warner's career will never die. Word.

Anyway, it seems a priceless mystical tome (I think it was called The Necronomicon or somethin' ...hmmm, I wonder what that could be a reference to) has been stolen from Amos' extensive, and exotic, collection and the sumptuous sorcerer wants it back. Amos hires Harry to hunt the book down, choosing the weathered detective not only for his skillful expertise and respectable reputation, but also because he believes that Harry's distaste for magick will keep him from seeking to obtain The Necronomicon for himself. Wouldn't be a good idea to pay somebody to retrieve your stolen goodies if that self-same person then turned around and stole said goodies for themselves, now would it?

As Harry begins looking into the mystery of the taken text, he runs afoul of his one-time friend and current nightclub owner/crime lord/supernatural sleazeball, Harry Bordon (geez, is everyone named Harry?). Bordon is brought to life by professional Hollywood heavy Clancy Brown (HIGHLANDER, BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION, etc.), so you know, even before he opens his mouth, that Bordon's gonna be a bad motherfucker. Getting off-topic for a second here, I've always said that, if they ever make that long-promised Preacher comic adaptation movie or T.V. series, then I think Clancy Brown should definitely play Herr Starr.

Okay, shimmying back on-topic, Harry (Lovecraft, not Bordon) also runs into another face from his past, this time in the form of Connie Stone, a lascivious lounge singin' strumpet played by Julianne Moore (BOOGIE NIGHTS, CHILDREN OF MEN, etc.) back before she was an A-list celebrity. Before you can say "Raymond Chandler goes to hell," Harry finds himself caught up in a twisty-turny, mighty murky, Machiavellian conspiracy in which some very nasty people have some very nasty plans for The Necronomicon. Plans which involve human sacrifice and the apocalyptic unleashing of a slumbering Old One. I tell ya, it just don't get any nastier than that (unless you count Glenn Beck... ::shudder::).

Man, this movie has all sorts of tasty sweetness. We got gigantic tentacle-whipping demonic gods, stone-skinned gargoyles, unicorn hunting trips, cooler-than-cool classic cars, Clancy Brown, and a tranny drag queen, just for the hell of it. The portrayal of old-school L.A. is equal parts sleaze and glitz, a perfect synthesis of that trashy/classy noir aesthetic. Then there's the dialogue, which is sharp as a tack. Wait. Sharper. It's as sharp as a Cthulhu-worshipper's unholy dagger of death. Not only is the jibber-jabber perfectly suited for a neo-retro 1940's detective story throwback, full of gritty one-liners and sassy, sparky, sarcastic back-and-forth banter, but the movie as a whole is littered with nods to the real world Lovecraft's tremendous (both in quantity and quality) body of work. If you're a fan of the man's creepy cosmic mythos then you'll probably get a kick out of the zillion and one Lovecraftian in-jokes worked into the mix here (did I mention there's a police officer named Bradbury? ...or how about the fact that Bordon's nightclub is called The Dunwich Room). Mind you, if you're one of those stuffy, stick-in-the-mud purists who take the man and his mythos way, wayyy too seriously, then you'll probably hate CAST A DEADLY SPELL. And, if that's the case, you can go fuck a dead duck for all I give a shit.

Anyone looking for an authentic Lovecraftian experience will have their hopes soundly squashed with this flick. Sorry, buttmunches and buttmunchettes, this isn't that kind o' movie. It's not a "Lovecraft movie" in the truest sense at all, really. It's more along the lines of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS in that it's an eclectic homage and an affectionate pastiche. Unlike IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, though, CAST A DEADLY SPELL never makes any attempts to achieve a similarly Lovecraftian feel. Like I said, this isn't that kind o' movie. And, to be perfectly blunt, coming from H.B.O. during a time when Tales From The Crypt was one of their heaviest hitters, the fact of the matter is that CAST A DEADLY SPELL was never going to be "that kind o' movie." It knows exactly what it is, and it has fun being that. It's a quirky, campy, comic book-esque b-movie that uses a handful of ideas lifted from Lovecraft as a springboard to create something unique unto itself.

To use "Lovecraft movie" terms here for a minute (despite my unhesitating admission that this is "not that kind o' movie"), if you want to compare CAST A DEADLY SPELL to some similar flicks, I'd say that this picture has a good deal in common with FROM BEYOND and NECRONOMICON, with a pulpier, dime novel-like, Dashiell Hammett clone sense of style. This is definitely not a "serious" movie by any stretch of the imagination. On the contrary, it's more or less an Elseworlds-inspired horror-comedy, though the comedy is less of the slapstick splatstick variety, and more of the semi-spoofy/semi-satirical, character/dialogue/concept-driven, and self-aware absurdity sort. The climax, for instance, is just one big, cheeky, playfully mischievous wink toward both the unlikelihood of finding a virgin in Los Angeles and the way parents are oft-times out-of-touch with their offspring (a gag that my fellow Whedonites might notice would one day resurface, seemingly torn directly out of CAST A DEADLY SPELL, as the punchline for one exceptionally memorable second season episode of Angel). If you have no idea what I'm babbling about here, I'll give you a hint: statutory rape saves the day! Betcha didn't see that coming.

On top o' all that good shit, CAST A DEADLY SPELL also features F.X. work by (amongst others) Gore Shriek artist Bruce Spaulding Fuller (DEAD DUDES IN THE HOUSE, TANK GIRL, etc.), who I make special mention of simply because I'm a huge Gore Shriek fan, aaaaand because I had the chance to hang out with him a while back, and found him to be an eminently cool dude.

Serving as a charming chunk of disarmingly droll mid-budget schlock, CAST A DEADLY SPELL is an imaginative, extremely well-written, extremely well-acted, colorfully and moodily directed, slime-drizzled, rubbery monster-laden, kitschy creepshow overflowing with noirish archetypes (fiery femme fatales, dolled-up debutante dames, n' cynical two-fisted private eyes, oh my!) and creature feature marquee beasties (werewolves n' vampires are just the beginning), all that craziness carefully carried on the backs of a stellar cast (Kevin Bacon can eat a dick, Fred Ward is the man). Those with an appetite for horror/fantasy tales that blend the paranormal and arcane with urban settings and more modern-ish tropes n' technologies on a widespread scale are likely to find CAST A DEADLY SPELL much to their liking, especially if you have a sense of humor and whimsy.

This is one unusual, offbeat piece of work, one which also seems to have just as many defenders as detractors (the most common criticism seems to be that it's "too silly" which says to me that some folks just don't "get it"). At the end of the day, though, CAST A DEADLY SPELL is definitely a cult item, a somewhat obscure relic of post-Video Boom made-for-cable adventurousness that made an effort to think outside the box (how many Lovecraftian film noir movies have you seen, smart aleck?) without trying to reinvent the wheel. It enthusiastically panders to our expectations of what a cliché gumshoe mystery yarn should be (Harry even narrates parts of the story: "It started with a woman. It always starts with a woman."), then livens up the proceedings by adding a new twist (i.e. magick n' monsters), much in the same way WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? did with its combination of live-action and animated characters. The noir elements of CAST A DEADLY SPELL ground the fantastical ones, often (hilariously) taking the piss out of 'em in doing so, and the fantastical elements give the otherwise hackneyed noir elements a new sheen of fancy-free freshness.

There's a U.S.A. Today quote on the V.H.S. box cover for CAST A DEADLY SPELL that describes it as "WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? with witches and zombies instead of toons." While that may seem like an overgeneralization, it's actually not that far off the mark. The genrebending is done in a similar manner, especially in the matter-of-fact way that the supernatural elements are woven into the thread of humdrum daily life. Much humor is derived from contrasting blue collar routine n' regimen with black hood myth n' mysticism. Admittedly, this isn't as finely crafted a movie as WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? (and, as redheaded molls go, Julianne Moore can't hold a dead man's hand candle to Jessica Rabbit, which is kind of sad considering Rabbit's not real whereas Moore is flesh n' blood), but it doesn't have to be. It is what it is: rental shelf material, all the way. Think of it as a more cartoonish, kooky Kolchak, if you like.

Later, H.B.O. would attempt a sequel/reimagining/whatever, taking detective Harry Lovecraft into the 1950's and introducing an obligatory McCarthyism metaphor into the bubblin' soup for flavor. Unfortunately, this second shot, titled WITCH HUNT and replacing Fred Ward with Dennis Hopper, was largely a bust, having gotten way too hung up on its social commentary and not offering up enough actual entertainment value. Even the critics who didn't like CAST A DEADLY SPELL to start with agreed that WITCH HUNT was inferior.

Regardless if you, sir (or ma'am), are the type of person who'd like this particular motion picture or not, one thing's for sure: I am. Very, very much so, in fact. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, dagnabbit, so I don't really give half a crap whether you agree or disagree when I say that CAST A DEADLY SPELL is an enormously entertaining dark ride of a flick with a clever shtick that should be able to send any open-minded junk food film junkie back into an easily awed pre-adolescent mindset hungry for badass beasties, ready-to-rumble tough guys, scheming bad guys with pencil mustaches, darling damsels, and antique automobiles. Despite some adult content, a little saucy splatter, and plenty o' scarrrrry critters, CAST A DEADLY SPELL has a decidedly kid-friendly feel to it, while still retaining an air of sly, sardonic smarts that'll satisfy macabre-minded adults as well.

Earlier, I referred to this here slice o' postmodern b-movie brain candy as being akin to a comic book and as having a pulpy style. Those are probably the two most key defining aspects of the film. "Pulp" and "comic book" are a pair o' phrases which sum up CAST A DEADLY SPELL admirably, I think. The film reminds me of the Tokyopop manga The Dark Goodbye (a book which, if you've seen and enjoyed CAST A DEADLY SPELL, I highly recommend). It also has shades of old "monster rally" pictures, as funneled through the same artistic sensibilities that likewise gave birth to GHOSTBUSTERS, LABYRINTH, BLOODSUCKING PHARAOHS IN PITTSBURGH, THE MONSTER SQUAD, EVIL DEAD 2, and GREMLINS. The whole thing also has a very Empire Pictures type vibe to it, which is, in my humble opinion, a good thing, no doubt about it.

So, what then? You say you've got a craving for an occult detective movie, but you don't really want to watch ANGEL HEART for the hundredth time this month? Slip CAST A DEADLY SPELL in the V.C.R. instead.

Then again, if you're one of those people whose more likely to groan than chuckle at things like Harry's surname or gags about policemen hating the full moon because o' the whole lycanthrope problem, then you should probably put this bad boy back on the shelf and keep lookin' for somethin' else to keep your cathode ray tube warm on this dreary weekday night.

The real H.P. Lovecraft would probably have balked at the idea of his malevolently misanthropic mythology, not to mention his own noble name n' persona, being riffed on in such a psychotronic, jazzy, jovial, tongue-in-cheek manner, but, hey, it takes all kinds, right? Different strokes for different folks. The man's been my tippy-top number one favorite author since I first discovered him (by way of a chance encounter with "Pickman's Model" ...still my favorite of his stories) in the eighth grade, but even I've got to admit that it would've served him well to lighten up a bit. Maybe drop all those racist overtones, too.

Life's too short to be so po-faced all the time, y'know? Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

That's all I have to say 'bout that.

Until next slime...
Stay sick!
Your pickled pal,
William Weird.



Rating: 3.5 out of 5 shoggoths
Recommendation: rent it
Best moment: Harry Lovecraft almost ends up as food for the food when he picks the wrong greasy spoon diner to have breakfast at