User Reviews

While piloting his family to his father's funeral in rural Appalachia, Marquis (Omari Hardwick, Sorry to Bother You) flies through an electrical storm and crashes, waking up alone and injured, a captive in the attic of Ms. Eloise (Loretta Devine, who was one of the original actresses in the stage presentation of Dreamgirls). She claims that for him to be whole again, she must use the Boogity, a Hoodoo figure created from human blood and skin.

Trapped in an attic with no idea where his family is, Marquis must escape his past and his future at the very same time.

Spell was written by Kurt Wimmer, who wrote and directed one of my favorite odd 2000's action films, Equilibrium, as well as its kind of, sort of follow-up Ultraviolet. He also wrote Salt, Sphere and the remakes of The Thomas Crown Affair, Total Recall and Point Break. He also directed a new Children of the Corn, which came out on October 23 of this year.

It was directed by Mark Tonderai, who made House at the End of the Street and has worked on plenty of streaming shows like Castle Rock, Locke and Key and Gotham.

This film looks nice, with well-thought-out dream sequences and colorful hues. I just wish it had something new to say. It feels like a backwoods - yet black-acted - version of the post-Deliverance films that brought the supernatural to the table like Rituals while the allusions to Misery simply can't be glossed over.

That said, between this and Antebellum, you can really tell that modern black horror suffers without someone like Jordan Peele at the helm. It's an alright film, but like I stated above, I wish it had something more to say.

However, Devine is great in her role and really brings it. She's the best thing in this.

I was looking forward to Spell hoping it was going to be suspenseful horror but unfortunately it is not very exciting or suspenseful. The movie is about Marquis T. Woods (Omari Hardwick) a successful lawyer on his way to a family funeral in a very distant part of Appalachia. When his Cessna crashes in a storm he is separated from his wife and children and in the care of Eloise (Loretta Devine) and her family who practice a form of voodoo.

There are some very good shots in the beginning when Marquis and his family are flying to Appalachia as well as a few good scenes with Eloise. The flashbacks however look cheap and character development is mostly non existent for the other characters. The dialogue is not always convincing and gets repetitive at times. What happens is also predictable and the actions of the protagonist don't always make sense. The story does pick up in the last 15 minutes but is is again very predictable and it is barely explained how Marquis picked up the voodoo spells and deals so easily with someone like Eloise who as it is shown near the end of the movie has been practicing those spells for for over a century. In the end this was a watchable but underwhelming film that never really reaches its true potential.

So a lot of this movie makes no sense at all. Like how he keeps escaping over and over but never gets away. How, they have the ability to restrain him from getting away over and over but ONLY use it once when a sheriff that is in on it anyway shows up. Why restrain him then? The sheriff knows... How all of the crazed people never try to attack him or his family despite having every opportunity to do so many times to stop him from killing their beloved witch leader. The dialog is cringy and bad. The kids are so unlikable its hard to feel for them at all. They have such a small part. They could have been likable so we felt for the situation more. But no. Make them "bratty" for no reason. Sure. The dad issue was never resolved it just kind of left a "thank you for teaching me the dark magic I used it to destroy a witch" kind of deal at the end when.... Wasnt he extremely abusive? Odd.. Anyways. I only finished it because I paid for early access to watch it. But ... I wish I hadnt.

Marquis Woods and his family are on their way to attend his father's funeral when their plane crash-lands during a violent storm. After regaining consciousness, Marquis (or Mark as he is better known) finds himself locked in the house of a strange lady and her family. When Mark learns of the plans this lady has in store for him, he decides to make a desperate bid for freedom...

Although not entirely the same as Misery (the plot set-ups are slightly different) it does share much in common with the aforementioned film; albeit Spell isn't quite as good.

Where the film works best is in its moments where Mark is desperately trying to escape from this mad woman's clutches and each time he does manage to leave the room he slowly learns more and more about this woman and her loony antics. The picture does boast some tense moments and a sense of intrigue such as how Mark is going to escape and what exactly has happened to his family?

Spell needs to be approached with a degree of caution as it does contain some pretty icky scenes (some of which are downright disgusting truth be told). Still if you can handle a bit of ick then you should be fine.

Where the film falls into trouble and what ultimately weakens it is the sheer number of inconsistences and unlikely events; a woman who kidnaps a man whom she doesn't want to leave, but happens to leave a window unlocked. Upon realising that he has escaped, she goes to the trouble of banging a huge nail through his foot as a deterrent on him trying to escape again - why not just restrain him with her voodoo magic at this point as demonstrated later in the film in order to prevent him escaping? Also she simply doesn't realise Mark has escaped after he bangs the nail back in his foot? Surely the blood that sprayed everywhere after he removed the nail may have been a bit of a giveaway - I'm sure it would have seeped through the bandage as well. Also leaving the door unlocked for Mark when the sheriff drove away was also a convenient means for Mark to escape. Finally why did they all seem to have boogity dolls? I thought they were only used for the people who were being sacrificed?

I could go on and on about the many flaws with this film, but I have to admit that I still found it to be fairly enjoyable (in a sort of ugh way) and Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine were also both on fine form.

If nothing else the film while being far from perfect is still a better film than its IMDB score suggests and is one that I would recommend (providing you're not of a squeamish disposition).