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Cast a Deadly Spell
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This wasn’t a theatrical movie, but played on
HBO, which I’ve never gotten, but I’d heard about this movie and was praying it’d be
released to video. And it was. Fred Ward is HP Lovecraft, but not the writer. He’s Phil
Lovecraft, a private investigator distinguished by the fact that he refuses to use magic.
This is, as the opening narrative reads, “Los Angeles, 1948. Everybody uses magic.”
Except Phil, who eventually explains his reason for this. So the rest of the world sees
him as a relic, a bit of history to be squashed in its pages like a bug. Fortunately Phil
is smarter than that, and staves off his witch landlady long enough to get hired by
David Warner, creepy as usual as a man hoping to get back a book of “mere sentimental
value” called the Necronomicon. He’s not the only one after the book, of course, and
Phil has his hands full straight off with Warner, Phil’s old partner on the police force
(now a corrupt warlock of no small talent), Warner’s daughter, a virgin desperate to lose that
title, and a collection of other freaky characters. Oh, and there are monsters and the
imminent end of the world, too.
This was touted as a Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the
occult, but is actually a bit light on the background gags, whereas Roger Rabbit takes
numerous viewings to catch them all. The very premise of the story begs a sense of
humor, which it has. Phil may not use magic, but he knows its ways and isn’t afraid to look
it square in the face. The end of the world is postponed, of course, and rather
humorously in spite of (or perhaps because of) the presence of one of the Old Ones of
the original Lovecraft’s tales.
There was a sequel to this cable movie, but with Dennis
Hopper (of all people) as Lovecraft, and Eric Bogosian as the bad guy. I saw this once but
didn’t collect it, since it lacked the “zing” that the original had. In other words, the sequel
wasn’t as good.
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