By Travis Johnson
“Los Angeles, 1948. everybody used magic.”
Right out of the gate, this largely forgotten 1991 HBO movie sets an irresistible narrative hook. Directed by journeyman Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro, Green Lantern) and written by Joseph Dougherty (nothing else worth noting), Cast a Deadly Spell is a film noir/urban fantasy mash-up, positing a post-war LA where magic is as common as electricity, and witches, warlocks and werewolves rub shoulders with studio ingenues, dapper mobsters, and corrupt cops.
Down these mean and magical streets a man must go, and our man is Phil Lovecraft, played by character actor Fred Ward, an ex-cop turned private dick who doesn’t use magic for undisclosed personal reasons. His client, much like Phil Marlowe’s in The Big Sleep, is a wealthy man, Amos Hackshaw, with an errant daughter, Olivia (David Warner and Alexandra Powers, respectively), and he is hired to track down their former chauffeur (Oz‘s Lee Tergesen) who threatened the girl’s honour before absconding with a rare book from Hackshaw’s extensive collection. Astute students of noir plot mechanics, or those who have clocked the significance of Lovecraft’s name, will know that the book is the real McGuffin – it’s the Necronomicon, ancient tome of evil magics, and Hackshaw plans to use it to being about the rise of the demonic, apocalyptic Old Ones and the end of the world. The only thing in his way is the out of his depth but dogged detective.
Nimbly mixing narrative elements from diverse genres, Cast a Deadly Spell speeds along snappily, throwing out droll hardboiled dialogue and deep cut horror references with aplomb, tipping the hat to HP Lovecraft and Raymond Chandler in equal measure, and while its the fantastical elements that draw the most attention, it’s clear that the noir stylings aren’t just affectation – this is a work steeped in a deep love of both antecedents. It boasts a great cast, too; indeed, it’s amazing we got this far without mentioning that Lovecraft’s old partner turned mob boss, Harry Bordon, is played by Clancy “The Kurgan” Brown, while his femme fatale ex is Julianne Moore poured into a slinky red dress and singing torch songs at a club called the Dunwich Room.
If the film has a failing, it’s that the budget doesn’t always encompass the animations of its witty script. While a lot of magic and monsters are realised in subtle, suggestive ways (a vampire prostitute baring her fangs, a cop lighting a cigarette with a flaming finger), it often has to resort to the old rubber suits ‘n’ puppets route to portray its rogues gallery of gargoyles, demons, and Things Man Was Not Mean to Know. Remember, this was before Game of Thrones, WestWorld, The Wire, and The Sopranos, so its best to think of the film as working on a TV budget, not an HBO one. Still, Campbell and his crew work wonders with what they have.
Cast a Deadly Spell was actually successful enough to spawn a sequel, 1994’s Witch Hunt, which took place in the 1950s Red Scare and saw Dennis Hopper take over the Lovecraft role, but it lacks the assured charm of its predecessor. No, Cast a Deadly Spell is a case of lightning in a bottle, which makes it even more surprising that it’s so difficult to track down. It did hit VHS rental a couple of decades back, but since then has been extremely difficult to find. It does seem to have finally found a home on DVD courtesy of little known distributor Red Dog Video, though. Hopefully that means this offbeat genre offering can finally find the audience it deserves.
