SAMHAIN PROJECT, SEASON 6: CAST A DEADLY SPELL

 

SEASON 6

There was something special about the HBO Original film.  I'm talking about the old school ones from the early 80's to the mid 90's.  Films like Blackout, Flashpoint, & The Park is Mine.  They had fair-sized budgets, included name performers as well as directors.   Sometimes they would have a small theatrical release or be a foreign-market original, like Fortress, but they felt to me like something exclusive.  Only myself and other HBO subscribers had access.  In a matter of years, most of them would be largely forgotten.

Last night Frani and I watched the dust-covered Cast a Deadly Spell.  This one, unlike the others I mentioned, is being carried by the HBO Max streamer.  I guess you could call this one a horror-noir.  It has all the noir trappings.  A private investigator who drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney.  He wanders around 1948 Los Angeles consorting with police force members, unseemly types of all shapes and sizes, and of course, femme fatales.  All the while, cracking wise with sharply written dialogue. 

The only difference is that in this version of 1948 L.A., magic is everywhere and being used by any and all.  Except our hero, Lovecraft, being played with spark by the late great Fred Ward.  Ward is great, and the rest of the cast is game as well, and they include David Warner, Clancy Brown, and Julianne Moore. 

Martin Campbell, who may have one of the most underrated of the film industry's longest resumes, is the director who does a nice job balancing the noirish atmosphere mixed with something the genre normally doesn't fraternize with: the supernatural.

Ghoulish beasties of other dimensions abound, and great practical effects bring those to life, as well as makeup work.  Despite the genre mashup, all of that doesn't seem to intrude.  The weird blend of fantasy elements and hard-boiled mystery seems to makes sense in some strange way,  Cast makes you wonder if Max Landis had seen this film before writing Bright a few years back. 

Overall, the film is entertaining, with a handful of laugh-out-loud moments.   It has just enough of the supernatural horror for your average Halloween movie aficionado to chalk up on the list for this time of year. 

I was a bit surprised that after several gory scenes of mayhem and murder, to see Clancy Brown's "goddamn" had clearly been overdubbed with a "goldurn".  I'd much rather a young impressionable viewer hear that rather mind profanity, than see some of the bloodshed that came before it. 

Overall, I'd recommend it.  Kind of like a Hocus Pocus for the Crime Story set.