CAST A DEADLY SPELL (1991)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*

CAST A DEADLY SPELL was one of two HBO original films. Both this one and the subsequent WITCH HUNT were written by Joseph Dougherty, though only SPELL was directed by Martin Campbell, just a few years away from his graduating to the big time with 1995's GOLDENEYE. 

Both movies take place in Los Angeles circa 1948-1950, but on an Earth where magic works, and is practiced openly. Thus the gangsters of L.A. are as likely to put a hit on their targets with curse-ruins as with tommy-guns, and many professionals on the police force learn to use magic defensively against such criminals. A noted exception is ex-cop P.I. Howard Phillips Lovecraft (Fred Ward). Though Lovecraft barely manages a living, operating out of a run-down office where his landlord constantly nags him for the rent, he's repeatedly asked why he won't practice magic, even in self-defense. His longest response on the subject is that he wants to be his own man, beholden to no gods or spirits. Clearly Lovecraft is meant to be the epitome of the lonely crusader who won't sell out to corrupt forces in the police force or the upper classes, though the script isn't really interested in making any serious critique of magic or even paganism. (A modern character remarks on her knowledge of the current worship of Diana.) The entire concept of SPELL is meant to be as playful, as seen by the in-jokey usage of the name of horror-author H.P. Lovecraft for the heroic protagonist.

Ironically, one of the main distinctions of Original Lovecraft's work was that he broke from the use of magical-themed menaces for his terror-tales, focusing for the most part on quasi-scientific concepts. He did borrow popular tropes from "magical horror," but the connotation was that human beings were using these tropes to contact extra-dimensional entities through some form of psychic operation. Doughtery's concept is closer to the model of the "rational magic" subgenre of horror-fantasy, often seen in the forties pulp magazine UNKNOWN, which generated such classics as Fritz Leiber's CONJURE WIFE and Robert Heinlein's MAGIC, INC. Thus the only truly Lovecraftian motif of SPELL is the villains' plans to unleash the demon-god Yog-Sothoth upon helpless humanity.

Detective Lovecraft is hired to find a missing grimoire, which his employer needs for a special ritual. The fine details of the "mystery" are not memorable, but the cast does a good job of polishing up all of the hoary hard-boiled tropes, with David Warner and Clancy Brown as two of the villains, Julianne Moore as a shady lady with whom Lovecraft has a checkered past, and Alexandra Powers as a "virgin sacrifice"-- a trope Original Lovecraft would never have touched with a pole the length of infinity.

The adventure verges on comedy, but there's enough straightforward menace (as when a hulking zombie drowns a man in a pool) that keeps things from being too jovial. Ward is the movie's main strength, maintaining the insouciant appeal of the noble P.I, who can never do things the easy way. He too did not return for the second and last film, but SPELL stands as one of the actor's best performances.