Curses Only Have Power When You Believe Them.: Practical Magic (1998)

“Curses only have power when you believe them.”

Almost everyone I know loves this movie and my sister tries to get me to watch it with her every October. I finally did and I was not as into it.

I think the film moves really slow and is pretty boring. The most interesting part isn’t until the film is hour and twenty minutes in.

This film came out in the ‘90s when witch movies were extremely popular, everything from cutesy films like Sabrina the Teenage Witch to dark ones like The Craft. This film falls in the middle as it isn’t super horror filled but does have its moments, enough to put it on this par with witches, a ghost, zombies, possession, etc.

The Owens family is a line of witches, going far back in history. The first known witch of their family was hurt when her lover abandoned her and she cursed herself to never love again, in order for keep herself safe.

Unfortunately, the curse was all twisted and any man the Owens’ women’s love dies. This happens to our main protagonists’s father, sisters Sally (Camilla Belle) and Gillian Owens. After he died, their mother soon followed and the girls were raised by their aunts, Frances (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne West).

Both girls are gifted but Sally is the more magical of the two. But while she is better at it if, she unfortunately just wants a normal life. Determined not to end up like her mother and father; she does a true love spell creating the perfect man, therefore one that will never exist in reality.

When Gillian (Nicole Kidman) becomes an adult she runs off to LA, planning to elope with her boyfriend. Before she leaves, she and Sally make an oath to always be there for each other and to die together. Gillian continues to move around with different men; while Sally (Sandra Bullock) stays with her aunts crafting herbal items.

From Sabrina the Teenage Witch

One day Sally meets someone and the two fall in love and have two girls. Their perfect life isn’t perfect forever as he ends up dying due to the curse. Sally and the girls move back with the aunts and when she discovers they put a spell on Sally to make her happy (never knowing she’d actually fall in love with the man) Sally forbids them from teaching the girls magic.

Sally and Gillian’s visit and Gillian shares that she met a new guy, her current Jimmy Angelov. She’s in love but sometimes he is too much into her she has to drug him with belladonna to get some alone then.

Sally sees all the red flags and tries to point it out to Gillian, but she doesn’t see it. It’s not long after that he starts hurting Gillian and she calls Sally to rescue her.

Sally comes but Jimmy stops them, drawing his gun to get them to get in a car with them. As they drive off the sisters plot to figure other a way to get away from crazy Jimmy who wants to brand Gillian and most likely kill Sally.

Sally manages to drug his beer with Belladonna and when he tries to murder Gillaim he dies. The two are freaked out and worried; Sally espechially as she doesn’t want to lose her girls. Gillian convinces her to bring Jimmy back to life and they do; but he then tries to kill Gillian so they kill him again and bury him in the back yard.

Everything is fine…although Sally is very anxious about the murder and reanimation and second murder. Gillian keeps trying to get her to forget about it; but then things start happening. Roses grow over where they buried Jimmy, they see boot prints on the yard, toads, etc. To make things worse state investigator Gary Hallett (Aiden Quinn) from Tucson comes looking for Jimmy, as apparently Jimmy was a serial killer who would hurt women, brand them, and then strangle them.

Sally likes him as he is exactly what she dreamed up of when she was thinking about the “perfect man” way back as a child. His presence starts causing her to crack under the pressure. Gillian and the girls try to get rid of him, but even the girls start liking him.

Sally’s daughters

One night Gillain gets possessed by Jimmy’s spirit: and Sally and Gary both see the Zombie Jimmy. Jimmy tries to kill Gary but his investigator’s silver badge saves him. They dissipate Jimmy’s spirit and Sally confesses to everything. Gary tells her it doesn’t matter as he has feeling for her; but she is convinced that it is only because of that long ago spell; and sends him back to Arizona.

They think all is finished but them Gillian gets possessed by Jimmy and tries to hurt the girls. The aunts return just in time to help them and they tie Gillian/Jimmy up. They need more than the four of them to save Gillian and call all the ladies in the school PTA to come help them. They are able to stop him by using their blood and bond as it is more powerful than Jimmy.

Gary comes back and all live happily ever after. They also ended the curse and now no like hates the Owens family or treats them bad for being witches as the whole town accepts and loves them.

I know I am going to get a lot of flack for this as a TON of people love this movie but I felt it was really boring and would not watch again.

Because of the content of this film, I am going to include the following:

Are you suffering from domestic violence?

If you are in danger call 911, a local hotline, or the U.S. National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 and TTY 1-800-787-3224.

• Learn more about the resources in your area from your state or U.S. territory coalition against domestic violence
• Learn more from other national service providers
• Learn more about internet and computer safety
• Learn more about the red flags of abuse
• Learn more about the forms of abuse

For more witches, go to Talking Doll Terror, Insane Inmates at the Asylum, and Movie Monsters Come to Life: Good Will Haunting, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1998)

For more Nicole Kidman, go to Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That, Who’s Afraid of the Big, Black Bat?: Batman Forever (1995)

For more curses, go to The Witch’s Curse: Murder She Wrote (1992)

For more serial killers, go to The Walk of Terror: Whitechapel Season One (2009)

For more ghosts, go to Do You Know Why I Can Stay in Your Spooky Old Room, Mr. Olin? Because I Know That Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-Legged Beasties… Don’t Exist.: 1408 (2007)

Catherine Morland’s Reading List: The Poison Diaries

So the idea of Catherine Morland’s Reading List came mostly from the fact that I am a huge Gothic fiction/mystery fan. Before I met Jane Austen, (and I still do), I devoured books that I know, if Catherine Morland was real and alive, she would have been reading.

It started with reading one, and then before I knew it I had a list of thirty I was planning on reviewing. What can I say, other than I like to:

The next book I’m reviewing is…

The Poison Diaries by The Duchess of Northumberland

Weed is an orphan boy who is taken in by a drunk apothecary who delights in hurting, beating, and making Weed’s life horrible.

Aw, that’s sad.

One day this horrible man shows Weed a secret garden he found that was supposed to be destroyed. This garden is full of poisonous plants and after it’s creator died it was supposed to be wiped from the earth. …But for some reason it wasn’t destroyed (because evil can’t die)

It now becomes Weed’s duty to come every day and care for them. Weed of course has to follow the instructions, or else he will receive a beating.

When he goes to the garden to care for them, the plants speak to him.

At first Weed thinks that he is crazy, but as he continues in the garden he listens to them, as each plants calls out to him and share their secrets with him-how they can heal, help, and destroy…

Hmmm…

Every plant-Belladonna, Opium, Tobacco, etc. -have a tale to share. Some are on how they helped people, but most end in death or madness…some in worse ways than others.

Going mad!

Every day the plants encourage Weed to use them against his master, to get his freedom. At first Weed completely refuses, as it is morally wrong…but as each visit continues he becomes intoxicated with the power they have.

Will he give in to their poisonous power?

Hmmm…

This book wasn’t that long, but while the book may be short in pages, it is most defintely not a light read. These gothic tales are sad and macabre-very reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe.

And this book has absolutely beautiful illustrations, look at belladonna. It is definitely worth reading just to look at them.

I also learned a lot about plants as it was very informative on what they looked like, grew, latin names, etc.

Wow!

It is not a book that I find myself wanting to read over and over, but I did enjoy it and recommend it to other gothic fans.

For more books from Catherine Morland’s Reading List, go to Catherine Morland’s Reading List: House of Salt and Sorrows

For more gothic fiction, go to Catherine Morland’s Reading List: The Distant Hours

Secrets are Great, Unless You Get Caught: Perfect Stranger (2007)

Secrets are great. Unless you get caught.

So a week ago I had some free time and was flipping through channels, planning on just zoning out in front of the TV until my next class. I landed on FX and started watching this movie with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis. It seemed really good, but I couldn’t finish it as I had to run off to my next class. I decided to rent it  and finish watching it as the plot really intrigued me.

Unfortunately; it wasn’t very good. I thought it had too many sexual scenes that were just awkward and painful to get through, I ended up having to fast forward through them all. I also thought they dropped the F-bomb too many times.

I also didn’t like Halle Berry’s character Ro. I thought that she was a mean, selfish jerk. Her friend Miles is head over heels crazy for her, and Ro knows this and instead of letting him off gently; she is totally rude to him, just using him for all the information he can get.

The only really good part about this film is the end. It was such a great twist! I wish there was a way one could just watch it and understand the rest of the film.

Here are the links if you want to check it out yourself.

🚨 FYI Spoiler Alert 🚨 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So the movie starts out with Halle Berry’s character Ro, a journalist,  tricking a senator into revealing all of his dirty secrets.

Ro is pretty high on her recent sucess and goes out to celebrate with her best friend/computer whiz/guy madly in love with her that she doesn’t care for, Miles. After she becomes extrremely drunk, she ends up being told by her boss that they are burying the story. Extremely angry that her freedom of press is being stomped on, she quits.

She starts on home feeling angry and crappy. She’s about to board the subway and head home, when her old school friend she hasn’t spoken to in years; and is really mad at (because she slept with her boyfriend) Grace, approaches her.

Hey girl, what up?

Turns out Grace met this guy, ADEX, online and had cybersex with him, later meeting up with him in real life. It turns out that “ADEX” was really the rich and famous Harrison Hill. She and him had a big fling and now she is threatening to blackmail him. She also wants Ro to write this up for the paper and completely embarass Hill. Ro blows her off and continues on home.

A week later, Ro gets a call from Grace’s mom telling her Grace is thought to be dead. Ro goes and identifies the drowned body, confirming that it is Grace. From here Ro decides she is going to take on Hill, and get him for what he did. She enlists Miles who has all the knowledge and contacts to pull off a caper like this.

She starts working at Hill’s Ad agency and quickly makes friends with the biggest gossip there; thus learning all the dirty secrets on everyone. Apparently Hill has had many affairs, all of which his wife is tired of. In fact, if he does it one more time, she’s leaving him. Now you might think, so what? He can get along without her. Wrong-o! Turns out Hill has nothing, nada, zip! His wife has the money, the company, EVERYTHING! He wouldn’t dare let her know that he was having another affair or else he would be kicked to the curb. He pretends to be the dutiful husband, going along with her to fertility tanks, because his wife is infertile.

Then Ro witnesses what Hill does to people he thinks are betraying him. He beats up one of his employees that he thinks is spilling secrets to their competitor.

Don’t make me angry

So more and more he is looking like the villain. But is it ever that easy?

Now there are a lot of web chatting, and online sex, and gross things…between her, TruBlue (random guy she meets online), and ADEX.

Oh and Ro has these weird flashbacks throughout the film that involve her father. They don’t outright say it, but strongly hint that he was molesting/raping her as a child. At times they become a mishmash of flashback/present day dream/nightmarelike things. They get very confusing at times.

Then the movie gets intense again. Ro has pretty much confirmed that ADEX is Hill. And she starts talking to him online AT WORK! I mean COME ON! HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE?

So of course she has stuff on her screen that she doesn’t want Hill to see, and he just HAS to come over to talk to her. The scene is actually pretty intense ands set up very well.

So Ro is able to get out of that tight spot, and turns down her boss’ offer to go out with him, wanting instead to keep things “professional”.

That night she meets up with Miles, once again being a complete jerk. Miles brings a friend who works with the coroner. Apparently Grace was not just drowned but drugged with Belladonna and had some put in her eyes. Hill’s wife’s family has donated a ton of money to medical research, a majority of that which uses Belladonna. Hmm…suspicious.

Also, after she was poisoned, Grace was drowned. She was also pregnant. Things are looking worse and worse for Hill.

*At this point in the film I have already decided that it is not Hill. It is way too obvious and I think that there is another character who has a stronger motive, Hill’s wife. What if Grace approached the wife right after talking to Ro. Maybe the wife was one of those women who couldn’t stand to lose her man and would take out any woman who dared try to take him from her? What if all those past affairs have just been compounding on her brain all these years, and she just snaps hearing about this one? But the most likely motive; she couldn’t bear to hear that after trying so long to be pregnant and being infertile, that this little tramp got pregnant by her husband. The one thing she could not do, being done by some harlot? That’s enough to drive any woman to the brink of insanity. It would be easy, all she would have to do is meet up with Grace to see the proof, give her a drink laced with the Belladonna, which of course would be easy for her to get, and kill her. If she didn’t want to do it herself she has plenty of money to hire someone to do it for her.

Ro goes out with Hill after all to try and probe his mind a little. She ends up being slightly charmed by him instead.

The next day he comes to pick her up and we see his wife is creepin’ on them from a taxi. Makes her look totally suspicious.

Ro is trying to get into Hill’s computer to get a look at his emails. Miles gives her a spyware program on a flashdrive, but it takes some time so she has to do it when Hill won’t be around. She waits until after work, when everyone is gone and sticks it in. Only prob is, Hill hasn’t left yet and she is caught red-handed.

She ends up making up a dumb story involving a private joke the two shared the night they went out.

For some strange reason he buys her answer and takes her out to dinner. They are having fun, making out, etc; and Ro leaves to go to the bathroom. And she leaves her purse and phone behind.

Okay, hold up now, what woman does that? What woman would leave to go to the bathroom and not take her purse and phone. Bad call writers, bad call.

So while she is gone her phone goes off, and Hill decides that he’s gonna read her text message. Seriously, who does that? Does he not understand the word “privacy”?

She comes back, and Hill starts driving her home. He stops in a random place and then starts yelling at her. Telling her he knows her secrets, that she is a spy from their rival competitors. Ro, trying to save herself, admits to it. Hill becomes so angry that he almost hits her.

Let’s rewind and back that up. Almost hits her. At this point in the film I knew it wasn’t him. He just had the sense around him that he would never hurt a woman. And I found it odd that the only thing he thought Ro was trying to discover about him was spying for another company? It just seemed off to me. I mean if he had killed Grace, Miles message would have made him think that Ro was onto him about that, yet the only thing that comes to mind is a rival company spy? Hmm….

So Ro is fired. Now this is where the story gets weird.

Miles decided to go in and save the day. The next day he pretends to be an IT guy for Hill, ready to do a complete inspection on Hill’s computer. Hill tells him to wait a bit and check out the office. He looks at these photographs done by Mrs. Hill of eyes dilluted with Belladonna.

At this point I’m completely sold on the fact that Mrs. H is the murderer.

Meanwhile, Ro goes to Miles house to make him dinner and discovers that he has some freaky, jacking-off, man-cave, room thing. Really gross and freaky. She also sees that Miles was TruBlue and had been sleeping with Grace too. 

He also channeled Helga from Hey Arnold with a super creepy Ro shrine. Its actually talks and says “Miles is sexy” in Ro’s actual voice. Very sick.

Yeah, pretty freaky!

Miles comes home and Ro starts yelling at him, and accusing him of being the murderer. Miles admits he’s a freak but shows her Hill’s company’s website with the Belladonna pics. He is now absolutely convinced that Hill or his wife killed Grace. Ro still won’t listen and walks out, never wanting to speak to Miles again.

The next day she takes all her info to the police and they set up a sting to catch Hill. Everything pretty much falls apart as the evidence is so high against him. His wife gives some pretty damaging evidence against him as well with Hill convicted and sent to jail.

Ro goes back to work and starts writing an article on everything that went on. She has a really great opening:

“Ro: It’s a world where you *think* actions have no consequence, where guilt is cloaked by anonymity, where there are no fingerprints. An invisible universe filled with strangers, interconnected online and disconnected in life. It will steal your secrets, corrupt your dreams, and co-opt your identity. Because in this world, where you can be anything you want, any *one* you want, you just might lose sight of who you are.“

So here, the movie seems pretty wrapped up, but you just know there has to be one last twist. I’m waiting for the wife to go crazy or be discovered or something.

So then we have this great shot of Mrs. Hill going to the medicine cabinet (where she kept the Belladonna) and opening it. Then we see gloved hands pull out some hair spray, unscew the bottom (like in Jurassic Park) and pull out Belladonna. The person is………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ro.

Yes Ro. Ro is trying to dump out her secret Belladonna down the drain. Ro then has a flashback and we get the whole story. Her father was going to molest her, when her mom stepped in and beat her dad with the fireplace poker. Instead of calling the cops they buried him in the backyard, and Grace saw the whole thing and has been blackmailing her for years.

Great ending. Only great part of the film.

I especially love how they review the scene between her and Grace. You then get the full meaning of the words that she used when talking to Ro.

The only thing I didn’t like was the moving around of Miles and Ro when he is telling her he had it all figured out. I thought it was just weird. Ugh, and Miles was so gross trying to blackmail her into sleeping with him!

I love how in the end Hill wasn’t the “perfect stranger”, but they all were. Each character had secrets and things about them they were hiding; in the end being someone completely different than you expected.

So that’s today’s freaky tale. More are on the way.

To go to the beginning of Horrorfest, go to I Don’t Belong in the World

For the previous post, go to Universal’s Classic Monster Movies