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With little jolt and even less cinematic elegance than “The Hills Have Eyes,” “Spell” attempts to conjure up the terrors of “The Hills Have Eyes” in a “Misery” package, with little jolt and even less cinematic elegance than “The Hills Have Eyes.”
A majority-black cast portraying the story of a captive man stranded in Appalachian Kentucky appears to have some appeal on the surface; the possibility of something new emerging from this well-worn formula of grimy witchcraft horror is a source of hope for the film’s producers. Mark Tonderai (“House at the End of The Street”) and Kurt Wimmer (“Salt”), on the other hand, don’t seem to be interested in deconstructing a tried-and-true recipe. The duo instead engages in a variety of box-ticking elements that are at best serviceable: squeaky floorboards, rusted door hinges, sweat-soaked efforts towards an escape route, and even a pair of truly grotesque scenes involving injured feet (just to make good on that “Misery” reference) are among the frequent offerings of “Spell.”
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Spell Quiz
It’s enough to get your attention, right? If you’re interested in learning more about Marquis T. Woods, a successful businessman who lives a happy family life in his luxurious home, complete with all the cutting-edge trimmings of an upper-class existence and is set to release the day before Halloween, snuggle up under a blanket and lean in to learn more about him and his family. Despite this, the film “Spell” is quick to point out to the audience that Marquis’ life wasn’t always a bed of roses and sunshine. It is revealed that the self-made young man was successful after leaving behind a troubled past and an abusive father somewhere in Appalachia, thanks to a series of overdone flashbacks. However, that past comes back to haunt him against all odds, leaving Marquis with no choice but to confront it head on. Knowing that his abusive father has passed away, he decides to take his family—his loving wife Veora (Lorie Burroughs) and their two teenage children—on a road trip to attend his father’s funeral in New York City.
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Conveniently, aviation happens to be one of the Marquis’ many sophisticated interests, which is fortunate for him. Unless, of course, his private plane crashes, leaving Marquis at the mercy of the kind and curiously friendly Eloise (Loretta Devine, who manages to deliver a freakishly polished performance in spite of her underwritten role), who volunteers to nurse the survivor back to health and well-being. A strange feeling comes over the Marquis when he awakens in the old woman’s secluded attic, which is tucked away deep in the woods despite the fact that he is severely injured and shell-shocked. When Marquis’s family goes missing without a trace and he is given a series of evasive explanations for his off-the-grid situation—including the remoteness of even the nearest hospital and the lack of any modern devices like a phone—he quickly realizes that the only thing he can rely on is his own instincts and survival skills to escape Eloise’s sinister plan while pretending to follow her routine in the meantime.
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If only the script had done a better job of pacing the revelation of Eloise’s menacing intentions. Wimmer, on the other hand, spends far too much time dwelling on generic anxieties that don’t amount to much, revealing the characters’ secrets a little too late. When the filmmakers seem more interested in a paint-by-numbers yarn than in the lean and mean tale “Spell” could have told, who knows (or cares) where any of this is going? Eloise appears to be a member of the occult, has a voodoo poppet with the ability to cause real harm, and keeps feeding Marquis plates of suspicious food. When it comes to social commentary on race and class, the film makes vague allusions to Jordan Peele-style inspirations before abandoning them prematurely. Similar to the film’s second-hand and under-realized feel is the yellow-and-orange tinted grit of its dark photography, which is shot with a frantic lens and clumsy framing on a number of occasions. (One pointless slow-motion sequence near the film’s cathartic conclusion stands out as particularly out of place.) Behind it all, “Spell” successfully conjures up a pair of gross-out moments and resulting screams, but the angst that it instills throughout the film is far too mild and forgettable to cast a truly terrifying spell. You know, the kind of scares you’d want to see in a horror film that lingers in your memory.
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