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Set amid the familiar, gritty grounds of a backwoods thriller, “Spell” attempts to summon the terrors of “ The Hills Have Eyes ” in a “ Misery ” package, with little jolt and even less cinematic elegance to go around.

On paper, there is some appeal to the film’s shtick—a predominantly black cast telling the story of a captive man stranded in the Appalachian Kentucky suggests something fresh could come out of this well-worn formula of grimy witchcraft horror. But director Mark Tonderai (“House at the End of the Street”) and writer Kurt Wimmer (“ Salt ”) don’t show any interest in deconstructing a tried-and-true recipe. Instead, the duo indulges in various box-ticking elements that are at best serviceable: squeaky floorboards, rusty door hinges, sweat-soaked exertions towards an escape route and even a pair of truly grotesque scenes involving injured feet (just to earnestly make good with that “Misery” reference) are among the frequent offerings of “Spell.”

If that’s enough to pique your interest in a hoodoo horror aptly releasing the day before Halloween, cozy up under a blanket and lean in to follow the story of Marquis T. Woods, a thriving businessmen leading a happy family life in his luxury home, equipped with all the cutting-edge trimmings of an upper-class existence. “Spell” is quick to disclose to the audience that life wasn’t always peaches-and-cream for Marquis, however. Through overdone flashbacks, we learn that the self-made young man succeeded after leaving behind a troubled past and an abusive father somewhere in Appalachia. But that past finds him against the odds, leaving Marquis with little choice but to face it head on. Learning that his cruel father has passed away, he decides to take his family—his supportive wife Veora ( Lorraine Burroughs ) and two teenaged kids—on a trip to attend his dad’s funeral.

Conveniently enough, aviation happens to be among Marquis’ many sophisticated interests. Except this time, the private plane that he pilots crashes, leaving Marquis at the mercy of the kind and curiously friendly Eloise ( Loretta Devine , delivering a freakishly polished performance in spite of her under-written character), who volunteers to nurse the survivor back on his feet. Though the shell-shocked, badly injured Marquis is quick to suspect something’s off when he wakes up in the old woman’s secluded attic tucked away deep in the woods. With his family gone missing without a trace and being offered a series of vague excuses for his off-the-grid situation—such as the remoteness of even the nearest hospital and lack of any modern devices like a phone— Marquis swiftly discovers he can only rely on his own instincts and survival skills to flee Eloise’s sinister plan while pretending to comply with her routine in the interim.

If only the script could have paced its revelation of Eloise’s menacing intentions better. But Wimmer spends far too long dwelling on stock anxieties that don’t add up to much, disclosing the characters’ secrets a little too late. Eloise seems to be a part of an occult, has a voodoo poppet with the power of causing real harm, and keeps feeding Marquis plates of suspicious food, but who knows (or cares) where any of this is going when the filmmakers prove more interested in a paint-by-numbers yarn than the lean and mean tale “Spell” could have told? In that regard, the film hazily hints at some social commentary around class and race, only to abandon its Jordan Peele-esque inspirations prematurely. The yellow-and-orange tinted grit of the film’s dark photography, filmed by an often frantic lens and clumsy framing, feels similarly second-hand and under-realized. (One pointless slow-motion moment towards the film’s cathartic finale seems especially out of place.) Underneath all that, “Spell” effectively conjures up a pair of gross-out moments and consequent screams, but the angst it spreads throughout feels all too mild and forgettable to cast an unnerving curse. You know, the kind you’d crave from a horror film with lasting scares.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

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Film credits.

Spell (2020)

Rated R for violence, disturbing/bloody images, and language.

Omari Hardwick as Marquis T. Woods

Loretta Devine as Eloise

Lorraine Burroughs as Veora Woods

John Beasley as Earl

André Jacobs as Wyman Thatcher

Mark Tonderai
Kurt Wimmer

Cinematographer

Jacques Jouffret
Sarah C. Reeves

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‘Spell’ Review: A Conventional Hexing Horror in the Hills of Kentucky

A family of jaded African American urbanites land in deep Appalachian hoodoo in this diverting-enough genre piece.

By Dennis Harvey

Dennis Harvey

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“ Spell ” adds to the significant recent growth of African American horror cinema, though really only in casting terms. Otherwise, this reasonably suspenseful if implausible tale is just another variation on the familiar formula of “city folk” making a big mistake going to the country, where every primitive peril awaits them. Here, instead of homicidal hillbillies à la “Texas Chainsaw” and “The Hills Have Eyes,” it’s an Appalachian enclave of Black hoodoo practitioners, with upwardly mobile Omari Hardwick at the “Misery”-esque mercy of witchy Loretta Devine .

Shot in South Africa, British-Zimbabwean director Mark Tonderai and veteran Hollywood scribe Kurt Wimmer ’s film isn’t aiming for regional authenticity, though it might have poured on the bad-dream atmospherics a bit thicker to make up for that lack. Nonetheless, this is a decently stylish thriller with occult elements that should satisfy viewers’ genre requirements, though few will demand a second watch (or sequel). Paramount is releasing it to VOD, digital and available theaters the day before Halloween.

Having fled a violently abusive backwoods upbringing (glimpsed in black-and-white flashbacks) a quarter-century before, Marquis (Hardwick) is now a very bougie success story as a corporate lawyer, his office and home both gleaming monuments to expensive sterility. When he’s informed that the brutal father he’s long estranged from has died, wife Veora (Lorraine Burroughs) insists she and their teenage children (Kalifa Burton, Hannah Gonera) go with him to the funeral. The jaded, bratty kids are unenthused, but perhaps this rural sojourn will be good for them, as mom fears they’re already “turning out to be entitled jerks.”

Marquis is conveniently a “straight-up bush pilot,” so he actually flies them himself in a private plane to remote Cypress Ridge. But a storm impairs their final approach, such that he wakes up alone in a farmhouse attic, tended by locals who claim no one else was found at the scene of the crash. There’s the alternately folksy and stern Eloise (Devine), who’s clearly in charge here, and her more doddering spouse Earl (John Beasley). Should Marquis get out of hand, they’ve got younger helpmate Lewis (Steve Mululu), who’s mute but all muscle.

In any case, their visitor is badly banged up, with an apparent broken foot. His rest is rather heavy-handedly encouraged, including via locked door. He soon rightly suspects his hosts’ intent as malevolent, not just from their stonewalling of his frantic questions or umbrage at his “uppity” manner, but from Eloise’s open reliance on Boogity, a “kind of folk magic.” One covert outing through a window across the farmstead’s roofs reveals that these people preside over a whole congregation of hoodoo worshippers who sacrifice animals in faith-healing rituals. It is not just paranoia on our hero’s part to fear he might be the next thing slated for sacrifice.

Writer-producer Wimmer, who over the last three decades has mixed variable originals (directorial projects “Ultraviolet” and “Equilibrium”), adaptations (“Street Kings,” “Sphere”) and remakes (“Point Break,” “Total Recall”), has the bones of an idiosyncratic supernatural tale here. But “Spell” is a bit too busily paced to maximize the eccentricity of its characters or setting, leaving the script to play out in taut but formulaic fashion.

Among the things that don’t quite coalesce into an otherworldly whole are the gulf between the lead performances: Hardwick successfully makes Marquis’ panic and physical pain the story’s engine in a mode of dead-serious naturalism, while Devine’s theatrical gorgon flirts with comedic caricature. (And no wonder, given lines like “I know ya got that old-time slave magic in ya!”) The film could’ve used either a bit more humor and fantastical fillips throughout to paper over its credibility gaps, or a scarier villainess to, well, be scarier. As it plays out, “Spell” has scattered tense moments, but the only truly frightening thing here is Marquis discovering the graphically nasty truth of what’s really wrong with his foot.

Still, Tonderai (who’s logged much TV work since his prior features, the excellent 2008 thriller “Hush” and middling 2012 one “House at the End of the Street” with Jennifer Lawrence), keeps things on a solidly diverting if unmemorable plane. Paula Loos’ rustic-time-warp production design and the hot lighting coloration of Jacques Jouffret’s cinematography contribute to an attractive overall aesthetic. Editor Sarah C. Reeves and Ben Onono’s original score add more conventionally propulsive but effective elements.

It all comes to a fairly satisfying head, even if one wishes everybody concerned had resisted the seeming obligation to tack on one of those rote “But … the terror continues!” end-notes that by now reliably elicit audience snorts.

Reviewed online, San Francisco, Oct. 26, 2020. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 91 MIN.

Production: (U.S.-South Africa) A Paramount Pictures release of a Paramount Pictures, Paramount Players presentation of a Mayhem Pictures, MC8 Entertainment production. Producers: Gordon Gray, Kurt Wimmer, Morris Chestnut, Brian Wilkins. Co-producer: Janine Van Assen.
Crew: Director: Mark Tonderai. Screenplay: Kurt Wimmer. Camera: Jacques Jouffret. Editor: Sarah C. Reeves. Music: Ben Onono.
With: Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine, John Beasley, Lorraine Burroughs, Hannah Gonera, Kalifa Burton, Tumisho Masha, Steve Mululu.

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‘Spell’ Review: Occult Reprogramming

Omari Hardwick plays a lawyer who gets trapped in the superstition-laden enclave of Appalachia where he was raised.

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By Ben Kenigsberg

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In “Spell,” Omari Hardwick plays a tenacious, wealthy lawyer named Marquis T. Woods; his boss calls him a “gladiator.” But the boss is also worried that Marquis might go easy on class-action plaintiffs who, like Marquis, are Black. Marquis doesn’t seem to have any misgivings. Then he gets a call: His abusive father has died, compelling him to return with his wife and children to a remote pocket of Appalachia he was thrilled to escape. Superstition rules the area. Even an airstrip gas station sells gear for warding off conjurers.

Marquis’s tiny plane gets caught in a storm. He wakes up injured in an attic bed and is greeted by a woman named Eloise (Loretta Devine), who tells him there’s no phone. With Marquis locked in, she administers a variety of folk treatments, making a doll in his likeness. Does Marquis look down on this sinister hospitality from Eloise and her husband (John Beasley)? Has he forgotten he was raised steeped in superstitions like theirs?

Laden with references to race, class and the legacy of slavery, “Spell,” directed by Mark Tonderai from a script by Kurt Wimmer (a pen on the “Point Break” and “Total Recall” remakes), is stronger on maintaining suspense and a macabre atmosphere than it is at following through on its ideas, which give it a thin veneer of topicality. (“We don’t have much in the way of Obamacare around here,” Eloise tells Marquis, in a line that surely amused somebody.) Depicting an insular community of spell-casters who perform healing tricks with goat eyes and cat parts, the movie walks an uneasy line between critiquing stereotypes and reiterating them.

Spell Rated R. Feline slaughter. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. Rent or buy on iTunes , Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.

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Spell Reviews

What at first appears to be voodoo version of Stephen King's Misery soon descends into a repetitive, by-the-numbers thriller with a clunky and contrived climax.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 23, 2023

While Spell has an intriguing premise, it lacks a certain level of mystery, which hinders it from delivering the suspenseful story that was originally conveyed in the trailer.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Jan 16, 2023

Spell may be laden with cliches, but it's undeniably entertaining.

Full Review | Aug 31, 2021

The film even has shades of Deliverance due to the cautionary tale of city people heading to the country. But ultimately, Spell feels more creepy, uncomfortable, and gross than downright terrifying.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 2, 2021

Despite a promising first act, Spell never really unpacks the issues and themes it set out to discuss, so all we get is a rather generic thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Jan 29, 2021

Alas, from its thin plotting to the underwritten one-note characters, "Spell" aims for the dumbest common denominator, which is too low to be worth the effort.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 4, 2020

Just so much nonsense.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Nov 20, 2020

Gory horror has unclear ideas about Blackness, spirituality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2020

Admittedly, Spell gives us something I've rarely seen in the horror genre-an all-Black cast in a world in which folk magic is the key ingredient.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 17, 2020

A familiar potion, but it captivates your attention. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Nov 16, 2020

I walked into this one blind, only to quickly learn the idea was to make a sort-of Black Misery. I wish it stayed on that route.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 7, 2020

Playing on fears of creepy backwoods communities, this foreboding thriller nicely establishes its city-slicker characters before plunging them into a rural nightmare.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 6, 2020

Spell is guilty of a great many things, but its failure to deliver on the scares as a horror film certainly ought to take the proverbial cake.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2020

While this mirrors the classic film Misery, it still stands on its on as a new aged horror thriller. Omari Hardwick's performance shows his range as an actor, and gets me excited for future projects.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Nov 5, 2020

Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine provide all the thrills and chills with exciting performances.

Full Review | Nov 4, 2020

An under-cooked and repetitive script results in a frustrating and suspense-free viewing, making Spell a rather dull prospect.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 2, 2020

Tonderai creates a rustic, moody atmosphere, but more importantly, he never lets his underlying message slip away.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Nov 2, 2020

Spell needed to bring something fresh and creative to the story, considering that the 1990 Oscar-winning horror film Misery already set a gold standard for a movie about a man held captive by an evil woman who does something awful to his legs.

Full Review | Oct 31, 2020

I wish there had been more commentary on class and the sort of "city vs. rural folks," and maybe less of the gore that didn't really seem to achieve much purpose.

Has such a strong beginning, but winds up being a bit of a disappointment.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2020

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‘spell’: film review.

Omari Hardwick plays a man kept captive by a hoodoo witch in Mark Tonderai's horror film 'Spell.'

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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“We don’t have much in the way of Obamacare down here,” says Eloise (Loretta Devine), the hoodoo-practicing matriarch who serves as the chief villain of Spell . That it’s the most ominous line of Kurt Wimmer’s screenplay provides some indication of the dearth of genuine thrills in the new horror film directed by Mark Tonderai that provides an African-American riff on themes rendered much scarier in Misery .

Heavy on oppressively humid atmosphere and light on originality, the film is a mostly forgettable genre exercise whose viewers won’t miss much by watching at home.

Release date: Oct 30, 2020

Veteran stage, screen and television actress Devine — she was one of the original “Dreamgirls” in the classic Broadway musical staged by Michael Bennett, and has been a regular on numerous TV shows including Boston Public and Grey’s Anatomy — is actually the best thing in the film. Playing the alternately menacing and solicitous villain who can render a person immobile simply by blowing magic dust in their face, she brings a hammily enjoyable flair to the proceedings, even if her Eloise is never once as scary as Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes.

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Spell (2020)

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Spell review – hokey hoodoo horror missing a bit of magic

A man is kept captive by a sinister elderly couple in a slick piece of schlock that recalls far better and scarier movies

I n Halloween hoodoo horror Spell, protagonist Marquis is trying to escape a past of violence and poverty, a dogged struggle mirroring that of the film’s makers simultaneously trying to escape comparisons to past thrillers Skeleton Key and Misery, both sides as doomed as the other. There’s a cinematic slickness to the film (it was intended to be released theatrically until the pandemic) that separates it from its more noticeably shoddier fright night competitors but it’s mostly a familiar, if not entirely fruitless, trudge down a well-trodden path, one that takes us into, at times, questionable territory.

Marquis (Power’s Omari Hardwick) survived an abusive childhood in rural Appalachia, at the mercy of a toxic father with fantastical beliefs. He made it all the way to the city, earning big money as a lawyer, living with a wife and kids in an extravagant house. But when he finds out his father has died, Marquis is forced to reckon with his past, quite literally, by flying himself and his family to the area he grew up in to say goodbye. When a storm hits and they crash, Marquis finds himself at the mercy of elderly local Elouise (Loretta Devine), whose sinister remedies might not be designed to make him feel better.

For a short while at least, the script, from Kurt Wimmer, writer of Ultraviolet, The Recruit and Law Abiding Citizen, dabbles with an interestingly knotty predicament for Marquis. As a father, he’s trying to discipline his son in a way that separates himself from his own childhood, to represent a form of masculinity that doesn’t require violence to send a message. The brutality of his upbringing has provided him with a roadmap of pitfalls to avoid as well as a desire to amass enough material wealth that his family won’t ever need to struggle in the way that he did. When they arrive in his old stomping ground, there’s a prickly air of snobbiness towards those on the breadline and it seems, briefly, that Wimmer is keen to weave an undercurrent of class tension within his horror and to make his protagonist not always particularly likable. But as Spell trundles ahead, we’re quickly reminded that the script is from Kurt Wimmer, the writer of Ultraviolet, The Recruit and Law Abiding Citizen, a creator of subpar Saturday night schlock with little to nothing on its mind.

After Marquis wakes up post-crash in a remote house, too injured to walk, Spell falls into a familiar Misery formula, one that’s not ineffective at points but one that does fall into a repetitive rut rather quickly (breaks out of room, investigates house, races back before being found and repeat). British director Mark Tonderai (who made the simple yet striking road thriller Hush before heading to Hollywood for the outrageously silly yet rather fun Jennifer Lawrence vehicle House at the End of the Street) isn’t a fan of half-measures and gussies his film up like a haunted funhouse attraction, rain crashing down, thunder striking and floorboards creaking, every moment dialled up to 11. It’s a similar all-out strategy taken by a scenery-devouring Devine who has a ball hamming it up as Marquis’s captor and while she’s never exactly scary (especially when unfavourably compared with Annie Wilkes), she’s ferocious enough to steal the film away from Hardwick, who does a solid enough job wincing and yelping at her devilish doings.

In a boom time for black creatives in the horror genre (one that hasn’t always greeted a spectrum of voices with much warmth), there remains something a little uneasy about a white screenwriter delving into a world such as this, one that paints country-living black folk as magic-practicing savages. There’s also a rather predictably primal ending that sullies the interesting work of the first act by telling us that actually no, to be a man one has to embrace violence in order to survive, with a shirtless and bloodied Hardwick striking back with full force. The gory bluntness of the ending reminded me of 2005’s underrated Kate Hudson hoodoo horror Skeleton Key, a film that used a game-changing last minute twist to say something of worth while also trying to scare us. There’s far less here to chomp on, a film that chucks interesting elements into a pot and conjures up something rather bland instead.

Spell is released to rent digitally on 30 October

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Common sense media reviewers.

Gory horror has unclear ideas about Blackness, spirituality.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Courage can help you fight back in scary situation

Marquis shows courage and ingenuity in saving his

Echoes of physical and verbal abuse from Marquis'

Suggestion of Marquis and his wife embracing while

Exclamatory use of "God," as in "goddamn." Also "f

Positive Messages

Courage can help you fight back in scary situations. Promotes self-acceptance and problem-solving. On the downside, reinforces stereotypes and colorism.

Positive Role Models

Marquis shows courage and ingenuity in saving his family from Eloise. But movie includes stereotypes about Black life in rural United States, portrays voodoo and its practitioners in an iffy way, separating the practice from its original spiritual origins. Represents voodoo in stereotypically evil sense, reinforcing Western thought about non-Abrahamic religions and spiritual practices. And the film's "good guys" are lighter skinned than a majority of the "bad guys," evoking Hollywood's history of colorism.

Violence & Scariness

Echoes of physical and verbal abuse from Marquis' childhood are heard at beginning of film. Murder and gore, including a large iron nail driven into a foot. Violence toward animals is suggested in one of Eloise and Earl's voodoo revivals. Marquis eats what he believes is stewed meat, but it's actually a loved one's body part, leading Marquis to vomit. It's suggested that while Marquis was incapacitated from Eloise's magic, she collected his semen for the creation of Marquis' boogity, a clay figure similar to a voodoo doll. If so, this could suggest that Eloise committed sexual assault toward Marquis.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Suggestion of Marquis and his wife embracing while she's in lingerie.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Exclamatory use of "God," as in "goddamn." Also "f--k," "f---king," "s--t," "ass," "hell," and the "N" word.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Spell is a horror film that centers on a man named Marquis ( Omari Hardwick ), who must escape from rootworker Eloise ( Loretta Devine ) before he's used in a voodoo blood moon ritual. He uses his buried childhood memories to battle against her magical tactics. Expect plenty of gore and disgusting moments, including a character removing a large nail from his foot, and then driving it back in to feign incapacitation. There are also many suggestions of parental abuse and violence toward animals. The latter comes complete with disturbing imagery, such as a man using a goat's gouged eyes to see. People are killed, and even cannibalism is part of Marquis' torture. Also noteworthy is the tone the film takes about the practice of voodoo, a complex spiritual practice with roots in West African Vodun. But the film doesn't explore voodoo's facets. Instead, it focuses primarily on Western ideas about voodoo, including the stereotype that voodoo is synonymous with evil. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Notable unlisted sexuality present. See body for details.

Recommended to watch, what's the story.

In SPELL, Marquis T. Woods ( Omari Hardwick ) takes his family -- including his wife, Veora ( Lorraine Burroughs ); his daughter, Samsara ( Hannah Gonera ); and his son, Tydon ( Kalifa Burton ) -- to Appalachia for his father's funeral. But a thunderstorm causes the family's plane to crash, leading to Marquis waking up in the attic of Eloise's ( Loretta Devine ) home. After discovering Eloise's creepy dealings with rootwork, including her creation of a boogity (a voodoo doll) in his image, Marquis must turn to his childhood knowledge of voodoo -- knowledge he's run from his entire life. It's his only chance to escape the clutches of Eloise; her husband, Earl ( John Beasley ); and their farmhand, Lewis ( Steve Mululu ) and save his family before the blood moon ritual, which will fortify Eloise, Earl, and Lewis' immortality.

Is It Any Good?

Spell seems confused about what it wants to say about Blackness, if it wants to say anything at all. The movie is directed by Mark Tonderai, who's Black, and written by Kurt Wimmer, who's White. Writers from any racial background can write stories with characters of color, but it's important for writers to do research and have empathy for the culture they're representing. Yes, the film is scary and entertaining, with Devine playing spectacularly against type as a villain. And it tries to make commentary on self-acceptance/accepting your past, since Marquis has to come to terms with his turbulent childhood with his voodoo-obsessed father in order to defeat Eloise and her disciples. But beyond the entertainment, head-scratching moments reign.

For instance, Veora gets more offended by Tydon using the term "country ass" to make fun of a Black teenager than when he uses the "N" word to describe the same person. Also, the film's "good guys" are lighter skinned than a majority of the "bad guys," who are darker skinned, evoking Hollywood's history of colorism. And voodoo is flattened into a base-level demonic religion instead of being shown as a misunderstood African spiritual practice. Here, voodoo is both stereotyped and imbued with supernatural powers, such as causing a cat's tongue to give a woman her speaking ability back and a goat's eyes being used for a blind man. Ultimately, the film seems like it uses the trappings of Black culture simply because that's now popular in horror, not because the film's writer had something poignant to say about Blackness in America.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about exploring the histories of different world religions. Why is it important to learn about a wide variety of spiritual practices?

What seems stereotypical about Eloise's use of voodoo? If you don't already know more about the history of voodoo, how could you find out?

Did you notice any stereotypes about Black life in the rural United States?

What messages are present about self-acceptance? Courage ?

What messages does the film give regarding colorism?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 30, 2020
On DVD or streaming : January 12, 2021
Cast : Loretta Devine , Omari Hardwick , John Beasley , Steve Mululu , Lorraine Burroughs , Hannah Gonera , Kalifa Burton
Director : Mark Tonderai
Inclusion Information : Black directors, Multiracial directors, Female actors, Black actors, Multiracial actors
Studio : Paramount Pictures
Genre : Horror
Topics : Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
Character Strengths : Courage
Run time : 91 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : violence, disturbing/bloody images, and language
Last updated : April 9, 2023

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The A.V. Club
The Takeout
The Inventory

Spell Is a Gorgeous B Horror Movie With Messy Ideas About Class and Power

Omari Hardwick as Marquis Woods, a man from the West Virginia foothills.

Paramount Pictures’ Spell — from director Mark Tonderai—is a film that sets out to exist in a number of emotional spaces while terrifying you with a story about how simultaneously horrific and freeing homecomings can be. While the film doesn’t quite accomplish all of its goals, it does manage—perhaps accidentally—to be a wildly fun horror flick centering one hell of a bewitching villain.

Spell sets the stage by bringing you face to face with the lasting childhood trauma that high-powered layer Marquis Woods (Omari Hardwick) struggles to deal with, years after leaving his hometown located somewhere in remote West Virginia. In Marq’s dreams, he’s haunted by visions of his father (Ri-Karlo Handy), who attacks and demeans him for having left his family behind in the mountains. In his waking hours, he works hard to remind everyone that he left the country behind in search of a life in the city that, in his mind, defined true success.

Through somewhat clunky dialogue and an odd assortment of interactions, Spell tells you , but doesn’t exactly show you, that Marq loves the nuclear family that he and his wife Veora (Lorraine Burroughs) have built for themselves. The pair adore their children Tydon (Kalifa Burton) and Samsara (Hannah Gonera), neither of whom are given much characterization in the film other than being Teens™. Together, they’re the sort of picture of upper-middle-class stability you’d expect to see in a car commercial. But in a handful of rather heavy-handed moments—like when Marq “jokingly” lets Veora be locked in their room, and when you see that Marq’s not the most scrupulous lawyer— Spell first hints at the darkness that’s in store for the Woods family. When the man receives word of his father’s sudden death, he’s devastated, but resolves to return to his familial home for the funeral, and reasons that it would be best for the children to see where their people come from in order to better appreciate the privilege they have.

There’s a decided self-seriousness to Spell ’s first third or so that, when coupled with the core cast’s glaring lack of chemistry, makes the film seem like it might not have the necessary elements to get anywhere interesting. But as the Woods family clambers into a single-engine jet to fly off into the wilderness in order to journey to Marq’s hometown, Spell begins to shift into a properly unsettling space and its characters begin making the kinds of dumb, but entertaining choices you expect in a horror film.

When Marq and his family touch down at a remote gas station to refuel, he callously disregards the owner’s offerings for protective herbs and salts. It’s what locals use to ward off curses, hexes, and other mystical ailments Marq refuses to put faith in. More than Marq simply not believing in the Appalachian hoodoo, Spell wants you to know that the character outright rejects it, and in that rejection that movie telegraphs its first major plot development that actually makes it movie worth watching.

A tragic, but wholly expected series of events brings Marq (but not his family) deep into the foothills, where he awakes in the home of Eloise (Loretta Devine), a local healer who takes him in to tend to wounds that have left him badly injured. Alarmed and largely unable to move, the one thing on his mind throughout most of Spell is figuring out where his family is and how to get them all back home. But while Marq may be the story’s protagonist, it’s very much Eloise’s movie thanks in no small part to Devine’s deliciously unhinged and often haunting performance that immediately evokes both Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes in Misery and Diahann Carroll’s Elzora in Eve’s Bayou .

Where Marq and Veora often come across as people who don’t really know one another, Eloise and her husband Earl (John Beasley) have an uncanny rapport that is at once kindly ma and pa, and also sorceress and henchman. The dreamlike way that Marq comes to know the woman quickly turns into a feeling of fear, as he begins to suspect she might be keeping him against his will and lying to him regarding the whereabouts of his family. Infirmed the way he is, Marq can only do but so much to resist Eloise’s care as he heals, but the more time he spends in her home, gradually learning more about her, the more he realizes just how imperiled his life might actually be.

Spell isn’t an outright scary movie so much as it is a movie that wants to make you cringe by brutalizing its character’s bodies in ways that might make you flinch out of sympathy. Dry as Hardwick’s exchanges with other actors tend to be, he sells the pain Marq is subjected to with stunning effect that only serves to make the plot revelations that much more stomach-turning as the story progresses. Interestingly, Spell makes clear very early on that Eloise is known to be a rootworker—a practitioner of Appalachian folk magic—who’s revered by the community for her ability to cure people of a wide variety of ailments. The movie leaves no doubt that the power Eloise has is real because that’s not exactly what it wants you to fear about her.

One of the dolls Eloise uses to manipulate people around her.

Because Marq is from a community similar to Eloise’s, there’s a kind of kinship between the two of them that she’s eager to acknowledge but he isn’t. That tension is ultimately what Spell wants to make some sort of statement about, though it fails spectacularly to do so. At multiple points throughout the film, upwardly mobile, economically secure, lighter-skinned Black people are presented as being victims of violence at the hands of impoverished, darker-complected hillfolk who have an unwavering belief in a power that many people would consider silly superstition. Central to Marq’s struggle throughout the film is his wrestling with the fact that Eloise and her town are part of his heritage, but Spell lacks both the clarity of story and emotional depth to really explore that idea to any real extent.

In one scene where Marq tries to psychoanalyze Elosie’s beliefs, she counters by pointing out that the people in her community don’t have Obamacare. It could have been a moment of genuine reflection on the larger evils of class inequality in America, but instead it lands like a lazy joke using poor people to take political potshots. In the end, Spell treats those living in the mountains like little more than Deliverance -esque caricatures, and in doing so, makes it seem as if the filmmakers are just as judgmental about them as Marq is. It feels worth noting that while Spell ’s attempting to tell a very specific story about Black Americans, the movie’s writer Kurt Wimmer (Salt, Ultraviolet) is a white man. That’s not to say it isn’t possible for screenwriters to craft stories about people unlike themselves, but here it very much feels like Wimmer was either unable or uninterested in working in anything beyond lazy stereotypes.

What Spell does have going for it—besides Devine’s performance—is an ample amount of gorgeous cinematography and an evocative, otherworldly atmosphere that Tonderai achieves through a clever use of unnaturally lit night shots that turn the woods into a nightmare bathed in neon. As Spell builds to its climax, the movie does away with any pretense of being anything but a schlocky scarer, and the movie’s better off for it, because while it definitely doesn’t work as “elevated” horror, it makes for the perfect sort of movie you put on to be grossed out, a little unsettled, and maybe have an unexpected laugh or two at.

Spell hits various video on demand platforms on October 30.

Update 10/29/2020, 5:00 p.m. ET : An earlier version of this piece did not include Spell ’s release date. Now it does.

For more, make sure you’re following us on our Instagram @ io9dotcom .

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Spell’ On Hulu, A B-Horror Movie Where ‘Misery’ Meets Hoodoo

Where to stream:.

Spell (2020)
Stream It Or Skip It

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When Stephen King’s Misery was adapted for the screen in 1990, Kathy Bates and James Caan turned this horrifying story of a superfan holding her favorite author captive into an instant classic. Now imagine, for a moment, that this story – one of a man held hostage in bed with gruesome injuries by a ruthless captor – is moved to Appalachia, and features a wildly talented Black cast. This is Spell , now streaming on Hulu.

SPELL : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Marquis Woods (Omari Hardwick) has everything going for him; he’s a big shot attorney, he has a loving family, and he lives to spoil his children. When he finds out his estranged, abusive father has passed away, he decides to take a trip down to Appalachia with his family to achieve some kind of closure. Marquis seems desperate to prove to himself that he’s moved past the abuse and his small town roots, so he flies his own small private plane. When they land to refuel before heading over the mountain to their final destination, locals warn him and his family this might not be the best idea, but he proceeds anyway. The plane winds up getting caught in a nasty storm, and when Marquis awakes, he is alone and injured on a bed in the attic of Eloise (Loretta Devine) and Earl (John Beasley).

While Eloise initially seems to be well-intentioned, Marquis soon discovers the sinister truth. Eloise practices Hoodoo, and has been manipulating a doll of him. There seem to be an entire community of people who follow her, too, and to Marquis’s horror, ritual sacrifices are on the table. As he faces more gruesome acts of abuse and punishments for his escape attempts, Marquis gets closer and closer to the truth. But what will it cost?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The most obvious comparison for Spell is horror classic Misery , though Spell may also bring to mind flicks like The Skeleton Key , The Hills Have Eyes , and Deliverance .

Performance Worth Watching: Screen and stage icon Loretta Devine truly steals the show as Miss Eloise, perfectly delivering a series of unhinged, unsettling laughs and lines (even when the script is lacking). Devine makes a meal out of every single one of her scenes, effortlessly giving the creeps to both her on-screen victims and us as viewers. Even when she veers into camp territory, her performance is still a demented delight, making so much of Spell worth watching.

Memorable Dialogue: The dialogue is definitely the weak point of Spell , but Devine’s delivery of lines like “where you think you is, New York City?” with a devilish twinkle in her eye really helps keep Spell interesting.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Spell indulges in a number of horror movie tropes from the jump; big city people head to a small town, small town folk warn the city people about the danger ahead, city people ignore the warnings and end up in way over their heads. Despite this, however, Spell still lands many of its punches, creating a truly unnerving atmosphere in a relatively short amount of time. This is in large part thanks to the strong lead performances from Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine, who embrace their devilish dance with great enthusiasm, even when the script is weak.

While Spell may be a little too self-serious for its own good (and sometimes loses sight of what kind of story it’s trying to tell), the 90-minute flick is relentlessly entertaining – though I certainly would advise against eating anything during your viewing experience. The effectiveness of the scares varies, but the overall sense of dread and despair never wavers. The film has something genuinely interesting to say about our roots and the way our experiences shape us, and the inescapable nature of the past and our traumas. This may occasionally feel like it’s a message for a different movie, but with someone as talented as Hardwick carrying much of Spell ‘s weight, these themes still ring true.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Spell may be laden with cliches, but it’s undeniably entertaining, bolstered by strong performances from Devine and Hardwick and some seriously stomach-churning sequences.

Will you stream or skip the B-horror movie #Spell on @hulu ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) August 30, 2021

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines, hogging the mic at karaoke, and thirst-tweeting. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski .

Where to Stream Spell

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CULTURE MIX

Where Lifestyle Cultures Blend

Review: ‘Spell’ (2020), starring Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine

Arts and Entertainment

Bodhi Tonderai-Hodges , Hannah Gonera , horror , John Beasley , Kalifa Burton , Leo Wringer , Loretta Devine , Lorraine Burroughs , Mark Tonderai , movies , Omari Hardwick , reviews , Ri-Karlo Handy , Sahara Tonderai-Hodges , Spell , Steve Mululu , Tafara Nyatsanza

October 30, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Spell” (2020)

Directed by Mark Tonderai

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in the rural Appalachian area of West Virginia, the horror flick “Spell” has a predominantly African American cast of characters (with a few white people) representing the poor, middle-class and upper-middle-class.

Culture Clash: After a plane crash, an attorney who’s a family man finds himself held captive by a hoodoo priestess who uses body parts for her potions.

Culture Audience: “Spell” will appeal primarily to people who like to see gory movies with voodoo/hoodoo themes, but the movie has too many dumb plot holes to be considered a quality story.

The horror movie “Spell” has an interesting social theme that is rarely seen in narrative films: The class divide and prejudices that can exist between African Americans who are upper-middle-class and African Americans who have less financial advantages. Unfortunately, this theme, which could have made “Spell” a more interesting film, is squandered and buried in order to go to down yet another predictable and gory horror path. Even the suspenseful scenes are badly handled with plot holes that ruin any credibility that “Spell” hoped to have.

Directed by Mark Tonderai and written by Kurt Wimmer, “Spell” begins with the introduction of the family who will be involved in the fateful plane crash that sets off this movie’s horror. Marquis T. Woods (played by Omari Hardwick) is a successful corporate attorney working in an unnamed big city in the United States. He’s well-respected by his boss Wyman Thatcher (played by Andrew Jacobs) at the law firm.

Marquis is a very tough and very competitive lawyer who doesn’t let the fact that he’s African American get in the way of wanting to win a case if the opponents are also African American. During a conversation between Wyman and Marquis, they discuss a class-action lawsuit where the plaintiffs are African American and the plaintiffs’ attorneys are white. The law firm that Marquis works for is representing the defendants in the lawsuit, and Marquis is the lead attorney in the case.

The exact details of the lawsuit aren’t revealed in the story, but it’s implied that it has to do with accusations of racial discrimination. In other words, Marquis doesn’t really care if people might think of him of being a “race traitor” for representing the defendants in this case. He just wants to win.

He might be a ruthless attorney in the courtroom, but at home, Marquis is a loving and loyal family man with a disciplinarian streak and hints of being a control freak. The movie opens with a somewhat odd scene of Marquis’ wife Veora Woods (played by Lorraine Burroughs) accidentally locked in their bedroom. She pleads with Marquis, who’s on the other side of the door, to break down the door and let her out. He refuses because he says the door cost $1,500.

As a prank, Marquis pretends that he can’t do anything to help her, and he says that he’s going to call a locksmith. It could take more than an hour for a locksmith to come over and break the lock and then replace it. Veora says she doesn’t have that kind of time.

After some more begging and pleading from Veora, Marquis finally puts Veora out of her misery and uses a pin to unlock the door. She rushes out with relief, but she’s slightly irritated that Marquis would put her in this uncomfortable situation as a joke. It shows a manipulative side to Marquis that may not be violent, but it demonstrates how he might get some pleasure out of seeing people squirm.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Marquis has an abusive past. When he was a child, his father often beat, tortured and emotionally abused Marquis, who is so haunted by these memories that he still has nightmares about the abuse. (In flashback scenes, Ri-Karlo Handy plays Marquis’ father, while twins Bodhi Tonderai-Hodges and Sahara Tonderai-Hodges portray Marquis as a child.)

Marquis also grew up very poor in the Appalachian area of West Virginia. It’s a past that he left behind 25 years ago and doesn’t want to go back to anytime soon. Marquis hasn’t lied about his personal history of growing up poor and abused, but he’d rather forget that it happened. And it fuels his drive to be as wealthy and successful as possible.

That’s why he’s instilled in his teenage kids—son Tydon “Ty” Woods (played by Kalifa Burton) and daughter Samsara “Sam” Woods (played by Hannah Gonera)—who are both in their mid-teens, a strong sense of wanting them to become high achievers. But with that ambition also comes a certain snobbery where Sam and especially Ty look down on people who are poor and unsophisticated. Ty doesn’t hesitate to call other black people the “n” word if he thinks they’re of a lower class than he is. When Veora hears Ty use this racial slur, she scolds him and tells him that she doesn’t want him to use that language.

In another scene, Veora tells Marquis in front of their kids that she’s worried about the children turning into entitled jerks. Marquis responds by saying, “If I had my way, your son and daughter will spend their lives in a boardroom, not in some jungle I couldn’t get out of fast enough.” Veora says, “Except sometimes, Marq, that jungle comes back to find you, no matter what boardroom you’re hiding in.”

This conversation takes place on a private single-engine, four-seat plane that Marquis is piloting, with Veora, Ty and Sam as the passengers. They are on the plane because Marquis has been notified that his father has died, and the family is going to back to Marquis’ hometown in West Virginia for the funeral and to take care of some other matters related to the death.

Marquis makes a pit stop in a rural area at a small-strip gas station with a convenience store. An elderly man (played by Leo Wringer) who works at the gas station and a young man (played by Tafara Nyatsanza) who happens to be there too are exactly the type of “country” African Americans who make Marquis and Ty uncomfortable. Ty doesn’t do much to hide his condescension, while these two local men think that Marquis and his family are stuck-up city folks.

Marquis and his family aren’t at the gas station for long, when the local sheriff (played by Tumisho Masha) pulls up to find out why this small plane has landed in his jurisdiction. Marquis reminds the sheriff that it’s legal for him to land there, since it’s a single-engine plane. Marquis also shows his pilot license and tells the sheriff why they’re at the gas station. The sheriff is friendly but a little wary of these newcomers.

After the plane is back in the air, a massive storm hits and the plane looks like it’s in danger of crashing. The crash is actually never shown in the movie. The next thing that happens is that Marquis wakes up in a bed in a house attic, with a head injury and his left foot bleeding and bandaged. Where is he and what happened to his family?

Marquis finds out that he’s being held captive at a farmhouse by a woman named Eloise (played by Loretta Devine), a demented voodoo priestess who has a dual persona of being a friendly “church lady” and a wicked witch. Her mood swings are unpredictable, but largely based on whether or not she thinks she’s in control of a situation. She can get menacing very quickly if she thinks Marquis is trying to escape.

Eloise tells Marquis that he was found in the plane crash, and she insists that no one else was with him. Marquis doesn’t quite believe her and he desperately wants to escape and find his wife and kids. Eloise, who calls herself a “root worker,” says that she doesn’t believe in a lot of technology and inventions, such as phones, computers, radios and television.

The rest of the movie is basically a series of attempted escapes by Marquis, who finds out that Eloise uses body parts (human and animal) for her potions and spells. She tells Marquis she can nurse him back to health with the Boogity, a hoodoo doll that she has made from his skin and blood. She blows powdered potion in Marquis’ face to drug him. And later, Marquis witnesses a revival meeting with Eloise working her magic on some local people with disabilities.

Ms. Eloise has two accomplices who help her keep Marquis captive on her run-down farm: Earl (played by John Beasley), who seems to be Eloise’s love partner/common-law-husband, and a hulking handyman named Lewis (played by Steve Mululu), who looks like he’s strong enough to permanently injure someone with his bare hands. Miss Eloise says of Lewis, “People think he’s slow, but there’s nothing slow about him.”

Later, when Marquis asks Eloise if she really believes in the hoodoo that she practices, she responds in an irritated tone, “I guess I have to. We don’t have much in the way of Obamacare around here.” She also responds to Marquis’ obvious condescension toward her beliefs and lifestyle: “You a city boy. You better than all of this.”

There are a few moments where “Spell” goes from being a mildly interesting horror movie to being a disappointing dud with too many plot holes to ignore. The first big nonsensical moment comes when Marquis gets a chance to run away and escape, but instead he sticks around to watch one of Eloise’s revival gatherings. The second and more improbable scenario that plays out is when Marquis removes a very long nail from his injured foot (the nail is so long that it would definitely destroy tendons) and then shoves it back in his foot, for reasons that are shown in the movie.

What’s ludicrous about these scenes with Marquis removing the nail and then putting it back in his foot, is that in real life, he would go into medical shock if he performed those procedures on himself and would most likely pass out from the shock and infections. And yet, he’s still able to run around (with a limp) before and after this self-surgery. It can’t be stressed enough that this is not a tiny nail. The nail is almost as long as his foot. The only reason to have these unrealistic scenes of Marquis removing the nail and slamming it back in his foot is to just have a gross-out scene that people will remember about this movie.

As for the acting in “Spell,” Devine at least seems to be having some fun hamming it up in this role as the unhinged hoodoo priestess Eloise. However, there’s absolutely no real backstory for this character (there’s only a small hint), and Eloise ends up being a generic villain after a while. In fact, all of the characters are fairly generic, as are most of the performances in this movie. There are hints of Marquis’ complicated and traumatic personal history, but any further exploration of his troubled past is largely abandoned when the rest of the story becomes about his kidnapping ordeal.

“Spell” needed to bring something fresh and creative to the story, considering that the 1990 Oscar-winning horror film “Misery” already set a gold standard for a movie about a man held captive by an evil woman who does something awful to his legs. The ending of “Spell” is very unimaginative, predictable and feels too rushed. The movie’s production design and cinematography are very effective, but the screenplay and overall direction lack the spark, cohesiveness and personality that are needed to make a better-than-average film. The good news for people turned off by “Spell” is that it’s highly unlikely to get a sequel.

Paramount Pictures released “Spell” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on October 30, 2020.

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Where to watch

2020 Directed by Mark Tonderai

Evil tales have their roots.

A father survives a plane crash in rural Appalachia, but becomes suspicious of the elderly couple who take him in to nurse him back to health with the ancient remedies.

Omari Hardwick Loretta Devine John Beasley Peter Butler Lorraine Burroughs André Jacobs Tumisho Masha Ri-Karlo Handy Hannah Gonera Kalifa Burton Steve Mululu

Director Director

Mark Tonderai

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Isabel Martens Fletcher Rodley

Producers Producers

Morris Chestnut Kurt Wimmer Gordon Gray Janine van Assen Brian Wilkins

Writer Writer

Kurt Wimmer

Casting Casting

Priscilla John Orla Maxwell Francesca Bradley Andreya Lynham

Editor Editor

Sarah C. Reeves

Cinematography Cinematography

Jacques Jouffret

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Mark Tonderai George Loxton

Lighting Lighting

Gilles Boisacq

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Kent Satram

Production Design Production Design

Art direction art direction, set decoration set decoration.

Aimee Pullon Karel Flint Colin Chirwa Shaughn Steenkamp Thomas Leppan

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Cordell McQueen Jacques Bock

Stunts Stunts

Vernon Willemse Leander Lacey Toni Jean Erasmus Craig Fox Grant Powell Michael Solomon Caprice Masinga Daniel Fourie James Frost Gary Joshua Marius Smegils Clint Andre Abrahams Mutuale Masambombo Zahir Carlie Clint Jacobs

Composer Composer

Sound sound.

Jason Dotts Jeffrey A. Pitts Gabriel J. Serrano Derek Mansvelt Karina Rezhevska Nataliia Syeryakova Sergey Timoschuk Ian Yeromenko

Costume Design Costume Design

Danielle Knox

Makeup Makeup

Nadine Prigge Madelein Krugell Marika Weber Jaco Snyman Mathew Howard-Tripp Philisiwe Mkhize

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Nadine Prigge

Paramount Players LINK Entertainment MC8 Entertainment Radar Pictures

South Africa USA

Releases by Date

Theatrical limited, 30 oct 2020, 22 jul 2021, 27 jul 2021, 30 dec 2022, 03 mar 2021, 04 mar 2021, 11 mar 2021, 28 feb 2022, 11 jun 2022, 22 aug 2022, 11 oct 2022, 12 jan 2021, 15 feb 2021, 23 may 2021, 29 oct 2021, releases by country.

Digital MA 15+
Digital 18 VOD
TV 14A Super Écran
Theatrical 16
Physical DVD
Physical Blu-Ray

Netherlands

New zealand.

Digital M18

Switzerland

Digital 18+
Theatrical limited R
Physical R DVD & Blu-Ray

United Arab Emirates

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Review by allain ★½ 5

Is it really that horrifying up there in the Appalachians that multiple directors based their horror films off of there? Spell is a horror-thriller film about a man who got separated from his family after a plane crash in Appalachia and held captive by a Hoodoo witch. The film felt like a more gore remake of Misery (1990) with a black cast and it’s disheartening to see that the cast were put into a formulaic, run-of-the-mill Appalachian horror, as I think that they deserved better. It attempted to make a commentary of some sorts that money can’t buy anything, but it wasn’t expanded further and all we get is the typical, overused horror tropes. While the cinematography and music score…

Review by Ian West ★★★½ 5

A backwoods blood moon nightmare. Talk about going under the radar... Spell was just what I needed, a Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets hoodoo occult in the Appalachian mountains riff that was right up my alley.

A family crashes in the Appalachia mountains and the father awakens in the attic of an isolated farmhouse—the usual hokum transpires. I can’t say this brings anything new to the table but I don’t really care... I watch action movies well aware of what the outcome will be and to see shit blow up... I watch grimy occult TCM styled movies because I wanna see Loretta Devine chew the hell out of the scenery as a hoodoo mountain witch while Omari Hardwick struggles with a…

Review by Tony the Terror ★★★★½ 4

Being from the south, I love a good Deep South voodoo horror movie and this was just phenomenal.

The atmosphere was some straight up delightful spooky Appalachian backwoods Wrong Turn meets The Skeleton Key (by way of Misery what a combo lol) vibes which was perfect because that’s exactly what this felt like a mix of and I am here for allllll of it. If y’all ever driven through the deep mountains you know it really is that fucking creepy.

The ace in the hole though is Loretta Devine. She absolutely killed it as the creepy ass Aunt Eloise. I loved every second she was on screen and I already started watching it again just to see her performance. Perfection.

edit: watched again so the huz could see it and we had so much fun watching Loretta I’m giving it an extra half star.

Review by Dave Taylor ★★½

Average thriller that is most effective evoking cringe but struggles at rational thought. Too bad this wasn’t a bigger hit because I’d love it if they mass produced those ‘Boogity’ dolls...one of those would look pretty badass on my fireplace mantle!

Review by Mister Cap ★★ 3

Marquis (Omari Hardwick) fliegt mit seiner Familie zum Begräbnis seines verstorbenen Vaters, als das von ihm gesteuerte Flugzeug in einem Unwetters abstürzt. Als er nach dem Unglück wieder zu sich kommt, befindet er sich in den Händen eines netten älteren Paares, das Anhänger des Hoodoo-Kults ist und möglicherweise doch nicht so nett ist, wie es anfänglich scheint.

Marquis versucht im weiteren Verlauf der Handlung, diesem bizarren Umfeld zu entkommen und seine Familie wiederzufinden. Die Macher servieren uns das Ganze als eine Mischung aus "Misery" und "Get Out" (ohne sozialen Kommentar).

Wenn Leute sich nach dem Trailer denken sollten, dass sie soeben eine gute Zusammenfassung des Films bekommen haben und das es danach nur mehr wenige Überraschungen im Film selbst geben…

Review by haley ★★½ 4

it really bothered me how inconsistent his limping was.. one minute, he's barely able to walk from how bad his limp is and then the very next minute, this man is sprinting! come on guys, get it together.

Review by RepoJack ★★★ 3

This was sort of interesting -- a riff on Misery except Annie is an an old backwoods couple who are into hoodoo voodoo, and Paul Sheldon is a husband/father who's family plane crashes. He's saved with a foot "injury" but his family is nowhere to be found.

This had mixed to bad reviews so i was not expecting much. The premise will be familiar to most, but the k.i.s.s. approach (keep it simple stupid) led to a very straightforward folk horror offering.

Unfortunately it was hella uneven and there were no depth to any of the. characters. But I gotta tell ya', the body horror elements made my feet hurt.

Review by shookone ★½

pretty mediocre graduation flick from the 1st semester basics class at the jordan peele university

Review by Helen_S ★★★★ 3

Oh I love when a film puts you directly into a characters shoes. I was right there in the main guys head pulling every wtf face with him. It was creepy, tense with some dark humour sprinkled about. And as for any nail in foot things you've seen before, forget about it, they were rainbows and unicorns in comparison. I had to look away the second time as I thought I would puke. Those voodoo dolls were something else too, yikes ahaha. Misery vibes with Eloise. The ending was maybe a tad too predictable but overall a fantastic time was had.

Review by Zay ★★★½ 18

"I put cha up, I put cha down, I put cha sideways and I spin ya round"

A big city lawyer takes his family to the Appalachian mountains for a funeral but go down in a storm. He wakes up in the home of an elderly couple that practices Hoodoo. Shit hits the fans and this turns into a Hoodoo version of Misery.

Omarion Hardwick is solid as usual but Loretta Devine is the standout here as the backwoods Hoodoo priestess. There's a quick scene involving goat eyeballs that's crazy and there's a bit with a large nail that's cringe inducing.

Also the killer doll lover in me wanted the creepy ass boogity doll to get up and start running around stabbing ppl!

Glad I watched this as its nowhere near as bad as everyone keeps saying it is. I was happy to see another horror film featuring a a predominately black cast! Solid flick man!

Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★½ 2

”Dad, seriously, this place is a creep show”

This hoodoo version of Misery, teaches us all that you should always hide your Boogity where no one can mess with it.

”You taught me a lot, Ms. Ellie. But so did my pops.”

Cinematic Time Capsule - 2020 Ranked

2020 U.S. Release Schedule

Review by B E R T ★★½

I mean this wasn’t bad but it wasn’t especially great either. It just kinda felt like the same scene over and over for 90 minutes, it’s going for a Misery meets Skeleton Key vibe but it doesn’t really commit to anything in particular so the end result is a bit of nothing. I did love Loretta Devine though, she was fabulous, always a joy to watch her and she’s very entertaining in this. It’s pretty much impossible for Loretta not to be great no matter what she does.

I wanted more hoodoo, I wanted more meat to it, there’s a few things introduced that never really add up or go anywhere. It has its moments but overall it’s pretty forgettable I have to say.

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Spell Review: Hoodoo Horror That Falls Just Short Of Greatness

November 2, 2020

Spell is a horror movie from director Mark Tonderai ( Gotham, Black Lightning, Locke & Key) and starring Omari Hardwick.

Hardwick ( Kick-Ass, Power, Sorry To Bother You) plays Marquis T. Woods, a lawyer who takes his family to his anachronistically rustic hometown after his abusive father passes away. While his family is present and relevant to the story, the cast is relatively small and the story almost exclusively follows Marquis in his battle against the hoodoo cannibal Eloise, played by Loretta Devine.

Devine captured Marquis after his plane crashed on the way to his father’s funeral, and he woke up without his family in Eloise’s country home, with bandages on his wounded feet. The struggle between these two characters is an engaging one, and it provides a good handful of legitimately frightening scenes. If you’re looking for a fun but flawed horror film this Halloween season, Spell is not a bad option.

An Ancient, Mysterious Neck Of The Woods

My problem with the film ultimately can be summed up in two words – unrealized potential. Mark Tonderai does a fine job with Kurt Wimmer’s ( Total Recall, Point Break) solid script. The film actively talks about heavy themes regarding ancestry, origin, and history. Eloise is ultimately trying to prove to Marquis that he’s the same as her, a creature in tune with dark forces, and to some degree, she succeeds in that.

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Unfortunately, the huge third act plot twist falls flat. It reminded me of the ending of Netflix’s Death Note , where Light revealed his incredible master plan. While Spell was ultimately more believable, the execution simply wasn’t performed with finesse. This movie may have entertainment value, heart even, but it lacks grace.

Spell : More Than The Sum Of Its Parts

Now that’s out of the way, I would like to applaud Spell for a handful of things. The body horror is fantastic, and thoroughly upsetting to look at. Hardwicks performance is solid, if not revolutionary. The set design and cinematography help this relatively low budget film feel like a blockbuster for almost the entire runtime. While Spell may not provide satisfying answers to many of the thematic questions it asks, it is thought-provoking all the same.

I also have to give credit to the creative team behind Spell for the atmosphere that they created for this film. You really get a feel for the old timey, agricultural hellscape Marquis has found himself in. This film is a spooky and authentic adventure, albeit an imperfect one.

If you like dark magic, hoodoo, and violent entertainment, you’ll have fun with Spell. No, it’s not reinventing the wheel, and that sucks. But it only sucks because I believe that with some fine tuning of the script and pacing improvements, Spell really could have been something special.

Alas, horror fans should be thankful for the few horror movies we get this Halloween. No, it’s not Halloween Kills or Candyman , but it’s not half bad either. Support your theaters if you can, and feel that it’s safe to do so.

Let us know what you think of Spell in the comments below or on our social media. Always remember, we are always watching. We are The Illuminerdi.

horror , Reviews , Spell

Corbin Shanklin

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Spell Has Impressive Moments But Ultimately Falls Short

Essentially Misery with Hoodoo, Spell works on many levels and features strong performances, but ultimately feels rushed and underdeveloped.

Hoodoo is a topic that is rarely touched upon in horror movies made by major studios, and it's one of the elements that makes Spell so interesting. The film is the perfect set up for a modern-day horror classic partly because, at its core, it includes a wholly interesting subject that isn't the focus of enough movies. But, unfortunately, the film flounders in the end by taking the easy way out. Despite this, the overall premise and set pieces are memorable enough that the film isn't a total bust.

Spell stars Omari Hardwick as Marquis T. Woods, a wealthy family man who crash lands in rural Appalachia while flying a private jet with his wife and kids to his estranged father's funeral. After the crash, Marquis awakens in the home of Ms. Eloise (Loretta Devine), an older woman who engages in Hoodoo practices. At first, it seems like Eloise wants to help Marquis get back on his feet, but her nefarious intentions start to slowly come to the surface after she presents him with a Boogity, a Hoodoo figure that represents him.

One of the best aspects of the film is how accurate the filmmakers seem to be with the depiction of Hoodoo. All of the terminology appears to be well-researched and handled with care, something Hollywood isn't always concerned with when it comes to representing different cultures. Whenever Eloise is explaining her magic, it feels like the audience is actually getting reliable information on the subject. However, despite this accuracy, the film never dives as deep into the subject as it should.

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The middle of the film is very suspenseful and unafraid to push boundaries, which makes it even more disappointing when it plays it safe in its final act. Throughout the movie's runtime, Marquis is subjected to several horrific situations that are equally as unsettling for the audience as they are for him. One scene involving a meal that should never be eaten is the stuff of nightmares and made me believe the movie wouldn't hold back. In its second act, the film is bold and grisly, frequently hinting at what happened to Marquis' absent family. However, when it's time for what should be an epic showdown, we are given a rushed, Hollywood ending that doesn't match-up well with the risk-taking shocker Spell is in its first hour.

It almost feels like the filmmakers set out to make an original horror film that was actually going to deliver something fans of the genre never see, but the studio interfered and pushed for the film to rely more on cliches. The movie teases greatness, but ultimately shies away from taking risks, instead settling for something more expected, which turns it into a bit of a missed opportunity.

Still, the film has some great aspects. For example, most of the actors blow it out of the park, especially Loretta Devine. Devine is a powerhouse in Spell , delivering a dynamic performance that could not have been delivered by anyone else. When Ms. Eloise is first seen on screen, she's charming and witty, like a quirky but kind-hearted soul who just wants to do a good deed. However, Devine's performance is jam-packed with subtle nuances that slowly reveal this sweet woman may not really be so sweet. And when the film reveals Eloise's true intentions, Devine seamlessly switches her demeanor to cold and diabolical.

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Although Eloise is a great villain at first glance, there is so much more that could have been explored. With an actor as talented as Devine bringing her to life, there were endless possibilities for this unique character, but in the end, her motivations and her backstory aren't especially well fleshed out. While these things are touched on lightly, in the end, they aren't delved into enough to make the character feel at all nuanced. Instead, she ultimately just comes across as monstrous and evil. For people looking for mindless fun, that may be enough, but for moviegoers wanting more depth, looking elsewhere may be their best bet.

On the plus side, the soundtrack of the movie is effective, providing bone-tingling musical stings when disturbing sequences start to take off. The production design is also sublime. Seeing the Hoodoo elements come alive in the rural environment is nothing short of exhilarating. However, while the film is heavy on story and character in its first two acts, including a strong plot line involving generational trauma, it wraps up as something else entirely: a predictable horror-action spectacle. Nonetheless, Spell is still worth checking out for some strong performances and effective horror sequences.

Directed by Mark Tonderai and written by Kurt Wimmer, Spell stars Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine and John Beasley. The movie is available on Premium Video-On-Demand and Digital on Friday, Oct. 30.

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Movie Review – Spell (2020)

October 31, 2020 by admin

Spell , 2020.

Directed by Mark Tonderai. Starring Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine, Lorraine Burroughs, Hannah Gonera, and John Beasley.

While flying to his father’s funeral in rural Appalachia, a freak storm causes a man to lose control of the plane carrying him and his family. But the real troubles begin, when he awakens.

I certainly wouldn’t blame you if the first question that’d pop into your head was, ‘Is this a rip-off of the classic Stephen King adaptation Misery ?’ after seeing the film’s trailer and reading its synopsis. Because in a lot of way it’s pretty much that, with some Hoodoo thrown into the mix. For the uninitiated let me briefly try to outline the differences between Voodoo and Hoodoo. Voodoo is a religion or belief system that centers around gods, while Hoodoo concerns the magic derived from the teachings of Voodoo which operate independently of gods or any religious trappings. So anyway, Hoodoo practices and grotesque doll play factor in a major way into the film’s premise. Also, if you were expecting some form of timely socio-political commentary to be weaved into the narrative, as is the case with most flicks with a predominant black cast, think again. In a way it’s rather refreshing to not see that trend also being shoehorned here, but the issue with this film is, there’s not much else it offers to its audience either.

Kurt Wimmer, whose best effort thus far has been the Orwellian sci-fi actioner Equilibrium , has crafted an extremely formulaic and generic script simply enamoured with ticking the boxes of every possible horror movie cliche imaginable. I’m talking about creaky floorboards, perpetually inclement weather, rusty door hinges, creepy looking props-the whole shebang. But none of these contributed in anyway whatsoever to instill even a sense of dread or an ounce of tension, throughout the proceedings.

However, the third act is when things get a little interesting, when the proverbial excrement starts hitting the fan. Blood soaked, action packed and ridiculously over-the-top, the finale is the much-needed jolt of adrenaline the film needs. But unfortunately, it comes a little too late. If Spell actually embraced the inherent absurdism of its premise instead of playing it too serious and straight-faced, the end product at least would’ve packed an entertaining punch, but that’s just my opinion. Part of Spell’s inability to deliver on the thrills can also be blamed on Mark Tonderai’s uninspiring direction. The film could have benefitted much if Tonderai let his imagination run riot and thought of more ingenious ways to ratchet up the tension and unease, without being confined by Wimmer’s paint-by-numbers script. Sadly, that isn’t what happened here.

As far as the performances were concerned Loretta Devine ( Grey’s Anatomy ) was the obvious standout of the bunch. As the duplicitous, scenery chewing matriarch of this backwoods horror-drama she really was quite the scene stealer. Omari Hardwick ( Power ) however, failed to really connect with me as the film’s protagonist. There are flashbacks of an abusive childhood and a toxic patriarchy, but why it was included into the narrative is unclear. If it was put there to make us ‘feel’ for Hardwick’s character, all I can say is, it clearly didn’t do what it was supposed to do. The rest of the cast didn’t make a lasting impression either.

Spell is guilty of a great many things, but its failure to deliver on the scares as a horror film certainly ought to take the proverbial cake.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.

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10 Great Horror Movies Like Scream (And How To Watch Them)

Are these some of your favorite scary movies?

Casey Becker getting ready to watch a scary movie - not realising she's about to star in her own

Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson forever changed the horror movie landscape when they unleashed Ghostface on an unsuspecting public. Released in 1996, Scream provided a bracing blend of murder-mystery, slasher movie shocks, and playful self-awareness through the plot of a movie-mad killer slashing their way through the fictional town of Woodsboro. The landmark film reinvigorated a flatlining genre, gleefully explaining and then subverting horror movie clichés and spawning a new generation of scary movie fans in the process.

The original Scream isn't only one of the best horror movies of all time , its success also fueled multiple sequels, an MTV series, and – given the $138 million box-office haul made by the 2022 “reboot” – proves that the franchise still has what it takes to slay the competition. So, if you’re looking to stream more movies like Scream , made by horror movie buffs for horror movie buffs, check out our list below of 10 great horror movies like Scream (and where to watch them).

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)

Two harmless hillbillies are besieged by a group of panicky college students in this goofy horror comedy. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil invokes the tropes of rural horror and repeatedly flips them on their head, with the vacationing kids of Eli Craig’s movie clearly having seen The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Deliverance too many times.

When Tucker and Dave save unconscious teen Allison from drowning, her prejudiced friends automatically assume they’ve got murder in mind. The reality is that Dale prefers board games to menacing banjo solos and the titular duo just want to renovate their cabin. Yet an escalating series of gory accidents only strengthens the conviction that they’re evil incarnate.

Stream Tucker and Dale vs. Evil on Amazon Prime Video . Rent or Buy Tucker and Dale vs. Evil on Amazon Prime Video .

Fright Night (1985)

The passé pleasures of Hammer Horror movies invade 1980s suburbia in this hugely entertaining film from Tom Holland . Fright Night follows teenager Charlie Brewster (William Ragsdale), an ardent fan of TV host Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) whose acting credentials include playing a vampire hunter. After becoming convinced that his new neighbor Jerry (Chris Sarandon) is a bloodsucking killer, Charlie tracks the B-list has-been down and begs him to help stop Jerry’s reign of terror.

The line between “fiction” and “reality” get blurred as gothic horror tropes irrupt in modern suburbia, and there’s some deliciously ironic commentary on 80s horror trends. As Vincent laments, “Nobody wants to see vampire killers anymore, or vampires either. […] all they want are demented madmen, running around in ski masks, hacking up young virgins.” Immensely fun, Fright Night is one of the decade's best vampire movies alongside The Lost Boys .

Rent or buy Fright Night on Amazon Prime Video .

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Directed by Drew Goddard and co-written with Buffy scribe Joss Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods takes the prototypical slasher template and uses it to deconstruct and revitalize the genre. It also functions, as Whedon explained to Total Film at the time, to critique the “devolution of the horror movie into torture porn.”

Almost every horror convention is flaunted as Curt ( Chris Hemsworth ), Holden ( Jesse Williams ), and Dana (Kristen Connolly) find themselves brutalized by a “Zombie Redneck Torture Family,” caught up in the machinations of an underground organization to placate some world-destroying deities. Much in the way Scream acknowledges the "rules" of the genre, Goddard’s film offers a funhouse of references – invoking Evil Dead , Japanese ghost stories, even Michael Haneke’s Funny Games – with the ending a gory blitzkrieg showcasing horror cinema's extensive iconography.

Stream The Cabin in the Woods with a Hulu subscription . Rent or buy The Cabin in the Woods on Amazon Prime Video .

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Halina Reijn’s English-language debut is a horror satire whose whodunnit setup feels like a feature-length, Gen Z variation of Scream ’s house party finale. Resentments are already brewing when Bee (Maria Bakalova) and her girlfriend (Amandla Stenberg) arrive for a “hurricane party” at their friend David’s gigantic mansion. So when the storm kills the power during a Murder in the Dark-style game and one of them is found with their throat slashed, nobody is above suspicion. Bodies Bodies Bodies is a brilliant black comedy and we can’t wait to see how Reijn’s upcoming A24 thriller Babygirl tops it.

Stream Bodies Bodies Bodies with a subscription to Paramount Plus .

Scream (2022)

Released 11 years after Scream 4 and the first entry not directed by Wes Craven , this “requel” focuses on a generation of characters reared on a movie diet of endless reboots and high-brow A24 horror movies , and whose connection to the original Woodsboro murders makes them the target for another Ghostface killer.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s reverence for the franchise is what makes this movie work, and although it embraces the new – including a fresh cast led by Melissa Barrera – it remains heavily indebted to the OG slasher. The opening scene riffs off of Drew Barrymore ’s deadly movie trivia tête-à-tête, while the ending giddily restages the first film’s third-act bloodbath with ballsy legacy characters like Sidney Prescott ( Neve Campbell ).

Stream Scream (2022) with a Paramount Plus subscription . Rent or buy Scream (2022) on Amazon Prime Video .

Totally Killer (2023)

Totally Killer follows Jamie Hughes (Kiernan Shipka), who on Halloween night – the 35th anniversary of the Sweet Sixteen Killings – goes to a rock concert with her friend Amelia (Kelcey Mawema), a gifted student working on a time machine. But when the masked maniac strikes again, a melee in Amelia’s time machine sends Jamie back to Vernon High circa 1987 – giving her the perfect opportunity to prevent the original killings.

Shipka brings a Gen-Z sensibility to proceedings as a time-traveller from a more “enlightened” age, given the unenviable task of keeping a bunch of horny Gen X teens alive. It’s a lively mashup of Back to the Future and movies like Scream , which, from the early demise of Modern Family -star Julie Bowen to the film’s skewering of clichés, pays dutiful homage to the aforementioned slasher classic.

Stream Totally Killer with an Amazon Prime Video subscription .

Freaky (2020)

Freaky is a hilarious hybrid of body-swap film and horror movie. When the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn) stabs high student Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) with a mystical dagger, the two mysteriously swap bodies. Their surreal predicament allows the infamous killer to wreak havoc as Millie without drawing suspicion, while Millie as the Butcher embraces a brutish strength she finds empowering.

The film's role-reversed take on the gendered slasher formula is ingeniously subversive, standing out as a defiantly inclusive example of the genre. As expressed when Josh declares, “You’re Black, I’m gay. We’re so dead!” to Nyla, the genre hasn’t historically been kind to marginalized individuals, yet Freaky embraces its “otherness” to both sweet and satirical effect. Vaughn, meanwhile, is perfectly cast, and never more endearing than when bashfully entertaining the attention of Booker, Millie’s high school crush.

Stream Freaky with a Peacock Premium subscription . Rent or buy Freaky on Amazon Prime .

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

A few years before Wes Craven made Scream , he directed what many consider to be his meta masterpiece. New Nightmare didn’t set the box-office on fire, but Craven’s cerebral shocker did receive rave reviews, with Rolling Stone ’s Peter Travers calling it “The cleverest, wittiest, most twisted scarefest in ages!”

A film about the making of another A Nightmare on Elm Street movie, New Nightmare found the cast and crew of the 1984 original being terrorized by a Freddy Krueger-like entity, with actress Heather Langenkamp trying to prevent him from crossing over “out of films, into our reality.” It’s an ingenious concept, whose meta layers and "rubber reality" engender a deeply unsettling atmosphere. Freddy even gets listed in the film’s end credits as being played by – *gulp* – “Himself.”

Rent or buy Wes Craven’s New Nightmare on YouTube .

Ready or Not (2019)

Before relaunching the Scream series to critical acclaim, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett directed Ready or Not , a blackly comic thriller starring Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, and Andie MacDowell, and which cemented Weaving’s reputation as one of the all-time greatest horror scream queens . She plays the newly married Grace, who’s hunted by the Le Domas family during a deadly game of “Hide and Seek,” her demented in-laws under the impression that she must be sacrificed to satisfy a Faustian pact. Like Scream , Ready or Not effortlessly combines satire, subversion, and splatter, with Weaving’s transformation from naïve spouse into gun-toting badass a delight to witness.

Stream Ready or Not with a FuboTV subscription . Rent or buy Ready or Not on Amazon Prime Video .

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

An American Werewolf in London set the standard for modern horror comedies: balancing shocks, mockish humor, and featuring a soundtrack with an ironic litany of lunar references. The story concerns American backpackers David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne), who’re savaged on the Yorkshire Moors by a vicious, wolf-life creature. David survives, waking up in a London hospital three weeks later. But he’s plagued by visions of his dead friend, who urges that he kill himself before the next full moon – or else. It’s a garishly bloody and bloody funny film, featuring one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history thanks to FX artist Rick Baker.

Stream An American Werewolf in London free with TUBI . Rent An American Werewolf in London on YouTube .

If you're looking for more to scream about, read here for everything we know so far about Scream 7 . Plus, there are plenty of upcoming horror movies planned for 2024, so there'll be no shortage of scares this year.

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Daniel Pateman has been a freelance writer since 2018 and writing for fun for much longer. He currently works across Future Plc brands like TechRadar, T3, Games Radar, and What Hi-Fi?, where he has produced detailed guides on the best streaming services and regularly writes How to Watch pieces informing our readers where to watch the hottest new films and TV shows.

In addition to his work with Future, Daniel writes broadly on topics across the cultural spectrum, including photography, sculpture, painting, and film, the latter being the medium closest to his heart. He’s been published in Aesthetica, The Brooklyn Rail, and Eyeline magazine, interviewed various artists and has reviewed exhibitions within the UK and internationally. He’s also commissioned by curators and artists to help produce catalogue essays, press releases, and museum wall text.

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The Absolute Best Horror Movies on Hulu

Don't miss these highly rated scary movies.

Hulu is packed with fascinating horror titles. Before we get into a list of the absolute best options on the streaming service, let's cover some worthy alternates.

Hulu is home to body horror film Crimes of the Future (2022) and satire The Menu (2022). There's also action flick Shadow in the Cloud (2020), spine-chilling sci-fi Alien (1979) and romance-gone-wrong Fresh (2022). Finally, you should check out The Empty Man (2020), Titane (2021) and A Quiet Place Part II (2020).

Now on to a roundup of the best horror movies on the streamer. All these films scored higher than 70 on Metacritic.

Piggy (2022)

A teenage girl is viciously bullied at a local pool and then happens upon a stranger abducting her three tormentors. This gripping, Spanish-language movie is based on a short film and stars Laura Galán.

Infinity Pool (2023)

Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgård star in this disturbing film directed by Brandon Cronenberg (son of horror filmmaker David) about a vacationing couple that ventures outside their island resort and accidentally commits a crime. You won't be able to take your eyes off scream queen Goth, and Succession fans will enjoy more of the talented Skarsgård.

The Babadook (2014)

A seemingly made-up monster creeps more and more into the lives of a single mother and her young son in this critically acclaimed movie. The horror escalates after a haunting storybook turns up. The film is written and directed by Jennifer Kent, who also wrote and directed the 2018 thriller The Nightingale.

Hatching (2022)

This Finnish creature movie is plucked straight from your feathery nightmares. The flick introduces Tinja, a 12-year-old girl who discovers a strange egg that hatches into a monstrous bird. The horrendous creature contrasts greatly with her family's expectations of perfection. So it's kind of like a cursed version of E.T. Well, maybe not. You can watch and come to your own conclusions.

Prey (2022)

If you count incredibly capable, invisible killing machines as scary, you may be watching some of the scenes in Prey through your fingers. This addition to the Predator franchise takes place in the Comanche Nation 300 years ago and centers on a young warrior named Naru. Watch this one for a compelling underdog story about a human determinedly fighting against a powerful alien.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

For surprises and plenty of nightmare fuel, The Cabin in the Woods is the way to go. The twisty and terrifying horror-comedy introduces a group of unsuspecting college kids, including one played by Chris Hemsworth, who head to a remote cabin for a fun weekend. The first half hour or so is relatively calm, but when the horror show starts, it doesn't let up.

You Are Not My Mother (2021)

You Are Not My Mother is a creepy, slow-burn mystery you'll want to stick with, anchored by a strong central character. The movie introduces Char, a bright teenage girl who's living with her grandmother and mentally ill mother, Angela. Angela disappears, and when she returns, she acts eerily different.

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IMAGES

Spell (2020 Movie) Review: Think Misery But Creepier
SPELL (2020) Review
Spell (2019) Pictures, Trailer, Reviews, News, DVD and Soundtrack
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Film Review: Spell (2020)
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VIDEO

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THE LOVE WITCH
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COMMENTS

Spell movie review & film summary (2020)
Underneath all that, "Spell" effectively conjures up a pair of gross-out moments and consequent screams, but the angst it spreads throughout feels all too mild and forgettable to cast an unnerving curse. You know, the kind you'd crave from a horror film with lasting scares. Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New ...
'Spell' Review: Hexing Horror in the Hills of Kentucky
'Spell' Review: A Conventional Hexing Horror in the Hills of Kentucky Reviewed online, San Francisco, Oct. 26, 2020. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 91 MIN.
'Spell' Review: Occult Reprogramming
Directed by Mark Tonderai. Horror, Thriller. R. 1h 31m. Find Tickets. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. In "Spell ...
Spell (2020)
Spell: Directed by Mark Tonderai. With Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine, Lorraine Burroughs, Hannah Gonera. A man crash lands in rural Appalachia and awakens in the attic of a traditional Hoodoo practitioner. He desperately tries to break free from her dark magic and save his family from a sinister ritual before the rise of the blood moon.
Spell
Spell. 2020, Horror/Mystery & thriller, 1h 31m. ... There are no featured audience reviews for Spell at this time. See All Audience Reviews Movie & TV guides View All. Play Daily Tomato Movie ...
Spell
Admittedly, Spell gives us something I've rarely seen in the horror genre-an all-Black cast in a world in which folk magic is the key ingredient. Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 17, 2020
'Spell': Film Review
Heavy on oppressively humid atmosphere and light on originality, the film is a mostly forgettable genre exercise whose viewers won't miss much by watching at home. The Bottom Line 'Misery'-lite ...
'Spell' Movie Review— 'Misery' Meets Hoodoo in So-So Horror Thriller
Rated R for horror violence and some language. From Paramount Players, Spell is available on digital platforms and in available theaters Oct. 30. Gripping themes and a terrific Loretta Devine ...
Spell (2020)
I think the negative reviews for Spell are far too critical when it's a decent horror. Most people mention Misery, a film made decades ago, 1 film! If a horror films success is based on past themes then new zombies, vampires, films etc just shouldn't bother trying according to those reviewers. This film fills all the horror criteria, it made me ...
Spell
Jan 5, 2021. Welcome back to the New Year horror edition of Stream to Big Screen. This week we were able to watch, Spell, which is about a man whose plane crash lands in rural area of Appalachia and awakens in the attic of a traditional Hoodoo practitioner. We watch as he tries to break free in order to find his family in the wreckage and avoid ...
Spell review
Benjamin Lee. I n Halloween hoodoo horror Spell, protagonist Marquis is trying to escape a past of violence and poverty, a dogged struggle mirroring that of the film's makers simultaneously ...
Spell (film)
Spell. (film) Spell is a 2020 American supernatural black horror thriller film directed by Mark Tonderai and starring Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine. It was released in the United States through digital on October 30, 2020 by Paramount Pictures via Paramount Players .
Spell (2020), Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine, (Horror Movie Review)
Loretta Devine gives a career-defining turn as the menacing grandma Eloise while John Beasley cracked me up as her bickering husband Earl. SPELL is tense, at times strangely funny, and a bit bad ...
Spell Movie Review
Parents need to know that Spell is a horror film that centers on a man named Marquis (Omari Hardwick), who must escape from rootworker Eloise (Loretta Devine) before he's used in a voodoo blood moon ritual.He uses his buried childhood memories to battle against her magical tactics. Expect plenty of gore and disgusting moments, including a character removing a large nail from his foot, and then ...
Spell Review: A Gorgeous B Horror Movie With Bad Class Politics
Screenshot: Paramount. Paramount Pictures' Spell— from director Mark Tonderai—is a film that sets out to exist in a number of emotional spaces while terrifying you with a story about how ...
'Spell' Hulu Review: Stream It Or Skip It?
Our Take: Spell indulges in a number of horror movie tropes from the jump; big city people head to a small town, small town folk warn the city people about the danger ahead, city people ignore the ...
Review: 'Spell' (2020), starring Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine
Unfortunately, this theme, which could have made "Spell" a more interesting film, is squandered and buried in order to go to down yet another predictable and gory horror path. Even the suspenseful scenes are badly handled with plot holes that ruin any credibility that "Spell" hoped to have. Directed by Mark Tonderai and written by Kurt ...
‎Spell (2020) directed by Mark Tonderai • Reviews, film
Spell is a horror-thriller film about a man who got separated from his family after a plane crash in Appalachia and held captive by a Hoodoo witch. The film felt like a more gore remake of Misery (1990) with a black cast and it's disheartening to see that the cast were put into a formulaic, run-of-the-mill Appalachian horror, as I think that ...
Spell (2020)
SPELL (2020) Separated from his family following a plane crash, a man finds himself imprisoned by the matriarch of a rural hoodoo cult. "Spell" chooses some weird ways to introduce characters who are supposed to be 'the good guys.'. In the first two minutes, Marquis gets playful with his wife Veora when she somehow locks herself in a ...
Spell Review: Hoodoo Horror That Falls Just Short Of Great
Omari Hardwick and Loretta Divine star in Spell, a fun but flawed horror film that takes full advantage of its spooky atmosphere even if it could have gone farther in its third act. November 2, 2020. Written By Corbin Shanklin. Spell is a horror movie from director Mark Tonderai ( Gotham, Black Lightning, Locke & Key) and starring Omari Hardwick.
REVIEW: Spell Has Impressive Moments But Ultimately Falls Short
Spell Has Impressive Moments But Ultimately Falls Short. Essentially Misery with Hoodoo, Spell works on many levels and features strong performances, but ultimately feels rushed and underdeveloped. Hoodoo is a topic that is rarely touched upon in horror movies made by major studios, and it's one of the elements that makes Spell so interesting ...
Spell (2020)
This is my review of the movie, Spell, the new supernatural horror film starring Omari Hardwick as a family man forced to confront his childhood fears after ...
Movie Review
Spell, 2020. Directed by Mark Tonderai. Starring Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine, Lorraine Burroughs, Hannah Gonera, and John Beasley. SYNOPSIS: While flying to his father's funeral in rural ...
10 Great Horror Movies Like Scream (And How To Watch Them)
The original Scream isn't only one of the best horror movies of all time, its success also fueled multiple sequels, an MTV series, and - given the $138 million box-office haul made by the 2022 ...
The Absolute Best Horror Movies on Hulu
Hulu is home to body horror film Crimes of the Future (2022) and satire The Menu (2022). There's also action flick Shadow in the Cloud (2020), spine-chilling sci-fi Alien (1979) and romance-gone ...

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‘Spell’ Review: A Conventional Hexing Horror in the Hills of Kentucky

Dennis Harvey

Reviewed online, San Francisco, Oct. 26, 2020. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 91 MIN.

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