SPELL (2020)

Studio:      Paramount Players
Director:    Mark Tonderai
Writer:      Kurt Wimmer
Producer:  Gordon Gray, Kurt Wimmer, Morris Chestnut, Brian Wilkins
Stars:     Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine, John Beasley, Lorraine Burroughs

Review Score:

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Summary:

Separated from his family following a plane crash, a man finds himself imprisoned by the matriarch of a rural hoodoo cult.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Upon receiving word that his estranged and abusive father died, attorney Marquis T. Woods flies back to rural Kentucky with his wife Veora and their teenage children Tydon and Samsara. After the family encounters a few odd locals at a fueling station in West Virginia, a storm causes Marquis to crash his small plane.

Marquis wakes with a severely lacerated foot to find himself imprisoned in a remote farmhouse’s attic. Hoodoo practitioner Eloise introduces her husband Earl and their mute servant Lewis. The couple claims Marquis was found alone and refuses his requests to go to a hospital or use a phone.

In addition to using powder that renders Marquis immobile, Eloise shows Marquis a personalized ‘boogity’ doll made from his blood, hair, nail clippings, and mud. Eloise assures Marquis she will use the doll to nurse him back to health.

During a rainstorm, Marquis sneaks out to spy Eloise hosting a revival gathering for loyal followers in her barn. Among other hoodoo healings performed, eyes cut out of a live cat enable a blind man to see Marquis before he sneaks back to his room.

Marquis realizes Eloise has been feeding him human flesh when he assembles leftover bones into a skeletal hand. Marquis vomits a strip of tattooed flesh he recognizes as belonging to Tydon.

Marquis attempts to escape, but is recaptured. This time, Marquis finds that Eloise hobbled him with a spike in his foot.

While Eloise, Earl, and Lewis are out, Marquis explores a cellar containing corpses in coffins as well as multiple boogity dolls. Marquis also finds a photo of Eloise, Earl, and Lewis from 1860. Marquis learns Eloise actually plans to steal his life to extend her own when he finds papers outlining a transference spell planned to take place during the upcoming blood moon.

Marquis recovers his son’s stolen cellphone. Marquis contacts the local sheriff, who arrives at the farm shortly thereafter.

Eloise uses the boogity doll to bind Marquis and take away his voice. Marquis still manages to make his way to the sheriff outside. However, the sheriff reveals he belongs to the hoodoo cult when he returns Marquis to Eloise.

Eloise hosts another revival during the blood moon. Veora, Tydon, and Samsara stand entranced behind Eloise. Eloise prepares to stab Marquis until he uses the spike from his foot to stab Earl instead. Eloise’s followers scatter in fright.

Marquis uses magic powder to reverse the spell on his family. Marquis kills the sheriff. Marquis puts Lewis’s boogity doll in a water basin, which causes Lewis to drown. Marquis then uses Eloise’s boogity doll and a salt line to trap Eloise inside a burning barn. Marquis gets past Eloise’s followers by threatening to destroy a box containing their boogity dolls. Marquis escapes with his family in the sheriff’s vehicle.

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Review:

“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 room in their home. Marquis uses the opportunity to pretend he’d rather leave his wife to wait three hours for a locksmith than smash a $1500 door. The movie uses the opportunity to showcase the man’s knack for jimmying things open, a Chekhov’s skill which will no doubt come in handy down the line given where the setup goes.

Just like that, we know Marquis likes to lovingly joke with his wife and he’s resourceful too. You’ve got to love it when a movie hands out two key pieces of information with one blunt moment before some viewers even settle into their seats.

That’s not what’s weird. What is weird is the next scene where Marquis, a black attorney, tells his white businessman boss he has no ethical issues with taking on lawyers in a class action lawsuit even though they represent “his people.” Playing hardball to get on the corporate guy’s good side is no problem for Marquis, even if he has to socially sell out to do so.

Wait, are we still supposed to support Marquis now that we know this? Hmmm. Maybe we’re not meant to like him entirely right off the bat. Maybe “Spell” wants to put down Point A in a redemption arc where Marquis will understand the errors of his inconsiderate ways by the time he reaches Point Z.

That turns out to be a long wait because, like a footnote about Marquis having been abused by his estranged father as a child, “Spell” moves away from thematic tones not long after all of this gets established. After laying this first act foundation, “Spell” sort of says, “forget it” and pivots onto new property where it just builds with plain suspense instead of employing anything related to subtext.

Before arriving there however, we also meet Marquis and Veora’s children Tydon and Samsara. They’re typical teens. Veora even laments them as “entitled jerks” after they intolerantly laugh at backwoods locals on their way through West Virginia to put Marquis’ dead father’s affairs in order in rural Kentucky. Again, if “Spell” wants us to be in this family’s corner, the filmmakers choose some pretty peculiar ways to present them.

They never matter much anyway once Marquis’ private plane crashes during a harrowing storm. Marquis recovers to find himself alone and imprisoned inside a remote farmhouse’s attic. Refusing requests for a phone or a doctor, Eloise explains she can nurse her captive guest back to health using unorthodox means. Eloise shows Marquis the “boogity” doll she made from his blood, nails, and mud. With this ominous effigy, Eloise can completely control Marquis. Escape won’t be easy. But Marquis will have to find a way out from under Eloise’s magic before her real plan for him comes to fruition.

Eloise’s husband Earl and mute manservant Lewis flank the hoodoo-practicing woman. Like Marquis’ family though, Earl and Lewis are just set dressing. Marquis and Eloise are the only two characters with any distinction. This pretty much sets up “Spell” as a voodoo-flavored take on “Misery” with Marquis and Eloise matching wits and wills at opposite ends of a tug-o-war.

“Spell” creates tension two ways. One is with a lot of creeping around where Marquis narrowly avoids getting caught while an audience theoretically squirms in anxious anticipation. Actual squirms come from the film’s second method of manufacturing reactions. Pain-packed sequences of pulling out spikes, jamming them back in, and other instances of bloody bodily harm are meant to make viewers suck in air through clenched teeth.

These tried-and-true tricks fleetingly function in the moment, although they only add up to a bare bones thriller without much else to it. Producers probably realized their best shot was to abandon any substantive character arcs or development depth and simply go all in on a breezy B-movie with factory-made frights at the forefront. That’s precisely what they got.

Honestly, there’s not a whole lot left to say. Hoodoo gives the underlying idea some uniqueness, even if the story itself is derivative. Acting is fine, even though the main role mostly requires Omari Hardwick to grimace, wince, shudder, and sweat. Neither impressive nor unimpressive, “Spell” simply “is,” not inspiring a strong reaction one way or another.

Review Score: 55

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