Film Review: LITTLE WITCHES (1996, Jane Simpson)

Stars: 1 of 5.
Running Time: 90 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Mimi Rose, Jennifer Rubin (HELLRAISER, SCREAMERS), Sheeri Rappaport, Clea Duvall (THE FACULTY, GIRL INTERRUPTED), Jack Nance (ERASERHEAD, BARFLY), and Zelda Rubinstein (POLTERGIEST, TEEN WITCH).
Tag-line: "Forgive Me Father, For I Am Sin!"
Best one-liner: A girl exits the confessional: "What did she do?" –"What didn't she do!"

Even at 3:00 AM, under the shameful cover of darkness and sleep deprivation, LITTLE WITCHES was not a good idea. It's by Apix Entertainment, that bastion of low-budg skin flickery that brought us SCORNED and SCORNED 2, and let me tell you, these guys make Full Moon look like Janus Films.

A-pix? Like A-pics? Like "the first, superior film at a double feature?"

A hideously misguided, quasi-softcore rip-off of THE CRAFT, it's written by men but directed by a woman (Jane Simpson, sort of a latter-day Doris Wishman?). I often ill-advisedly brave these bottom of the barrel VHS classicks, but rarely do they result in such palpable discomfiture and near constant thumbings of the fast forward button. Why did I see this movie? Well, I saw David Lynch crony and lovable madman Jack Nance listed in the cast, I knew it featured eccentric horror legend and character actress extraordinaire Zelda Rubinstein, and, what can I say- I'm a sucker for a tag-line as ludicrous as "Forgive Me Father, For I Am Sin!" But the fact of the matter is that the quality index is skewed, and the film is absolutely lifeless. Even the "Oh my God naked Catholic schoolgirls!" demographic has got to be finding this duller than the most interminable and pandering of homilies. Which raises the point that perhaps it was created by Catholics, for wayward Catholics so that they'd find 'temptation,' as it were, to be more even more banal than the most torpid of masses.

Sure, there's scenes of Jack Nance taking confession and muttering "I want you to spend seven minutes contemplating the immensity of God,"

and that's all fine and good, but then it's followed by some sort of immensely awkward schoolgirl stripping sequence set to Mr. Jones and the Previous' "Who's Gonna Make it Rain?," a extended setpiece that's mechanical, graceless, and strangely corporate, despite the Troma-level budget.

The banality of sin?

Anyway, then Clea Duvall shows up and begins to really act in the midst of a lot of eyebrow-indicating and curious enunciations- apparently working under the assumption that she's appearing in an actual movie.

Zelda Rubinstein briefly materializes, phoning in the sort of mystical routine that had made her so well-known amongst genre enthusiasts. I mean, when Zelda Rubinstein (she who made an exceptionally sincere appearance in TEEN WITCH) is phoning it in, you've got some fundamental problems. (EDIT- pun not intentional.)

Long after I had lost all interest entirely and begun intermittently fast-forwarding, one image gave me pause: Jack Nance in fishing gear, as previously seen on TWIN PEAKS.

They even duplicate the gag where he keeps his bait and fishing materials in the kitchen (á la "There's a ffffffish in the perrrrrcolator.") I stuck around for his death scene (which included the line "Don't blaspheeeeeeeeme!"), but after that there was really no reason to stick around. I am a man of principals, however, so I fast-forwarded to the end, spying a sad-looking rubbery Satan, some naked black sabbath undulations, and an "Oh boy just when you thought it was over, gues what- it ain't!" ending. Whew. I don't know what I expected, but I guess I expected something slightly better than this. One star.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: POLTERGEIST (1982, Tobe Hooper & Steven Spielberg)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 114 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Craig T. Nelson (ACTION JACKSON, COACH), Heather O'Rourke, JoBeth Williams (THE DOGS OF WAR, STOP OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT), Beatrice Straight (won an Oscar for NETWORK), James Karen (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, MULHOLLAND DR., THE WILLIES), Sonny Landham (SOUTHERN COMFORT, PREDATOR, FLESHBURN), Zelda Rubinstein (TEEN WITCH). Music by Jerry Goldsmith. Written and produced by Steven Spielberg. Additional writers: Michael Grais and Mark Victor (DEATH HUNT, COOL WORLD, POLTERGEIST II).
Tag-line: "They're here."
Best one-liner: "Y'all mind hanging back? You're jamming my frequency."

I'm not here to argue about who actually did the bulk of the direction on this film (do a comparison with Hooper's Golan-Globus follow-up, LIFEFORCE, if you want to see what I think), but I think we can all agree that Spielberg was at the top of his game when he was peddling awesome, playfully morbid, PG-rated kiddie horror (from GREMLINS to TEMPLE OF DOOM). (See my TEMPLE OF DOOM review for a more in-depth discussion on the topic.) Largely inspired by the seminal TWILIGHT ZONE episode "Little Girl Lost," Spielberg proceeds to raise the stakes (and the steaks!) to the most ludicrously entertaining, technically innovative (the pre-CGI ingenuity of matte paintings, trick photography, and miniatures) point of spectral mayhem possible- ending up with basically THE definitive 'haunted house' film. Most horror films have 'that one scene' that they're remembered for. POLTERGEIST is a goddamned smorgasbord of ghostly delights: the clown, the tree, the chairs, the TV, the flesh-rippin', the pool... take your pick! The details are as exquisite as the main setpieces: a wind-up robot cackles in perverse amusement; a record plays itself in mid-air, a schoolboy's compass is the needle:

or a feathery skeleton-beast which could be 'THE monster' in any other movie, but which seems almost like a background detail in the no-holds-barred, chaotic finale:


The Freeling family is believable, likable, and engaging.

The scene of JoBeth Williams casually smoking pot (something that would never happen in a film today, unless it was being played for laffs) and Craig T. Nelson reading his Reagan book

is the perfect introduction to both their playful, private sphere and their stern, public façade. The reins of the nation were now ostensibly in the hands of meticulously contrived spokesmodel- the rest of the country had better maintain appearances, too. Forget the poltergeists for a minute, people– "It's morning in America again." Note the secrecy and embarrassment with which the family covers up its "problems at home." They should be feeling shame. They are no longer model residents of Cuesta Verde. It's one of Spielberg's more astute observations on the American family unit (Hooper's influence? Remember "The saw is family?"), and a certain, rare, non-gag-worthy morality emerges. When Carol Anne's bird "Tweety" dies, the bird is afforded a certain childlike dignity in its cigar-box burial. Of course, later, when James Karen's corporate douche reveals ("Oh, don't worry about it. After all, it's not ancient tribal burial ground. It's just... people. Besides, we have done it before.") his stance, we begin to see the general shift in basic human decency which that new morning in America was trying to obfuscate, I suppose.


Regardless, Tweety's funeral is crosscut with a group of hot-blooded men cheering on a football game.


Perhaps the spirits observed the value the living placed on this glowing electronic altar and for that reason chose to use it as a point of contact? Ha!

The supporting roles are solid, as well- Beatrice Straight's "if Joan Crawford were nice" grandmotherly expert, Sonny Landham's (!) bit part as a lascivious construction worker, Zelda Rubinstein's eerily wacky medium:

and James Karen's affably creepy land developer (who exudes eventual brow-furrowing 'what have I done?!' intensity):


James Karen: one of genre cinema's great unsung heroes.

Five stars.

-Sean Gill