A sequel to the excellent "Cast a Deadly Spell", this movie has a larger budget (so gets pricier actors and much better effects), but is hobbled by its 'message', which is pounded into the audience through the last half of the movie with all the subtlety of a hobnail boot.
Hollywood, see, believes that there were never any commies in Hollywood, ever. Anyone who says so is nuts. They've built this mythology about themselves so completely that scripts like this get written. Here, Eric Bogosian - apparently believing himself to be channeling Robin Williams - shouts and oozes across the screen as the big evil hypocrite (who literally has the cool dude he hates/wants to be inside himself) making de-dam sure you understand that he is supposed to represent Joe McCarthy and anyone who thought like him, and they were evil, evil, evil, and evil. And also evil. And that anyone caught in their gaze was innocent precisely because they were under that gaze. If you don't get that, don't worry. It will be repeated in various forms for most of the movie. But once Bogosian is on the screen, you can mute the TV and go get a drink, because it'll be more of that. I suppose the movie's makers kept giggling to themselves about the subtlety of their story, in which 'commies' are substituted by 'witches' and 'magic' is 'communism' so well hidden that the audience will most certainly be enticed into learning more about history since this will tease their interest in the period. You betcha.
It's too bad, really, because there's another tough-guy private eye murder story (which might have been as good as the one in "Cast") trying very hard to get out, but is hammered back into the background whenever the message is needed to be paraded to the helpless audience. Alas. Hunt up "Cast a Deadly Spell" instead. Its better all around.
Hollywood, see, believes that there were never any commies in Hollywood, ever. Anyone who says so is nuts. They've built this mythology about themselves so completely that scripts like this get written. Here, Eric Bogosian - apparently believing himself to be channeling Robin Williams - shouts and oozes across the screen as the big evil hypocrite (who literally has the cool dude he hates/wants to be inside himself) making de-dam sure you understand that he is supposed to represent Joe McCarthy and anyone who thought like him, and they were evil, evil, evil, and evil. And also evil. And that anyone caught in their gaze was innocent precisely because they were under that gaze. If you don't get that, don't worry. It will be repeated in various forms for most of the movie. But once Bogosian is on the screen, you can mute the TV and go get a drink, because it'll be more of that. I suppose the movie's makers kept giggling to themselves about the subtlety of their story, in which 'commies' are substituted by 'witches' and 'magic' is 'communism' so well hidden that the audience will most certainly be enticed into learning more about history since this will tease their interest in the period. You betcha.
It's too bad, really, because there's another tough-guy private eye murder story (which might have been as good as the one in "Cast") trying very hard to get out, but is hammered back into the background whenever the message is needed to be paraded to the helpless audience. Alas. Hunt up "Cast a Deadly Spell" instead. Its better all around.