Marquis T. Woods (Omari Hardwick) and his wife have two teenagers in the city. With news of his estranged father's death, he is reluctant to return to his rural roots even for the funeral. He reluctantly takes his family there for the first time. He's flying a small plane into the Kentucky hills when a sudden storm brings them down. He wakes up under the care of elderly couple Eloise (Loretta Devine) and Earl (John Beasley). They claim that they found him alone in the crashed plane.
This is basically a black Misery with voodoo. It's mostly fine. I would not have him escape as much. The spike is an interesting touch. I want the rest of the family to fight more during the climax. All in all, it's an inferior horror but it's still fine.
Spell
2020
Action / Horror / Thriller
Spell
2020
Action / Horror / Thriller
Keywords: escapecultprisonerbackwoodsplane crash
Plot summary
While flying to his father's funeral in rural Appalachia, an intense storm causes Marquis (Omari Hardwick) to lose control of the plane carrying him and his family. He awakens wounded, alone and trapped in Ms. Eloise's (Loretta Devine) attic, who claims she can nurse him back to health with the Boogity, a Hoodoo figure she has made from his blood and skin. Unable to call for help, Marquis desperately tries to outwit and break free from her dark magic and save his family from a sinister ritual before the rise of the blood moon.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU 720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
black Misery
Not bad
SPELL is essentially a modern blaxploitation horror movie clearly indebted to GET OUT, yet with enough originality to work for and by itself. It suffers from an obvious low budget and from being an essential single location movie for most of the running time, but other than that it works fairly well. The cast give fun and dedicated performances and there's a sinister kind of feel to it, much like in the similar MA. Plus I'm always a sucker for voodoo, which we don't see enough of in the movies.
Good old fashioned country magic...
Well, "Spell" from writer Kurt Wimmer and director Mark Tonderai actually turned out to be a not so bad movie. Granted, I didn't really have much of any expectations for the movie when I sat down to watch it, so the writer and director had every chance to impress me.
And I will say that I found that "Spell" was entertaining and enjoyable - at least for a single viewing. I am saying that because I don't feel that "Spell" is a movie that has enough contents to its storyline to actually support more than a single viewing. And why is that? Well, because the movie just wasn't all that original or innovative.
The storyline played out well enough and there were some interesting ups and downs along the way. The director managed to keep me in enough suspense to keep the movie afloat and interesting. But alas, once you've seen the movie the first time, there just is nothing to surprise you, and thus the movie is inadequately equipped for a second viewing.
As for the acting in "Spell", well I will say that they had some good actors and actresses on the cast list, with the likes of Loretta Devine and John Beasley. And lead actor Omari Hardwick actually carried the movie quite well. I was, though, quite impressed with Loretta Devine's performance, because she definitely was well-cast for this movie.
"Spell" is listed as a horror / thriller. To that I would say you should expect more of a thriller than a horror movie when you sit down to watch it.
My rating of "Spell" is a six out of ten stars. The movie is definitely well worth taking the time to sit down and watch. The ending of the movie, though, well that was rather anti-climatic, but I am not going to be spoiling it for you.