Day Sixty-Seven: The Witches of Eastwick

THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK

Starring:
-Jack Nicholson
-Cher
-Susan Sarandon
-Michelle Pfeiffer

Directed by: George Miller

Screenplay Credits: Michael Cristofer

MPAA Rating: R

Alex (Cher), Sukie (Pfieffer), and Jane (Sarandon) are BFFs in the tiny town of Eastwick. Alex’s husband is dead and she has one daughter, whom we rarely (if ever) see. Alex is an artist who makes strange looking pottery women. Sukie has like six kids. This is the reason her husband left her. She works as a columnist for the local newspaper. Jane gives music lessons, plays with a small symphony, and is a total nerd. We learn that her husband left her for several reasons, one of which is that they had no children.

Jane’s divorce has been finalized and the three friends gather to drink and chat about their lives. The women briefly discuss the fact that strange things happen to them when they are all together and thinking similar thoughts. One woman suspects that they somehow caused a huge thunderstorm to appear so they could leave a boring speech. Eventually, the women begin to dream up the perfect man, agreeing that he should be a stranger who, while not necessarily handsome, is incredibly charismatic.

Soon after, one such stranger (Nicholson) moves to town. I don’t want to alarm anybody, but he’s the Devil and he’s looking for some women to iron his shirts and have his babies. He knows he’s found them in Jane, Sukie, and Alex.

The gals start spending a lot of time with Daryl van Horne in his enormous mansion. Daryl subtly helps them fine-tune their powers. Small town politics threaten their idyllic new family life as the women are called out for tramping around in the mansion. Daryl casts a spell on local busybody Felicia, causing her to spit up cherry pits until she becomes totally possessed. Felicia’s husband freaks out and beats her to death with a poker.

When the women learn that their romantic entanglements with Daryl have a very serious dark side, they all agree to cut him off immediately. Daryl is furious and takes it out on each of them by plaguing them with their worst fears. The women give in to Daryl to make him reverse his spells on them. He does and they all spend the night together.

The next day they create a voodoo doll in Daryl’s image and torture him as he runs errands in town with his butler. He returns to the mansion to stop them, but Jane drops the doll and it breaks into three pieces. The doll bursts into flames and so does Daryl.

We fast-forward eighteen months later to find three babies (one with blond hair, another with red, and yet another darker-skinned “gypsies, tramps, and thieves” style baby we can only assume came from Cher) toddling around together. The three women and their combined brood of children has moved into Daryl’s mansion and are living happily ever after.


There is entirely too much vomiting in this movie. This is probably an exaggeration, but it feels like one you get about twenty minutes into the film, everybody starts gagging and vomiting ALL THE TIME. You can come at me with your intestines hanging out of your body and I’ll be okay; but throw up in front of me, and I’m a goner. I’m a sympathy vomiter. If I see you puke, my first response is to join right in and I absolutely hate it.

If the worst thing in this film is the vomiting, then surely the best thing is Nicholson’s performance. It’s always bizarre, occasionally hilarious, and consistently interesting. He’s so charming that you want to be his buddy, too. Then again he’s got an unnerving sadistic streak that makes you shudder.

At the end of the day, I think I prefer the movie to the novel, even though this has never been my favorite supernatural story.


FINAL GRADE: B

Off in search of Daryl,

M.