Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Actress Kelly Preston is proof positive of what I’ve always said, this being that you can learn how to act but you really can’t learn how to be hot. Today we watch a lot of bad movies with a lot of hot actresses who can’t act their way out of a wet paper bag, but we let them slide. If they apply themselves they can figure out a large part of this whole acting thing but they ain’t gonna get no hotter. Of course true acting talent is a gift, but like anything else you can learn a lot if you give it some effort. In this movie ‘Spellbinder’ we observe a young, twenty six year old Kelly Preston who in all honesty wasn’t much of an actress back then, but good luck finding somebody hotter. Seriously, good luck. Today, now approaching fifty, Mrs. Travolta can still hold her own and on top of that she is a pretty decent actress to boot. Do we care that Kelly Preston wasn’t the second coming of Bette Davis in this completely run of the mill supernatural horror thriller ‘Spellbinder’? No we do not.

Our film opens with some good friends enjoying a spirited game of hoops, particularly one Jeff Mills (Tim Daly). None of these men, including Tim the Black Guy (James Louis Watkins), have anything resembling Game. Again to my previous point, I have no athletic gifts, but I have learned how to play basketball quite well. Upon leaving the gym Jeff and his boy Derek (Rick Rossovich) observe a woman getting slapped around by a weirdo. Jeff jumps into action and saves this poor woman, Derek gets sliced, and the weirdo (Anthony Crivello) issues a cryptic warning. When this woman rises and throws back her flaming red mane, revealing a face that has no scar despite the fact this face just got slapped silly, Jeff is done. Her name is Miranda Reed (Preston) and now she has no place to stay. How convenient that Jeff has a nearby home.

On top of being drop dead gorgeous Miranda likes the same music that Jeff likes, appreciates the same artwork that Jeff happens to own and she has mystical powers that can heal things like slipped disks. She has to take of her top to perform these

miracles for some reason… note that director Janet Greek is teasing us, not letting us see anything as of yet… but in time. Jeff allows this woman to stay at his house while he goes to his lawyer gig, with his friends fully expecting his home to be cleaned out by this woman when he returns, but the house spic and span, there’s food cooking and Miranda is wearing next to nothing. It is time to consummate this thing. I’m pretty sure the director had to yell CUT at least three times to get Tim Daly to relinquish Kelly Preston’s ass.

There’s a dinner party and all of Jeff’s friends love Miranda, Miranda loves all of the friends with the exception of Jeff’s secretary Grace (Diana Bellamy) who thinks the woman is bad news. What the hell does she know? She needs to be fired like immediately.

Then one day at work Jeff gets a visit from a rather wicked looking Mrs. Roper. She informs Jeff that her people want Miranda back. Then the weirdo we met earlier does vicious stuff to Jeff’s MG. On top of that, upon hearing that Mrs. Roper paid Jeff an unannounced a visit, Miranda busts the hell the out of there. A concerned cop (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) informs Jeff that Miranda belongs to a coven of devil worshipping witches but Jeff knows this can’t be because Miranda is hot and can cook and likes to clean. Eventually Miranda shows back up and she’s in trouble. She’s on the run and her clan wants her back into the fold to perform some kind of freaky devil stuff. This ritual requires a man to willingly go to the devil circle so they can forcibly remove his heart and eat it. Yeah. Miranda’s hot and all, but she’s not that damn hot. F**k that. By this point Jeff has seen what these people are capable of, leading me to the conclusion that Miranda’s cookie must be otherworldly because I’d have to let that go. Jeff however sees the woman inside and he’s going rescue her from the clutches of Mrs. Roper and the weirdo. Does that mean willingly going into the devil circle to pull her out? I’m not going it spoil it for you.

‘Spellbinder’ isn’t all that good but it is oddly watchable. Besides, you have to stay until the end to see Kelly Preston’s devil dance in the sheer white nightie. Arguably the best scene in any movie ever. Since impossibly hot chicks who can cook, clean, love sex and can heal with their mystical powers while proclaiming undying love to you don’t come along very often, there wasn’t much of a mystery here from my vantage point, but I did enjoy the way that director Janet Greek forced this story forward and did her damndest to hide her hand. What this movie really needed was some kind of dynamic lighting to help with the mood. I mean this is a Satan movie with lots of potentially eerie images but everything was so broadly lit across the board that it kind of just sapped away at the creepiness that was supposed to be there.

Unless, of course, the late Audra Lindley was in the scene. Man, Mrs. Roper did not need any kind of special lighting to be scary. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa too, but he wasn’t playing a scary dude in this movie, even though he was still giving me the heebie-jeebies.