The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Simply A Masterpiece

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The Witches of Eastwick (1987) is one of my all time favorite movies. It stars Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jack Nicholson. This movie is a comedic fantasy. The plot surrounds three single women who are all lacking and somewhat depressed with the state of their lives. Their deeply held desires have been long repressed. One night, while they are all hanging out together, like they do every Thursday, they all wish for a certain kind of man to come into their lives. Soon after they all make this wish, Daryl VanHorn (Nicholson) comes into the small conservative town of Eastwick. He charms all of them with his ways and seduces them. They start seeing him at his mansion all the time, but when they start noticing certain things about him, they realize that maybe he isn't all he's cracked up to be. When they realize this, they start thinking of how to get him to go away. This is such a fun, energetic, well performed movie, you're guaranteed to have loads of fun with it. The actors do fabulous jobs with their roles, especially Nicholson. There are moments where I am blown away with the cast's acting abilities. And the writing is perfect because it has both it's very amusing comedic moments and its times of drama and seriousness. I understand this may not be everyone's cup of tea, but this really is a fabulously made film that I 100% recommend! 10/10 for The Witches of Eastwick!

Alex Medford (Cher) is a sculptor and a single mom. Jane Spofford (Susan Sarandon) is a cellist, music teacher, divorced and barren. Sukie Ridgemont (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a local columnist and alone with six daughters. The three single friends lament the lack of quality men and share their dream man wishes. Then the mysterious wild Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson) arrives with his manservant Fidel buying the Lennox Mansion which is suppose to be the site of witch burnings. He seduces the three women unleashing their inner power. Felicia Alden (Veronica Cartwright) is the religious wife of newspaper editor Clyde Alden (Richard Jenkins) who is Sukie's boss.Firstly, Jack Nicholson is perfectly cast for this role. The problem is that I hate this character. I find him annoying and really off-putting. He's not fun to watch. There is something more than simply evil that is grating on my nerves. It makes the movie hard to watch although the story is interesting. I just don't find it fun.

Alexandra, Jane and Sukie are three friends living in the historic New England small town of Eastwick. All three are single- Alexandra is a widow whereas Jane and Sukie are both divorced- and are looking for a new man, but seem unable to find anyone suitable. And, unknown to anyone, even the women themselves, all three are secretly witches. And then the tranquil life of Eastwick is turned upside down by the arrival in town of Daryl Van Horne. Van Horne is ostensibly a wealthy New Yorker, but in fact he is, quite literally, the Devil. When he describes himself as "just your average horny little devil" he is speaking more truth than anybody actually realises. He settles down in the town, buying an old mansion, and quickly makes the acquaintance of the three women. In fact, he does more than make their acquaintance. He manages to seduce all three and persuades them to live in a ménage-a-quatre in his luxurious mansion, an arrangement which provokes much scandalised gossip among the good citizens of Eastwick.Van Horne, however, is intent upon using the three for more than just his own sexual enjoyment. He also wants to tap in to their latent magical powers and to use these for his own ends. At first Alex, Jane and Sukie are happy to go along with what they see as an amusing game, but eventually they begin to suspect that he is manipulating them into abusing their powers for evil ends, especially after Felicia Alden, Van Horne's most vitriolic critic in the town, dies a mysterious death. The women realise that they will need to resist Van Horne and start to fight back against him.I was not particularly taken with the three female leads, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon, none of whom seemed very inspired. Jack Nicholson, however, seems to be gifted with the ability to give good performances even in otherwise run-of-the-mill films; "Terms of Endearment" is one such example, and this film is another. Nicholson has never been conventionally handsome, but he has the charisma needed for a role like Van Horne, playing him with a mixture of swagger and devilish charm and making him curiously attractive despite his satanic nature. The other notable acting contribution comes from Veronica Cartwright as Felicia. To her neighbours Felicia may seem like a crazed, superstitious religious fanatic, forever ranting about witchcraft, and yet she is the one person in the town perceptive enough to realise that what is going on at the Lennox Mansion is something far more sinister than mere sexual impropriety.The film's main weakness is its plot, which differs considerably from that of the John Updike novel on which it is supposedly based. It is a long time since I read the book, so will not pronounce on here as to which is better, but it struck me that the film starts off well but quickly goes downhill and by the time it reaches the ending is more or less nonsense. (This was a view shared by some critics; according to the "Washington Post" the second half "lost its magic and degenerated into bunk".) The scenes of Van Horne's arrival in town and his seduction of the women are well done, but after that the film seems to lose its way."The Witches of Eastwick" reminded me in a number of ways of "Death Becomes Her" from five years later. Both are black comedies with a supernatural theme. One positive feature they have in common is some decent acting. In "Death Becomes Her" this comes from Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn as the two feuding rivals, with a good supporting contribution from Bruce Willis as the man they feud over. Both, however, are heavily reliant upon special effects; indeed, I would say that they are over-reliant upon special effects to cover up an unsatisfactory story-line. And neither film has really stood the test of time; both seem much less fresh and interesting today than they would have done in 1987 or 1992. Yesterday's ground-breaking effects will inevitably start to look commonplace; yesterday's good story will remain a good story today and tomorrow. 6/10

When a devil's avatar inadvertently being summoned by a trinity of 3D women (Cher, dead- husbanded; Sarandon, divorced; Pfeiffer, deserted) in the Eastwick as the paragon of the man of their dreams (Nicholson, who would believe that?), this comedy-horror has reveled in its runaway pulp fondness, occasionally sprinkled with a few trashy SFX, but the overall consensus is that it could pamper to a certain female-skewed audience (who are zealous about woman's independence), but by and large it fails to conjure up a first-class piece of work and more regrettably the characters are really underwritten, a dream-team cast is squandered (Sarandon at least plausibly fares all right with a transformative presence, while Cher and Pfeiffer barely shine in their goofiness and tediousness). First billed in the film, Nicholson continues his lucky streak in horror-maniac breed since his emblematic creepiness in THE SHINING (1980), whose inexplicable sex appeal has never been fully expounded, yet, all three women plain fall for him all of a sudden (maybe this is love's magic attribute). Then the polygamy orgy doesn't last long since (again inexplicably), a local woman (Cartwright, who unbelievably gives the best performance of the film) has been possessed by the devil and does some sort of tele-simultaneous stunts (in a pretty disgusting manner) and slaughtered by her bleeding heart husband. So 3D women apparently are shocked and start to doubt the real identity of their ideal man, who on the other hand, feels being snubbed by them and discharges a fit of torment on them and eventually 3D women unanimously fight back and voodoo the devil and manage to dispel him, later on their live happily with their children (who are the devil's seeds) while the devil is incarcerated inside the multi-TV screens. My recount is as inconsequent as the film goes, but there are my guilty pleasure moments, e.g. the near-end of Nicholson being witched by his own tele-simultaneous tricks, but the blithe spell is too short to be pleased by. Anyway it is glad to see director George Miller (from MAD MAX franchise) has re-regulated his career orbit, now he is the one running the show of animations, the Oscar winning HAPPY FEET (2006, a 7/10) is under his belt, which I could not have foreseen from this film in any event.