Four chatty, middle-aged, middle-class women meet in an average-looking home in an average-looking suburb--and begin an occult ritual. Yes, they're witches, who prepare their bubbling cauldron in a microwave oven. But this clever opening sequence gives away virtually all the surprises in
BLACK MAGIC WOMAN, making the erotic horror-thriller plot wholly futile.
Stylish gallery owner Brad Travis (Mark Hamill) can't keep his eyes off the ladies despite the pleadings of longstanding girlfriend Diane Abbott (Amanda Wyss). "Selling art demands a certain sexuality," he explains. Naturally it's lust at first sight when Brad spies Cassandra Perry (Apollonia), a
voluptuous beauty with an interest in lucky charms and talismans. Brad and Cassandra become lovers, but she departs furiously when Brad resists dumping Diane. Subsequently Brad suffers attacks from phantom snakes, bizarre acts of vandalism, murder among his friends, and a mysterious ailment that
weakens his body and mind. His housekeeper deduces that he's been cursed. Did Cassandra put the hex on our hero? Of course not; she wasn't among the coven shown at the beginning, and director Deryn Warren clinches the matter by intercutting between Brad's brutal torment and one of the matronly
witches warming up the gris gris. It doesn't take a crystal ball to figure out who she is and why she's doing the hoodoo that she does so well.
Apollonia has more curves than a cloverleaf highway, but is relatively restrained in her sexpot role. In fact, despite lots of steamy lovemaking, the most graphic nude scenes in BLACK MAGIC WOMAN are those baring the voyeuristic artwork in Brad's gallery (sculptures by Sigmund de Tonancour,
paintings by Georgess Yepes). STAR WARS veteran Mark Hamill can't do much with the shallow role of Brad, at least not until the curse infects him. He then invests a few moments with a genuinely disturbing edge as the dapper art dealer declines into sweaty psychosis. An examining doctor declares
that Brad has some sort of malady supressing his immune system, but the potential for an AIDS metaphor is not realized. Perhaps the only really memorable aspect of the film is that the snakes were supplied by a Van Nuys outfit known as Slither City. BLACK MAGIC WOMAN materialized briefly in select
theaters before the inevitable home-video release. (Violence, substance abuse, profanity, sexual situations, nudity.) leave a comment
