A well-intentioned attempt at made-for-cable social commentary, WITCH HUNT shapes a generic whodunit to fit an allegory fashioned from the film's own title, delivering a mildly engaging drama that fails utterly to provide any new insights about the McCarthy era. The film's success--to the
extent that it succeeds -- is due mainly to the archly matter-of-fact special effects required to create a world of white-bread witchcraft.
The year is 1953, and to most people, magic is just one among a host of space-age tools that can be employed to make life easier. But to Senator Larson Crockett (Eric Bogosian) and a growing number of followers, the pervasiveness of witchcraft signals something far more sinister: moral decay; a
threat to the integrity of the family; and the eventual collapse of the American way of life.
Against this backdrop, private investigator H. Phillip Lovecraft (Dennis Hopper) is hired by starlet Kim Hudson (Penelope Ann Miller) to document the casting-couch activities of her infidelitous spouse, producer M.J. Gotlieb (Alan Rosenberg). The assignment becomes a murder investigation when
Gotlieb is killed by sorcerous means.
As Lovecraft pursues the murderer, he finds himself face to face with his old nemesis, a master of the black arts and self-styled "security consultant" named Finn Macha (Julian Sands). Macha sneers at Lovecraft's refusal to use magic on his own behalf, but Lovecraft insists he would rather remain
a "purist." Lovecraft enlists the aid of witches, including Hypolita Kropotkin (Sheryl Lee Ralph), a state-licensed practitioner of magic with whom the detective shares office space.
The investigation is briefly interrupted when Hudson is called to testify before Senator Crockett's subcommittee. Under Crockett's coercive questioning, Hudson names Kropotkin as a witch and implicates her in Gotlieb's murder, and Kropotkin is sentenced to burn at the stake. Crockett, however,
makes the mistake of double-crossing Macha, who retaliates by hexing Crockett into a humiliating public self-disclosure.
In a resolution that neatly tucks away every loose end, Macha lures Lovecraft back to the scene of the crime. The murder is graphically replayed, and Lovecraft is forced into a final confrontation with Macha--and with his own "purist" beliefs.
WITCH HUNT sticks so resolutely to the literal witch-hunt metaphor that maintaining the parallel becomes an end in itself. Director Paul Schrader seems, in fact, to have become so enamored of his reinvented Tinseltown that he forgets what he was doing there in the first place.
The special effects, while not extraordinary in themselves, are employed in an effortless, offhand manner that lends credence to the film's otherwise awkward premise.
Judged solely on its entertainment value, the film fares well. We are treated to a number of satisfying comic touches. In one scene, a thoroughly confused William Shakespeare is transported into the 20th century to provide "additional dialogue" for a cheesy B movie. In another, Bogosian does a
fiendishly accurate impression of Jim Morrison. Best of all is the opening "newsreel," which is nearly good enough to justify the remainder of the film.
WITCH HUNT does not require us to think too deeply, about Joseph McCarthy or anything else, but ultimately it manages to work--if only at the level of a well-crafted cartoon.(Violence, extensive nudity, adult situations.) leave a comment