Managed to get one last one in for October 2020. And this one is rather perfect for this week.
This one was released to much fanfare online on Wednesday.
The movie begins with three witches, Lourdes (Zoey Luna), Franky (Gideon Adlon), and Tabby (Lovie Simone) trying to get their magic to work. They lament the lack of their "fourth."
Enter Lily (newcomer Cailee Spaeny) and her mother Helen (the always wonderful Michelle Monaghan) moving to a new town and home to live with Helen's new boyfriend Adam (David Duchovny) and his three sons.
From here the movie follows the same trajectory as the first Craft movie. This is not an accident, nor is it sloppy writing. There are a lot callbacks to the previous movie and a lot of nods. When this movie comes to the point of climax of the previous movie it takes a turn.
Spoilers follow.
The coven turns against Lily, not because they are abusing their power, but because she is. They blame her for the death of Timmy. So the other members of the coven bind her and all of their powers.
Before Timmy's funeral, Lily learns that she was adopted and she begins to suspect that Adam is not what he says he is. We learn that Adam is some sort of warlock himself. He takes on Helen's form to get Lily to give him her powers. When she refuses he decides to kill her. While fighting she manages to freeze him revealing her powers were back and the other members of her coven were there. Together they all manage to subdue and then eliminate Adam.
The coven reconstituted Lily is taken to an institute to meet her biological mother, Nancy Downs from the first movie. Yes, Fairuza Balk makes a cameo as Nancy.
So. Yeah not quite as scary as the first, but it also keeps it open for future sequels. There is the question of Adam and what he was doing all over the world. There was certainly a vibe of "Warlocks vs. Witches" implied here. I was expecting more horror given this is a Blumehouse flick.
In truth, I rather enjoyed it even with its lack of real horror. Nice nod to the first while moving ahead on its own path.
NIGHT SHIFT Content: My NIGHT SHIFT co-author Jason Vey also watched this movie a couple of days ago and agrees it would make for a very fun NIGHT SHIFT setting. So expect to see some more from either or both of us on this.
New: 41
And that is it. Another October Horror Challenge in the bag. 60 total movies, 41 new. I am already looking at the movies for next year.
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