Spellbinder: Ein teuflischer Plan

If you liked "The Wicker Man", you'll love this tale of attraction, seduction and ultimate deception. By now, the "twist" ending won't even seem new to most horror/suspense fans, having seen something similar so many times before. It is nicely done, however, and there may still be a few people who are knocked off the couch when it happens. The old cliché "be careful what you wish for" has never been more apropos than in this story's case, and SPELLBINDER for its time was a lot better than most DTV movies had a right to be. Solid performances by all definitely help along a better-than-average script, and watch for that truly frightening performance by, of all people, AUDRA LINDLEY, (Mrs. Roper from THREE'S COMPANY and its spin off, THE ROPERS, for those of you too young to know or remember.) This one is long overdue for a nice, crisp DVD release, or even a remake!

I really enjoyed Spellbinder! It's a good mix of Thriller, Suspense, Horror, Witchcraft with a plot twist at the end that was unexpected the first time I viewed it. Spellbinder has a great cast, including Timothy Daly (Wings), Kelly Preston (Mrs. John Travolta), Rick Rossovich (Top Gun), and Audra Lindley (Mrs. Roper from 3's Company). It's definitely worth the rental price if you like horror and thriller movies. :) As of today (May 7, 2001) it looks like this title is not currently available on VHS or DVD (what a shame!)

Around the late 1980s, the ailing MGM studios made or acquired a number of movies that they didn't give much of (if any) a theatrical release. This pickup is one of them, and it's pretty easy to see why for several reasons. It's a pretty flat-looking movie for one thing - while it has elements that got it an "R" rating, aside from those elements the movie feels like it was made for television. The script has a number of problems as well. It does have an ending that is somewhat expected (though is somewhat hard to swallow when you think back of every event that happened before it), but most of the movie is a bunch of boring chat. Worse of all, actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is wasted, given only three or so brief scenes. A movie so unremarkable for the most part, one has to wonder why it was thought to be worth making.

Some of the commentators have ragged on this movie for it being predictable, and some parts of it are, but some parts of the ending really surprised me. Again, I saw this movie originally when I was about 19, so maybe what would be obvious now weren't so obvious to me back then. Anway, given the context of the late 80ies when Spellbinder was made there was all this talk about Satanism, most of which later proved to be just urban legend type of stuff, probably made the movie for me a little more spooky in the 80ies then say if someone just randomly saw it now. Anyways, the movie I thought had a pretty cool plot that had some surprises, the acting was good, Kelly Preston was hot, and the movie freaked me out a little back in the day, so I'm giving the movie 8 out 10 stars. I haven't found it on DVD yet, if I did I would buy it and add it to my collection.

A cool terror movie, that will leave you on your toes on the final moments and make you astonished at the amazing plot twist at the end. Ok, it's not a movie I'd be looking for, but if you can catch it on tube it's pretty entertaining and will give you subject for a few good conversations on plot twists.