Dead Hot: Season of the Witch

What did I watch? Women who are hitting middle age acting like high school girls as they discover witchcraft. So where do they go for training and ghost hunting? Why, the biggest tourist attraction in the world! Salem, MA! And they spend an entire week training!

Any pagan went through the baby witch phase, but most a good bit younger than Vanessa and GG. But they seem to not be more evolved than teenagers.

Ladies, if you can't follow the directions to bake Toll House cookies, your would be really amusing to watch trying to cast spells. Learn to follow a recipe first.

Yes, this is a disaster. The viewer gets no information about paganism, or even about ghost hunting. There is no rational side offered either. Oh, voices in the basement of a liquor store? Is there a basement of another building adjacent to the store, with voices carrying through the pipes? Hearing people on the street, or upstairs? Nah, it has to be ghosts.

It is amusing to watch these two scare themselves, so they should have just gone with that angle. Instead, we get style over any modicum of substance.

Imagine two grown women who have the combined IQ of a single schoolgirl. Imagine a string of failed relationships. Imagine an unhealthy interest in wicca and witchcraft because it's a safe-space and its somehow cool to tap into potentially malevolent forces.

Take these ingredients and send Vanessa Hudgens and Georgia Magree down to Salem to do some ghost-hunting. Add in various colorful Salem residents, let the pot boil for 98 (long) minutes and watch these two gullible characters become reborn and reinvigorated thanks to the accommodating business-people of Salem (who in no way profited with Ouija Board tuitions, book sales, wine sales, spiritual guidance, etc).

Watch two grown women bake cookies and over-share about how broken they are whilst dressing like they're 16. It's a truly inspiring tale that grinds The Patriarchy into the dirt and cannot be described as self-publicizing fluff for a Z-list actress and an obscure Australian-DJ.

Look out for the sequel next year where they set up a coven in LA where hi-jinks are aplenty.

If there's no Oscar nod next year for this masterpiece, I'm going to demand answers.

It's more about looking cute in goth attire than showing respect to spirits of any kind. High school slumber party where they hold fake seances and light as a feather stiff as a board comes to mind. The young women are lovely and engaging, but perhaps they watched The Craft one too many times. The history of the place and tours of the old buildings were informative and interesting, and the viewer is introduced to people genuinely involved in the study of spiritual matters like communication with the dead and witchcraft. And, as has become the norm in paranormal shows, they forget that those who died as a result of the Salem trials were not practicing witches.

The entire time I watched this movie, I assumed Hudgens was in her late teens or that the movie came out 15 years ago. The more I watched her disturbingly childish behavior, and the more I started to put together in my mind the fact that it's been decades since those High School Musical movies came out, the more I realized that I was watching a 35 year old woman with the demeanor of a 13 year old child. That is the really scary thing about this movie, not the ghost hunting part. I have friends her age who have teenage children in junior high who behave more maturely than her. At one point in the movie she complains how people only acknowledge her role in HSM. Perhaps if she grew up and acted like an adult she might get cast as an adult in something.

This is sooooooo dumb and my question is why? Vanessa huges shame on you - why? I just saw this and thought to myself - is she become irrelevant to firce her to do this? Oh my goodness WHAT A DUMB WASTE OF TIME! I like VH No more Shame on you to show your true colors and just become dumb.

This is sooooooo dumb and my question is why? Vanessa huges shame on you - why? I just saw this and thought to myself - is she become irrelevant to firce her to do this? Oh my goodness WHAT A DUMB WASTE OF TIME! I like VH No more Shame on you to show your true colors and just become dumb - urgh Hollywood trasg.