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Jeff Mills (Tim Daly) is a likable, good looking nice guy lawyer in L.A. who's tired of the dating scene. He chances to meet a gal named Miranda Reed (gorgeous Kelly Preston) in a parking lot one night, and brings her home to his pad, soon striking up a relationship with her. Unfortunately, his impulsiveness turns out to be a bad mistake, as Miranda's past then catches up with them. It turns out that she was part of a witches' coven, and that they "want her back" because they need a human sacrifice for the winter solstice, which is coming up. Blinded by his love for her, he goes out of his way to try to keep her safe, and to deal with her scummy associates, including Aldys (big haired Anthony Crivello) and the deceptively cheery Mrs. White (Audra "Mrs. Roper" Lindley).

The solid supporting cast of nicely chosen actors also features Diana Bellamy as Jeffs' loyal (and intuitive) secretary Grace, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as somber faced police detective Lt. Lee (an expert in occult related crimes), Julian Christopher, Kyle T. Heffner, and the amiable Rick Rossovich as Jeffs' circle of friends, and the very amusing M.C. Gainey as lively survivalist Brock. Overall, the movie is nothing special in terms of presentation, with competent but undistinguished direction by Janet Greek, but it does have its moments (the best occurs when a bunch of mysterious people gather at a window), and isn't totally without atmosphere. The story, written by Tracy Torme (son of Mel), who went on to script one more feature ("Fire in the Sky") and work for television series ranging from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' to 'Sliders' to 'Carnivale', is pretty absorbing, and does have some effective twists near the end.

It's a good movie in general, and is worth a look for 80s horror fans who want to check out everything that the decade has to offer.

Seven out of 10.

Just seeing a 25-year-old Kelly Preston makes this movie worth watching, and, boy, do we get to see her.

Jeff (Tim Daly) apparently finds the girl of his dreams (Preston), and things are going great until her friends show up looking for her. She has a past that she hasn't explained.

Soon, they are battling a coven of witches that want her back. It all builds up to the night of the Winter Solstice.

The twist at the end caught me by surprise, and really made the movie.

You have to give props to writer Tracy Tormé, who really stacked some surprises in this film.

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.

Two young LA lawyers step in when a beautiful woman is beaten by her nasty boyfriend in an outdoor car park. One of the lawyers (Jeff, played by Timothy Daly) then offers shelter for Miranda (Kelly Preston), they instantly become lovers but both of their lives are in danger from a cult of Satanists. I have this on VHS, first watched it decades ago but enjoyed revisiting it. I would describe it as a combination of romance, thriller and horror. The late Kelly Preston looks totally bewitching and does strip off for a few love making scenes. Some reviewers and critics bemoan the plot as predictable, I disagree. I found the ending shocking but in a good way. Without giving too much away I was reminded of Rosemary's Baby and Race with the Devil in that Satanic cults can stretch deep within communities. Spellbinder is a moderate entry in the world of Satanic cinema but well worth a look.

I admit that I almost gave up on this movie at the 25 minute mark, but I decided to keep going. I'm glad I did, because shortly thereafter things started to pick up.

This one is just plain GOOD. Dramatic, played straight without camp. Acting, script, story--all on point. I planned on having this play in the background, but it pulled me in. It reminds me of movies like Wishmaster and Pumpkinhead, but I won't say more for fear of spoiling plot points.

Spellbinder is suspenseful, light on titillation, without gratuitous violence--granted, there is some nudity that is gratuitous, but honestly, par for the course in this genre. Plus it's Kelly Preston, who is stunningly beautiful so I'm not complaining.

I'm shocked more people don't talk about this one. So glad I gave it the time. If you have an attention span and you dig movies about satanists and witches, and have been known to enjoy the Twilight Zone, I think you'll dig this.

1-3 Avoid 4-6 Decent, enjoyable 7-9 Good, worth your time 10 outstanding.

Spellbinder is a movie that I didn't mind at all. It looks and feels like a cheap T.V movie, and that's essentially what it is, but it has a fair amount going for it. It's derivative of other films, but despite that, I still managed to have an OK time with it. Devil cult films started getting big around the 60's and 70's, but I highly doubt any of them had such a gorgeous female lead like Kelly Preston. This was before she was solidified as a star, so I highly doubt she'll look back fondly at this one. My only real problem with this one is that I figured out where this was going in 25-30 minutes into the movie. I knew how it was gonna all boil down. Predictability isn't always a bad thing. I'm just saying I knew where it was going to head. It delivers some decent suspense for a T.V film, though. Despite the predictability of the finale, it was still rather intense. I don't mind predictability at all if it manages to be effective. Kelly Preston is spellbinding herself. Her beauty is near untouchable, but she's also a very solid actress. Her unpredictable show is rather unheralded in my opinion. Tim Daly is OK, but he was pretty wooden at times. I didn't really buy him as the lead, but he was tolerable at least. Rick Rossovich is solid as per usual as the supporting friend. Audra Lindley is absolutely chilling. Let's just say she has one scene you won't soon forget.

Final Thoughts: Not bad for a low budget film. It's quite derivative, and doesn't feature many surprises, but I still had a decent time with it. If you manage to find it on V.H.S (It's not on DVD as far as I know) or on the net, I would give it a look.

5.5/10

The summary above may sound harsh, but after just recently re-checking this film out after many years of forgetting about it the first time around when it was initially released, I can not really be anything but honest.

Kelly Preston is (of course) beautiful, stunning, in fact, but her acting skills are just not really up to par for this title, and I don't think they ever truly improved a great deal from this either.

In saying that, this film has a few jump-scares (the "classic jump-scares, not these modern day fillers), which are rather effective, and I really love the dog and cat which are in the film, they're so cute!

Another fine thing about this film is it's soundtrack, in particular the instrumental piece by Tom Scott - "Siren's Song" which plays on the stereo system in Jeff's apartment when he first brings Miranda home. This is true 80's jazz influenced brilliance in all it's glory, and I wish I had a copy of the tune itself, but it is incredibly hard to track down (and I don't think included anywhere but within this film's soundtrack).

All in all, a 4 out of 10 is rather generous, but I do love the animals in this, and Kelly's beauty is a nice distraction from this otherwise cliché and very boring late 80's thriller.

A long time ago, more then 15 years I guess a friend of mine gave me a VHS with this movie on it. I was stunned. This movie really got me, in fact I started to search a decent version of the movie but I failed. No where I could find it. Then the internet appeared and again I searched for it, no luck in the states until some Australian send me an official version on a sub label of MGM. The circle was round, I had my copy. For me this movie is full of surprises and plot changes. It starts off with a guy making trouble with a girl, of course someone is helping the girl and from there on it starts going. The filming and the acting is excellent, it is strange when I'm talking to a lot of geeks out there that only 5% knows this movie. It isn't gory but the blood flows. And it has suspense and some creepy scene's. Even those bootleg sellers doesn't have copies of this underrated flick. And Kelly Preston stars in this movie, as did Tim Daly. But at the end of the day all I would say, get yourself a copy, only available in Australia.

Caught this one Sunday afternoon on TV. As I didn't see the beginning, I was curious to see what the movie was. I thought it ws a story about a woman who was going to be killed by her evil mother-in-law. It wasn't, but as it had supernatural events happening, I decided to stick with it. Well, the "spell" wore off quickly, and I began trying to guess what would happen next. And I did. Over and over again, right down to the ending, in which the characters' true natures were revealed to be exactly what I thought they would be. The movie is insipid, most of the "scary" parts are actually funny, and the ending is obvious even if it isn't happy. Unless you can't remember anything before two minutes ago, you'll be able to guess the ending too. If you're looking for a good horror movie don't bother with this one. It's not that spellbinding.

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.

The 80's were full of horror sequels that I really did not like for the most part. That was the first good thing about the movie I liked (before even viewing!). I still did not expect too much, just something to enjoy for 90 minutes. However, this was a well done movie and while I would not rate it at the level of Fatal Attraction (also a late 80's movie suspense movie), it was enjoyable and there were some very good performances. Tim Daly, Kelly Preston and Rick Rossovich all seemed right for their roles. It was Audra Lindley who had a very good performance and gave it that something extra it needed to be truly creepy and suspenseful. The setting is modern LA where Daly works and most of the occult scenes are set in coastal areas (possibly near Malibu) and occur in the evening. The ending is very well done, but I won't spoil it for you. Like most good suspense movies, watch this one with the lights out. Enjoy!

This film has the worst acting I have seen in a long while, particularly in the first 3/4 of the film. The actual film does pick up in the last quarter, with an interesting twist to the plot, that does not make much sense when you think about it. But I have a sneaking suspicion that you are not meant to think in this film, because if you do, you will see the numerous plot holes and one dimensional characters. Obviously the script writers could not decide or distinguish between satan worship and witchcraft, they are not one in the same like the film suggests. A pretty poor effort on all accounts.

i like this type of movies, and of its kind i think its realistic and has such a good drama, this movie about satanism and its not like other satanism movies that are a terrible mix-up crab that lack the sins of drama. but this one is different its decent also has a solid script and brings you the satanism picture in a real good way, it's has this clever satanism scheme and gives you an example of how they doing their things

its real entertainment to watch, i think its more thriller than horror.

here's a thing, couple years back i heard this story that literally match the story of this movie!!

a highly recommend this one, don't miss it.

This film essentially begins with a couple of lawyers named "Jeff Mills" (Tim Daly) and "Derek Clayton" (Rick Rossovich) walking to their cars late at night when they come upon a man named "Aldys" (Anthony Crivello) beating up a young woman. Rushing to her defense, Derek is slightly injured when the man pulls out a knife but the two of them eventually force him to back off and leave the woman alone. However, just before he departs, he tells Jeff that he will live to regret the fact that he interfered in his business. That being said, the woman then introduces herself as "Miranda Reed" (Kelly Preston) and, because she has nowhere else to go, Jeff invites her to stay at his apartment that night until she can figure out what she wants to do next. Although she gratefully accepts his offer, she warns him that Aldys is not a man to be taken lightly and that both of their lives are in great jeopardy. At first, Jeff dismisses her concerns but, as the two become romantically involved, he discovers that there is a more to her than meets the eye--and her warning is much more serious than he could ever realize. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this is one of those horror films that, for some reason or another, wasn't nearly as appreciated as it should have been. It had a good plot with some decent mystery and a rather wicked twist at the end that I didn't expect. Likewise, having a gorgeous actress like Kelly Preston certainly didn't hurt either. Be that as it may, I liked this particular film and I have rated it accordingly. Above average.

An unjustly neglected horror entry. Right from the start, it has the narrative pull of a good mystery; there are intriguing characters and one genuinely sensual sex scene. In the second half, it seems to be getting more ordinary, but then comes up with a stunning twist, worthy of an Agatha Christie. Overall, a well-acted, atmospherically directed, smart, creepy little thriller. (***)

Timothy Daly stars as Jeff Mills,a yuppie lawyer who begins a relationship with Miranda(Kelly Preston),a lovely young woman he meets when he rescues her from a parking lot quarrel with an abusive boyfriend.Turns out Miranda is an escapee from a witches' coven whose evil leader(Anthony Crivello)wants to use her as a human sacrifice."Spellbinder" by Janet Greek is a surprisingly interesting and entertaining horror film.The story is pretty good,the characters are well-developed and there are some truly creepy moments.The plot offers a few surprises,unfortunately the serious lack of gore and violence is disappointing.The ending,whilst obviously influenced by Robin Hardy's masterful "The Wicker Man",is great.Give it a look,if you have enough time to waste.7 out of 10.