Editor’s note: This review gets a little spicy. It should not be read by youths or prudes.
“The little booby dolls. Little, yes, but… potent. Full of juice. Potent, you can feel it when you pick them up.”
It’s easy to believe that Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson) is the devil. He’s not trying to fool anybody. He’s shameless, libidinous, rude, disgusting, and totally irresistible.
When the audience first hears tell of him in George Miller’s 1987 dark comedy The Witches of Eastwick, he’s just a rumor, a mysterious man from far away, come to a small town to buy an old house and spark gossip. When we meet him for real, he’s examining one of Alexandra Medford’s (Cher) miniature statues in the form of Venus of Willendorf, a “booby doll,” as he calls it. He recognizes its power and its potency, because of who he is. And who Alexandra is. And what the traditional relationship between the devil and American Witch is based on: sex. (I saw Goody Proctor having a frankly sexual tennis match with the devil!)
Jack Nicholson as Daryl Van Horne in “The Witches of Eastwick” (1987) [Warner Bros]
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Daryl Van Horne comes to Eastwick, Rhode Island to have sex with Witches when summoned by their cavernous and rapacious desire. Watching a movie about that, one where Jack Nicholson grinds his dick against a mattress while eyelocked and propositioning Cher, reminds me that we used to be a proper country, one that actually made art for adults. The devil also comes on to (and comes inside) cellist Jane Spofford (Susan Sarandon) and reporter Sukie Ridgemont (Michelle Pfeiffer). Each of them is disillusioned with love, focused on (but suffering for) their art, and together they end up lazily conjuring a lover who just so happens to be the literal devil.
Worse movies than this one have attempted to make a proper dicking down into something that can change a woman’s life; at least this one makes the idea worthwhile. After a little riding of the broomstick, each of the Witches not only becomes better looking, less conservative in her dress, and less encumbered by the judgement of others, but also flowers artistically. Jane achieves musical freedom and ecstasy through the curvaceous instrument she holds between her knees. Alexandra manipulates soft clay between her fingers until it is shaped into something bigger and harder than ever before. Sukie turns a boring newspaper writing job into something she can spread far and wide. They all have the devil to thank for it!
Cher as Alexandra Medford, Michelle Pfeiffer as Sukie Ridgemon, and Susan Sarandon as Jane Spofford in “The Witches of Eastwick” (1987) [Warner Bros]
This magic does not come without a cost, naturally. Town busybody Felicia Alden (Veronica Cartwright: a spotlight-stealing bit player who’s slamming it home in every scene) is their sympathetic sacrifice, barfing up cherry pits across town from the den of decadence where the fruit is swallowed. The cherry-popping ménage à quatre is the central spectacle through the middle of the film: joyful and sensuously cavorting in midair above the pool, or swimming through a ballroom filled with pale pink balloons. The women take turns hopping on the sack of Satan without jealousy or argument with one another, and each is set up for her own happy ending.
Daryl, however, is set for something else.
Few scenes in The Witches of Eastwick depict anything concrete in the doing of the magical deed; the summoning is lazy and the banishing is lazier still. Instead, it is best received as a metaphor for what doing coven magic is like. Magic is deep concordance with one’s peers. It’s a shared need turned into a shared demand, powered by shared energy. Nowhere is this better typified than in the Van Horne scorned: when his coven is with him, Daryl is charming, brash, and unapologetic. His home is an eclectic mansion, his clothes are fashionable and flashy, and his manner is easy and victorious. But when the Witches stop taking his calls (and other forms of transmitting information from the body), he’s trapped in a corner of a poorly-decorated room wielding an iron, watching “The Price is Right,” bereft not only of affection, but of magic and all its benefits.
This has always been my favorite artistic expression of the difference between when the magic is working and when it has deserted me: it’s either impenetrable glamor or it’s a sheet of cardboard pierced by a thumbtack to let the unflattering light of day shine through.
Some hexing accoutrements in “The Witches of Eastwick” (1987) [Warner Bros]
The juicy potency must return, and there’s only one way to get it up. After the Great Rite is done and the Witches have been pricked by the red-hot trident of Luciferian lust, they have no more use for their horny little hellion. The booby dolls reign supreme, banish the already-banished fallen angel from the wings, and triumph in the oldest possible way: each of the three flavors of blonde, brunette, and redhead is pregnant.
The devil’s magic in this film is mayhem. It’s unwell and unrest, and it causes grievous harm followed by gruesome murder. By contrast, the Witches’ magic is fertility (Sukie has five, count ‘em, FIVE children already before the devil makes his deposit) and creativity. They work their will with nature and nurture alike, and the final message of the film is they don’t need him. He was a means to an end – just another power to invoke and dismiss, while what Witches do in circle belongs to only us.
The juice is worth the squeeze, but the devil gets the pit. After too many years of explaining to people that Witches don’t worship the devil, I’m tired enough to just tumble into bed. If someone warm already happens to be there, who am I to draw the line at a little hoof and horn?
The Witches of Eastwick is available for streaming on Apple TV.
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