Cast a Deadly Spell

If I said "Roger Rabbit, but with magic instead of cartoons", you'd know all you need to know about Cast A Deadly Spell. Both are loving odes to the film noir genre. Both star an actor playing the hardened private detective with a past, who lives in his office on a pull-out, and is in no way, shape, or form an intimidating person. Both have a red-headed singer in the femme fatale role. Both have two antagonists, and the primary antagonist getting hoisted upon his own petard with his plan. Both have a world where there is something fantastical about it that would be entirely alien in our world, but is just day-to-day life in theirs. Both stories have a critical component involving a specific piece of land. Cast A Deadly Spell is, by no means, a family movie like Roger Rabbit is. This is, in fact, a noir movie by way of Lovecraftian horror. There is some wild practical effects going on, especially some gore. Sometimes, it does get lost in its own twists and turns, and there isn't nearly enough use of said magic in a movie where magic is supposed to be as common as breathing. But there is clearly a love for noir and to do something different with it by taking it in a mildly horrific direction. That may be a bar too high to clear for some who just want their dames leggy and their private eyes hard-boiled, but if you're open to a new spin on a familiar genre, and don't mind an identifiable formula, Cast A Deadly Spell is fun.