Not all beloved Halloween movies are instant hits. Films like Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Jennifer's Body (2009) didn't find their cult followings until years after their lackluster box office performances. The flop-to-cult-film pipeline is hard to pin down, but most experts credit this kind of postponed popularity to changing times or audience tastes.
But for the 1998 misfire Practical Magic, there might be something else to blame: a real-life witch's curse.
Griffin Dunne, the film's director, recently revealed to Vulture that during development, he started struggling with the movie's central theme of witchcraft. Based on the 1995 Alice Hoffman novel of the same name, the fantasy romantic drama follows two small-town Massachusetts sisters—beautifully portrayed by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman—who come from a long line of witches and are cursed from finding true love.
Credit: DiNovi Pictures, Fortis Films, and Stargate Studios
Dunne said he couldn't get a real handle on the film because he regretfully had no interest in magic or witches. So he brought on a real-life witch consultant to help. She would school him on all the training, skills, artifacts, literature, and teachings that went into white magic. Not so much the typical black hat and warted-noses stuff we see in kid's books, but the New Agey style that feels much more wholesome.
It's a great idea in theory, had the witch been of a chiller nature. But after inviting her to fly out to L.A. and putting her up in a nice hotel, she started making some insane demands.
"The witch goes, 'You're not going to buy me off with a hotel room. I want a percentage of the movie. I'm going to have my own Practical Magic cookbook,'" Dunne relayed to Vulture. "She was paid quite well, and she says, 'I want an additional $250,000 dollars.' The producer told her that's just not possible. And she goes crazy and scares the s**t out of the producer."
According to Dunne, the witch was none too pleased with the producer's refusal to pay up. So she did what any pissed-off, magical professional would do—she cursed the producer, Dunne, and the movie itself.
And to really drive things home and make sure that black magic stuck, the witch consultant made sure to leave a very creepy voicemail on Dunne's phone: "'How dare you sic that shrew on me? You think you can buy me off, well let me tell you something? There is a land of curses!'" he said, recalling the witch's words. "Then she slips into tongues. It was terrifying. I listened to as much as I could and then I hung up."
Of course, that wasn't the end of it. In addition to sticking it to the film's production paranormally, the witch consultant got her vengeance the old-fashioned way; by suing Warner Bros.
Warner Bros
Dunne gave the company's legal department the tape, and they were freaked out by it enough to just pay her off. What she got financially remains a mystery to him, but the amount must have satisfied her enough to make her go away—but not enough to lift the curse entirely from the film.
Even though it did very well at the box office—opening at #1 and making $13.1 million in ticket sales—Practical Magic received super-poor reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a measly 23% approval rating, and Entertainment Weekly ironically dubbed it "a witch comedy so slapdash, plodding, and muddled it seems to have had a hex put on it."
Little did that writer know how right he was.
Whether the witch consultant later had a change of heart or curses have expiration dates, Practical Magic eventually found its audience. In the years since its release, fans have come to appreciate the film for what it is—a guilty pleasure with a twist of real-life magic.
"When we'd screen it, people were jumping out of their seats and laughing," Dunne said, recalling opening week. "Women and girls in particular were all so moved by it, and it did very well at the box office. But despite that, it had a weird reputation for being a failure. So I don't give the curse any power, but at the same time, I did come to think that somehow a little stink was put on the movie. It took time for that stink to go away."
As for Dunne himself, he took some extra precautions to lift any residual curse energy that might have been lingering around him and got an exorcism just to cover his bases.
"If you're a person with any kind of spiritual sensibility or if you believe in a kind of higher power, you're open to beliefs in many things. But with that open-mindedness comes risk. You don't get to pick and choose. If you open up the door to one thing, it's hard to deny other things. So while I didn't give it too much power, I'm open-minded enough to at least spend a hundred bucks on an exorcism."
Whether it was the exorcism or just the changing times, Practical Magic got its due in the end. The movie has found a fan base that adores it for its campy charm and timeless message of sisterhood. And despite all that's happened since its release, Dunne said he still looks back on his time making the movie fondly.
AJ Pics/Alamy
"When my daughter was in her late teens, I started to notice that her friends loved the movie and quoted the movie and would freak out when they found out that her father directed the movie, he said. "I watched it grow and grow and it's been very touching and unexpected. I've gone out with women who have watched this movie every year with their daughters.
"It's a lovely kind of surprise."
If you want to relive the magic that is Practical Magic, you can stream it on Hulu.
