Review: Horror thriller 'Spell' traffics in lazy cliches, which cheapen its scares

With the horror thriller “Spell,” the needle on the cliche meter ticks into the red far too often, making the chills lukewarm at best.

Marquis T. Woods, played by Omari Hardwick (“Power,” “Sorry to Bother You”), is a brash, successful young lawyer, who gets a call that his long-estranged father has died back in Appalachia. To settle his estate, Marquis decides to fly his small plane down to the holler he left behind — taking along his wife, Veora (Lorraine Burroughs), and their two teen children, Samsara (Hannah Gonera) and Tydon (Kalifa Burton).

After a refueling stop at the only gas pump for miles around, the family’s plane runs into a storm and crashes. Marquis wakes up in a bed in a strange attic, his feet and hands bandaged and bloody. His family is nowhere to be seen.

Enter the owner of the attic, Miss Eloise (Loretta Devine), who’s down-home hill folk, sporting an exaggerated country accent that would make a viewer think Uncle Ben’s and Aunt Jemima were still viable commercial brands. I don’t fault Devine for such stereotyping; I reserve that for the director, Mark Tonderai, a Zimbabwean-born Brit with several TV credits (“Locke & Key,” “Gotham” and others), and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (who’s responsible for the remakes of “Total Recall” and “Point Break”). 

Take it as a given that Miss Eloise isn’t as nice as her cornpone dialect and folk remedies would make her out to be. Also take it as a given that the screenplay has to make her not only mean but also stupid — so that Marquis can escape from this attic and uncover her dark secrets.

For a thriller like this to work, the filmmakers have to assume the audience aren’t drooling idiots, but instead will be a step ahead of the characters if they get the chance. Alas, from its thin plotting to the underwritten one-note characters, “Spell” aims for the dumbest common denominator, which is too low to be worth the effort.

——

‘Spell’

★★

Opens Friday, October 30, in theaters where open. Rated R for violence, disturbing/bloody images, and language. Running time: 91 minutes.