Hallo-Watch: The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Watched:  10/12/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  George Miller

I checked Roger Ebert's review of The Witches of Eastwick (1987).  Look, some movies are a product of their time, and this is one.  Ebert found it an edgy, sexy romp.  And that was how I remember the movie being discussed in 1987.

I finally got to the movie here in 2025, and in short, all of the interesting bits are left off-screen.  We hear about them, can infer or guess other bits.  But we're still in 1980's America here, and if you want to not wind up in the midnight movie ghetto, you keep it polite so Mom and Dad have a movie they can sneak off to go see and leave you alone with a rented copy of Beastmaster.  

The Witches of Eastwick is about two divorcees and a widow (Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Cher) who live in a small Rhode Island town where they are hit upon by married men and saddled with lives they don't want.  The three get together on Thursdays to eat processed crap food, drink, play cards and have someone listen.

During one such session, they describe what they want in a man, and, lo and behold, these three women - with what X-Men comics would call latent magical abilities - seem to summon exactly that man to their town in the form of Jack Nicholson/ some light version of Satan.  

Nicholson buys a massive mansion (think Newport on steroids) and proceeds to be an ass around town and impresses everyone he meets.  

He swiftly seduces Cher, Sarandon and... in front of the other two, Pfeiffer.  

Off-screen, it's assumed the four engage in sex in a heap, but aside from one outburst from a woman sensitive to Nicholson's evil (a terrific Veronica Cartwright) the implications are left to the prudish in the audience to imagine whatever they wish.  

But it's not just the sexy times which are left off-screen.  We're told about things happening - the local store is carrying nudie mags!  And it caused a ruckus!  - but we get a description of it rather than seeing the freak out which we're told ensued.  In this visual medium, we only hear someone say it happened.  Just as we do not see Cartwright's husband (Richard Jenkins with hair!) murder her just off-screen.

What's odd is that 1987 is a pretty good era for putting some pretty batshit stuff on screen.  Ken Russell is just a few years off of making studio movies.  That copy of Beastmaster was full of more T&A and debauchery than a dozen Witches of Eastwick.  But even I remember the marketing push for this movie, and it was aimed at *parents*.  This was intended to be a spectacle of movie stars and *classy* sexiness.  

If there was a message here in the movie about men and women, feminism or...  anything, really...  it would be buried over and over in the movie until it feels like no commentary is happening at all, we're just hearing Nicholson perform his over-the-top misogynistic monologue and the three women enjoy themselves until they get scared.

There's also minimal character for the three female leads.  We get no idea how they feel, what they're thinking, or how any of this is impacting them - or how Pfeiffer is a single mother of a herd of kids and somehow always manages to look phenomenal and isn't ever worried about her own kids as she romps about with her pals.  It's all very odd and feels edited down for a runtime that will get in more shows per day while also focusing on our attraction, Jack Nicholson auditioning for The Joker (by the by, the movie is produced by the same guys who produced Batman).  

My understanding is that the movie strays from the novel quite a bit, but I've never read any Updike (and likely will not) so that's of no consequence here, but could be to you.  

What's odd is that even 12 year old me kinda guessed what the movie was and that it didn't look like it would land particularly well based on the trailers.  And here we are almost 40 years later and 12 year old me was very right.

Anyway, it was not my jam.  But some people love this movie, so I'd love to hear why.