Witches of Eastwick, The

Witches of Eastwick, The (movie)

This 1987 movie directed by George Miller and starring Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, Veronica Cartwright, and Jack Nicholson, is a dark-edged comedy based on a novel by John Updike.

Three women friends living in New England—Alex (Cher), Sukie (Pfeiffer), and Jane (Sarandon)—meet weekly on Thursday night to drink martinis, gossip, learn Chinese aphrodisiac cookery, and fantasize about men. . . in particular their ideal man. They are unaware of the power of their desires and what may be conjured up. One Friday a stranger named Darrell Van Horn (Nicholson) arrives in town. He seduces the three women, one by one, after which strange things begin to happen. When the town's matriarch (Cartwright) tries to denounce Van Horn and gets her editor husband to publish a story about him, she is badly injured and he is swamped in cherries. The three friends quickly realize that they could be in danger and try to plan an escape. There are many special visual effects and plot twists, and the movie is aided by Vilmos Zsigmond's photography.