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The Witching Behind the Production of Practical Magic

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The cult classic Practical Magic is a movie about witches, spells and curses. But did you know that a witch actually cursed the film production when they worked on it? And did you know there is going to be a sequel about the family of witches?

The 1998 cult classic Practical Magic is not just a beloved witchy film—it also has an eerily enchanting history behind its production. Starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, the film tells the story of two witch sisters navigating love, loss, and a family curse. With an all-star cast, including Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, Practical Magic was filmed at the height of late 90s nostalgia for magical and supernatural tales. 

Read Also: Check out all haunted stories from the USA.

One of the most memorable scenes in the film features the characters enjoying “Midnight Margaritas,” a spontaneous, tequila-fueled bonding session. Behind the scenes, the cast really did get tipsy on the cheap tequila Nicole Kidman had brought on set, leading to authentic moments of tipsy joy that made it into the final cut.

Midnight Margaritas: The booze in the Margarita was real tequila. Were the curses in the movie real as well? If we are to believe the stories, the witch consultant really did leave a curse on the whole movie.

In addition to boozy fun, Practical Magic became an unexpected sisterhood for the actresses. Though the film was directed by Griffin Dunne, a man, the female cast formed a powerful, almost mystical bond. As Kidman recalled, they synced their menstrual cycles during a full moon while filming, teasing Dunne that they might soon “turn on him.”

Musically, the film drew on the talents of self-proclaimed witch and Fleetwood Mac legend, Stevie Nicks. Nicks not only contributed her song “If You Ever Did Believe” to the film but also re-recorded her classic “Crystal,” both featuring Sheryl Crow. 

Yet, what many don’t know is that the film’s making was just as otherworldly as its plot.

Was Practical Magic a Haunted Set?

Behind the camera Practical Magic was plagued by darker forces as well as in front of it is we are to believe the rumors. 

Stories about supernatural occurrences circulated during filming from both cast and crew. Cast members reported eerie noises, especially during the climactic coven scene at the film’s end, raising suspicions that the fictional witchcraft may have stirred something real.

Read Also: Check out The Haunting of Fernhills Royal Palace Hotel in India’s Hills where another movie production encountered the supernatural.

As the director said: “It’s something I will talk about now, but at the time I would sort of deny it. I didn’t want the vibe. As the line from the movie that Aidan has [goes], “I didn’t want to give the curse any strength.” Not that I believed in it. But if you believe in it, you’re giving it strength.”

So was the movie set really haunted, or was it simply the witchy vibe of the set something to the atmosphere. The scariest thing by far was when the witch consultant they had hired cursed the entire movie, as well as the director when they didn’t give into her demands. 

The Exorcism Scene: The scene where the witches gathered for a huge spell was thought to bring with it a strange atmosphere people borderline chucked up to a paranormal one.

The Witch Consultant’s Curse

Originally brought on to help ensure the accuracy of the film’s portrayal of magic, things took a sinister turn with the witch consultant they had hired. They had hired the witch through a friend of the director put them in touch with. The friend has never stopped apologizing for the introduction because of how badly it ended, according to the director. 

Read More: Check out all stories concerning Witches

The witch was, according to the director, paid very handsomely by Warner Brothers for her consulting on spells and such. The director thought it would be fun to bring her out to Los Angeles where they were filming a lot of the movie. They wanted to put her in a nice hotel as he wanted her to meet Bullock and Kidman, who were dying to meet her. 

The Owen Sisters: Nichole Kidman and Sandra Bullock played the sisters in the movie. In the plot, the sisters are cursed as well, and any man who loves them or they love will die.

This all greatly backfired though as the witch got offended. She said to the producer in a phone call: “I’m going to put a curse on you. I’m putting a curse on this movie, and I’m putting a curse on Griffin.” 

She wanted three gross points of the profit the movie would make as well as the right to publish a Practical Magic cookbook. She also left an ominous voicemail as well to Griffith: “There is a land of curses!” and started to speak in tongue on a voicemail before threatening to sue Warner Bros as well.

Griffith brought the recording to the legal department and played the curse for them. Only halfway through they stopped the tape and wrote her a check. 

A New Age Exorcism for a New Age Movie

The threat of the curse rattled the crew, especially when tragedy struck: a crew member’s father died suddenly. Though he was elderly and already ill, many on set believed it was the witch’s doing. In response, Griffin Dunne arranged a New Age exorcism to cleanse the set. 

“It was a very simple, New Agey ceremony that was about as silly as the idea that someone would curse you over the phone,” he told Vulture when he talked about the whole ordeal. “It was mostly chants and smoke and shit like that. “I just did it to cover my bases.”

Though he admitted it was “silly,” the ritual provided some comfort, and filming continued without further incident. The incident did however inspire the creator of the movie to write one of Aidens lines: “Curses only have power when you believe them.” 

Critic Reviews and the Supernatural Vibe

Despite the fun behind-the-scenes stories, Practical Magic wasn’t initially well-received. Critics like Roger Ebert and Entertainment Weekly panned the film, calling it “muddled” and “cursed,” as if the alleged witch’s hex truly took hold of the production and made it to as badly as it did on the box office. In fact, it was the last feature film the director did for ages, and he said it certainly didn’t help his career. 

However, over the years, the film gained a cult following, embraced for its charming mix of romance, sisterhood, and spooky magic. Today the movie is considered a classis by many, a thing put on every fall to get you in the spooky October mood. 

As if continuing the magic of the original, in 2024, news broke that both Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman would return for a much-anticipated sequel. The announcement reignited fan excitement and speculation that the witchy energy from the first film might soon stir again. But the question is: how would a sequel fare if there truly is something like a curse put on the production?

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References:

Practical Magic (1998) – Trivia – IMDb

Practical Magic – Wikipedia

How ‘Practical Magic’ Pissed Off a Real-Life Witch | Vanity Fair 

Prepare a Midnight Margarita and Enjoy These 25 Secrets About Practical Magic

Cool, Shocking Facts You Never Knew About Practical Magic – Business Insider

Practical Magic Got Cursed by an Actual Witch. Is That Why It Bombed? 

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What The Truly Terrifying Thing About Cult Movie Antrum Is

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The 2019 faux movie-within-a-movie type of horror has taken up interest again, the movie, “Antrum, the deadliest film ever made”. I can’t really remember that a so popular movie have fooled so many people since Blair Witch. Correct me if I’m wrong, but most of the trending now is challenging people to watch it, believing the intended myth behind this mockumentary-found footage type of movie. The premise of the cursed horror movie is of a real cursed movie from the 70s, now resurfaced. After watching it, jumping on the wagon a bit late, I couldn’t help noticing, what truly terrified me after watching. So after the initial hype has died out, and the truth is sort of “out there”, this is my take on it.

Spoilers ahead, so be warned.

Synopsis

The movie opens with a documentary type of style, talking about a horror movie from the 70s allegedly from the Soviet that caused the death of many many people, from casual movie goers to film festival leaders. It claims that it caused the death of 56 people in Budapest when it screened in a cinema that burned down in 1988. And also it injured and killed a woman in San Francisco in 1993 when someone laced the popcorn with LSD. Then it does a countdown of a clock, and the movie Antrum starts. Simple, but so effective. Then the “real” movie begins.

Source: IMDB

It tells the story of a teen sister and her kid brother, hiking. They recently lost their dog, and the boy is convinced the dog went to hell. So they travel to a place and try to dig their way to hell to get the dog back. They follow the instruction of a book the sister claims she got from a certain “Ike”. All told through a beautiful European art-house film from the 1970s filter, but with a horror twist in the cinematography. The rest of the movie is them battling hillbillies, what is dream, what is reality and the lurking shadows in the corner of their eyes. An honest discussion about what happens when one believes a lie.

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Background of the “movie legend”

Of course, none of this is true, but it is some of the allure of the movie, and in my eyes, some of the social commentary the movie Antrum brings to the table, elevating it from mere horror-flick, to more of a drama with a purpose and moral. We learn halfway through the sister is behind it all, making the book, lying about meeting the devil and that it was all made up in order to help her brother, suffering from nightmares and the belief that the dog went to hell. But the fiction turns on her, making her lie true because of people believing in it.

Source: IMDB

Perhaps, it is a long time since a mockumentary was able to fool as big of an audience as it did. What is truly frightening is the way some with so many followers, like the teens on Tik-Tok, blogs and YouTube channels fuels this “found footage” story. Isolated, this is fun. Harmless lies we tell in the dark as we always have, as good horror intends to. It is also fascinating that even in the time of internet, were the truth is literary one google search away, people still believe the hype, the narrative, the story. On the other side, it is in these time of “fake news”, a bit sad of when we see how actual important news, fake as well as real, can be manipulated, believed and not believed in. But never mind that (puts the media education away) let’s look at how genius they did it (puts on horror loving hat):

Yes, hell is real
source: IMDB

For one, it is clear they put a lot of effort in making it be in the 70s. From the clothes, filming style, the grainy filter and color palette. Even down to that creepy CGI of the squirrel. A truly demonic entity that is.

As with other cult movies, they did something cool in the way they let the influencer who were fooled market the thing for them, making the viewing something of an event rather than just a standard movie night. Also it is something quite endearing about the collective watching of it that is only found in the horror community, I think.

Even with my obsessive googling, it took a couple of searches to truly find evidence of the falseness. Even down to the actors’ age was removed from their IMDb profiles, making it easier to keep up the belief. It is also cool about how it is finally a movie thinking more about the movie being bigger than the actors, not the other way around.

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The terrifying thing about the movie Antrum

Is this a scary movie? In some regards, yes. Like the Blair Witch Project, it is the format that makes the scares, the legend behind it, the myth bigger than a simple movie. And the way the shaky camera movements from most found footage makes movies unpredictable and scary, it is the the overlaying of “cut in clips no one knows were came from” and the clip in of the sigils and Latin phrases making one question: Could it really be?

Is it truly “bad” enough to be believed in though? I think not, and I was sort of bothered about how perfect it all looked from a Soviet movie from the 70s. But then again, it did sort of look too rough to be a more “proper” movie. Also they spoke English, and none of the non-English speaking people can sort of believe that mash up. It just seems weird and sort of a very American thing to do, making it in English instead of just putting subtitles on.

What my main take of it was that it was more of a heart felt movie than a demonic one. I felt more sympathy for the siblings and believed in their relationship than I believed I was cursed by Satan after watching it.

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It occurred to me mid movie, what scared me the most though. Even the myth, claims I would die few days after watching it, and that creepy demon between the trees, it was none of them though that made my heart race. It was the threat of people:

True, jump scares don’t really work on me in the long run, great costumes sort of blend in when watching as many horror movies as I do. But what never cease to scare me, are the threat of real humans. It never goes away. In the movie, not only do they have to fight of demonic entities, but some good old fashioned hillbillies, that does these random gruesome things like: fucking dead animals, boiling people alive, shooting children and wear antlers on a trucker hat. Yes, not really the most original or in depth type of characters. But when checking my pulse throughout the movie, it is sort of only in those scenes a steady rush of fear comes. I found that very interesting. That no matter how much of a supernatural, demonic myth, claiming it would take your life, nothing is as scary as the threat of real humans, wanting to do you harm.

And that is what really was terrifying about this cursed movie.

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