Film

Witch Hunt (1996)

Director: Paul Schrader

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

You can see why Schrader thought he might make something of this made-for-cable satire, in which the Hollywood of the early 1950s becomes the target for a corrupt egomaniacal Senator whose bid for the presidency is built on a campaign to expose practicing magicians. The film's gimmick is that the magic is real: it conjures up dream hookers, turns a plain stenographer into a star, brings back Shakespeare to write additional dialogue and forces the bad guy to disgorge his evil 'inner twin'. Sadly it all runs aground on the pitifully feeble dialogue and the parallel attempt to spoof the gumshoe genre, while Hopper (as private eye HP Lovecraft!) and Sands (as his evil-eyed foe, with the world's dodgiest Oirish accent) look as if they don't care.

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