On Loretta Devine in “Spell”

Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures

Along with Jenifer Lewis, Devine gets typecast as the ‘forever mom’ (nvmd that both her and Lewis play mothers in a variety of ways). It may be this combined with the fact that older Black women rarely ever get the role of horror antagonist that makes Ms. Eloise’s turn from caretaker to cult leader so enthralling. She doesn’t just control, she puppeteers the man in her family all the while performing signs and wonders for the folks in her orbit. The magic is violent and gruesome and all the more spine-tingling because of how mundane Devine makes it all seem. In a better world, this would have been completely her movie.