Counterforce

“Men are such cocksuckers, aren’t they? You don’t have to answer that. It’s true. They’re scared. Their dicks get limp when confronted by a woman of obvious power and what do they do about it? Call them witches, burn them, torture them, until every woman is afraid. Afraid of herself… Afraid of men… And all for what? Fear of losing their hard on!“

“I always like a little pussy after lunch.”

The Witches Of Eastwick, 1987, directed by George Miller, and based on the 1984 novel of the same name by the recently deceased John Updike. I watched this film the other day (or, more accurately, a few months ago) and instantly knew that I wanted to talk about it.

The plot is simple as can be: Three women in the sleepy little New England town of Eastwick are living, quiet unfulfilled lives. Alexandra (Cher) is the widowed sculptor with one teenager daughter, Jane (Susan Sarandon) is the very book-ish music teacher at the local school who’s just finalized her divorce whose husband left her because of her inability to have children, and Sukie (Michelle Pfeiffer, at her sexiest here) is the younger free spirit whose husband left her because she kept getting pregnant, resulting in five children.

Together the three of them concoct the perfect man, the man of their dreams: somebody from out of town who’s nice and who you can talk to, handsome but not too handsome, a man who’s cock isn’t big, isn’t small, but is in the middle. The catch? That man of their dreams is Jack Nicholson. Oh, and he’s the Devil.

With all this talk of women as witches and Nicholson essentially playing himself as a “horny little Devil,” the movie is ripe for biting satire and an interesting dissection on pop gender roles. And don’t get me wrong, you do get a little of that, but at the same time, it wants to be everything to everyone. There’s some Ray Harryhausen/old school Sam Raimi-esque stop motion special effects happening in parts to add a horror quotient (and kind of a silly one) and one of the longest vomit scenes I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing in film. If I didn’t enjoy this movie as much as I did, then I’d say that the last part of the previous sentence was the ultimate meta comment on what’s on display here.

The women find themselves seduced by Nicholson’s character, a different method for each one, and soon the three of them are sharing the role of inamorata to the Devil. And for a while, everything is happy, until it isn’t. The women are liberated, but at the cost of being the talk of the town and not in a good way.

Normally I’d heavily criticize the idea that these women need a man to help them be happy, but I guess you could make the argument that sometimes everyone needs a little help to come out of their shell. But maybe not from the Joker though. When when he uses some of the ideas of feminism as the ultimate tools of seduction against these women at points, always danging ideas of empowerment in front of them like a ball of yarn, but of course never wanting them to reach true liberation of any kind.

And liberation is the key here, but in degrees. Because of the emergence of Nicholson’s satanic figure, Darryl Van Horne, into this once quiet, peaceful community (Eden before the serpent slithered in, we’re told), there has to be a counter figure, the person who’s infused with the spirit of the opposite company: the God proxy, “There is evil here!” prophet. That comes in the form of one of the more uptight ladies of the community, played wonderfully by Veronica Cartwright, who suffers quite physically (and you’ve never seen so many SNL-worthy vomit gags in a serious film as you do here before) for her goodness. It’s not the crazy sex that’s going on among the three women that bothers her, it’s that it’s all done in the name of evil. “Oh, Clyde,” she tells her doting, push over husband played by Richard Jenkins, “I have nothing against a good fuck, but there’s danger here and somebody has to do something about it!”

Nicholson though, for as big and ridiculous as he plays this role at times, and as much as he seems to basically be playing himself, is perfect in his portrayal of how sleazy men can be at times, and how sad they are. His main attraction to these women is that they will make perfect mothers to his offspring (isn’t that what the Devil is always after these days, his infernal knocking boots confined to a mere means to an end?) and though he seems to really appreciate these women, he never loses sight of what they can mean for him.

And when they leave him, he becomes cruel and petty. He’s taken these women to the depths and the heights of both pleasure and perversion, and in return, he’d like to be appreciated a little. And without it, he becomes ruthless in his punishment of them.

But, of course, it’s just because he’s terrified of them. And the power within them.

Back in 2002, there was a pilot made based on the book starring Marcia Cross, Kelly Rutherford, and Lori Loughlin as the three “witches.” Sounds interesting but probably wasn’t, hence it never being aired let alone going to series. And the story has been made into a musical, an idea that fascinates me given the story itself (but hell, they made Evil Dead into a music so anything goes, right?), but it’s also probably not that great.

Nicholson cheated on Lara Flynn Boyle, pictured above, with a ballet dancer so she showed up at the Oscars that year in a tutu. Lollipop just told me that story and it blew me away. That’s a great response, I think, on Boyle’s part, and is just another step closer into making me feel that Nicholson was not only perfect for his role in The Witches Of Eastwick, and let’s not bullshit around because he is a great actor, but he is also the poster child for all those horrible qualities that the male gender can possess or not quite grow out of.

I got a copy of Updike’s sequel, The Widows Of Eastwick, not longer at it came out, but have yet to read the original novel, sadly, but I’m very curious to. I’ve read that it’s quite misogynist and I’ve read that it’s an obvious satire of misogyny. I’m curious to see which it since, from what I’ve read, it’s the first time that Updike really took the time to flesh out female characters, and I have to wonder how good of a job he did or was he the Darryl Van Horne of this little world?