The Witches Of Eastwick

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Revision as of 01:56, 21 June 2012

The Witches of Eastwick is a novel by John Updike that was adapted into a film starring Jack Nicholson and later a musical. It also inspired the television series Eastwick.

It's about three suburban women who start their own little witch coven and get to meet the Devil himself...

Needs A Better Description.

The film

• Affably Evil: Daryl.
• Attack Of The 50 Foot Whatever: Hey, Alien!Daryl.
• Babies Ever After: Daryl's entire plan.
• Bad Powers, Good People: The powers Daryl gives them are implied to be evil/demonic, though the girls are good to the core.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: First bringing Daryl to town, and then killing Felicia. Though he probably orchestrated both events somehow.
• Berserk Button: For Daryl, being left.
• Beware The Nice Ones: The girls, once they realize they've been Unwitting Pawns to Daryl.
• Big Bad: Daryl, of course.
• Black Comedy.
• Blonde Brunette Redhead: The eponymous witches, played by Michelle Pfeiffer (blonde), Cher (brunette) and Susan Sarandon (redhead).
• Break The Cutie: Poor Felicia and Sukie...
• Broken Masquerade: Daryl doesn't have much qualms entering a full church for refuge from a supernatural hurricane and start puking cherry cores, then admit it's a cheap trick and he taught "them" how to do it. When a woman of the same town was killed by him the same way days before. It's implied churches in general and probably Christian dogma doesn't affect him, so that'd explain why he doesn't really care.
• Brown Note: Daryl's name, which when remembered by a room full of people causes an unfortunate chain of events that ends in Felicia's Staircase Tumble.
• Busby Berkeley Number: The choreography for "Dirty Laundry" deliberately invoked Berkeley's style.
• Cassandra Truth: Enforced by Daryl.
• Chewing the Scenery: Nicholson.
• Church Militant: Deconstruction.
• Corrupt The Cutie: Daryl's whole plan. It turns sour for him when he makes the three accomplices to a murder.
• Crosses The Line Twice: Torturing Sukie.
• Devil In Plain Sight: Literally, by name and actions. See above too.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Daryl considers himself this. Of course, he's also a Manipulative Bastard and the Big Bad, so...
• Empathic Environment: Justified. This is a story about three witches and the Devil. Elements bend to their wills and oods.
• Evil Costume Switch: Jane.
• Evil Detecting Dog: And it really hates Daryl.
• Evil Is Petty:

  Daryl: What was I supposed to do, take it like a man?!

• Exotic Equipment: His penis is described as bending backwards, which is apparently a major turn-on to the witches.
• God Is Inept: Daryl Van Horne's rant:

  Daryl: Do you think God knew what He was doing when He created woman? Huh? No shit. I really wanna know. Or do you think it was another one of His minor mistakes like tidal waves, earthquakes, floods? You think women are like that? S'matter? You don't think God makes mistakes? Of course He does. We all make mistakes. Of course, when we make mistakes they call it evil. When God makes mistakes, they call it "nature". So whaddya think? Women... a mistake, or did he do it to us on purpose?

• Gossipy Hens: They call Jane "slut".
• Henpecked Husband: Clyde. He knows Felicia is sick, but still fires Sukie.
• Hollywood Voodoo: Daryl does this, but then again, he's the Devil.
• Horny Devils: Daryl Van Horne. He even identifies himself as such, by name, in a Sarcastic Confession.
• Hot Witch: The eponymous witches, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, Cher and Susan Sarandon.
• I Surrender, Suckers: The girls pretend to relent to Daryl's blackmail to get Sukie better, then promptly use nasty spells on him.
• Jerkass Facade: To get into Alex's pants.
• Kill It With Fire: How they finally manage to defeat him. Not kill him though. Probably.
• Lampshade Hanging: Daryl's master of lampshading most of his nature while doing it in moments when his victims would dismiss it as Sarcastic Confessions or are otherwise too bewitched by him.

  Sukie: Who are you, really?

  Daryl: Anyone you want me to be.

• Louis Cypher: Daryl Van Horne.
• Manic Pixie Dream Guy.
• Manipulative/Magnificent Bastard: Daryl.
• Mass Oh Crap: The tennis match degenerates in a series of these.
• Metaforgotten: Clyde tries to justify himself to firing Sukie. It ends in this:

  Clyde: What am I doing?

  Sukie: You were firing me.

• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: What did you expect after making them murderers and torturing their sister to get them back? Well, he actually thinks he'll get them under his control, and back that way. Yeah.
  • Also Clyde finally has enough and whacks Felicia with a frying pan, then goes back to reading.
• Moral Event Horizont: Killing (slowly) Felicia. It doubles as a strange Shoo Out the Clowns moment.
• More Than Mind Control: Felicia's paranoia still clings to her personality: it's not outright Demonic Possession.
• Nigh Invulnerable: Even when they "kill" him, he doesn't stay dead...
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Felicia, inadvertently.
• Not So Omniscient After All: Daryl screws up once or twice, it's the only way the plot would move on and he'd be exposed. Generally however, he's very Dangerously Genre Savvy.
• Obfuscating Eccentricity, if not outright insanity. He even lampshades that Jane probably thinks he's crazy.
• Ominous Multiple Screens: Darryl has a bank of TV screens, apparently just for the hell of it.
  • Probably for his rituals (and to impress women). He's seen at the end using the screen as a conduit to return to the house or even the physical plane.
• One Winged Angel: Daryl at the end.
• Our Demons Are Different: In his True Form, he looks more like an elf. This information may lead to big Epileptic Trees on his entire motivation.
• Properly Paranoid: Felicia.
• Recycled: The Series: Eastwick.
• Roaring Rampage Of Revenge: Daryl at the end. The girls' actions may count too.
• Rock Me Asmodeus: Jack Nicholson's Devil and Susan Sarandon's repressed music teacher play a literally explosive duet for piano and cello. After this (and after a bout of wild sex), the music teacher finds herself in possession of supernatural musical talent.
• Sanity Slippage: Part of Daryl's plan.
• She Knows Too Much: Daryl flanderizes a more righteous and Genre Savvy woman in town into a Mad Oracle, then uses the three witches as accomplices in her murder.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Felicia's death tells the girls shit just got dangerous. It indeed gets worse.
• Staircase Tumble: Felicia, cuing her Sanity Slippage.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Being Dangerously Genre Savvy and nigh-all-knowing, as well as only self-serving and putting on a facade only when there's some use in that, he outright says "No, not interested, you're wasting your breath" to when he's finally confronted by Alex.
• Suspiciously Specific Sermon: As Daryl van Horn is being blown toward the church by a gale-force wind, the sermon being spoken inside is as follows:

  Priest: Elijah fled to the Mount of God, and behold, the Lord passed by and the great and strong wind rent the mountains and breaked in pieces the rocks before the Lord.

• Theme Tune Cameo: At one point Jack Nicholson's character is whistling the film's theme.
• The Reason You Suck Speech: Alex gives a couple of these to Daryl. Daryl does it in their absence in a church.
• Think of The Children: Felicia uses this as a shallow argument before moving on to other matters.
• Transformation Sequence: Daryl Van Horne, near the end of the film.
• Twin Telepathy: The sisters are implied of having this after the Time Skip, since at least one knows when the other is thinking about Daryl. It's also implied they Took A Level In Badass and learned more about their powers and their relation with Daryl after the Time Skip.
• Unwitting Pawns: The girls, at least until they wise up.
• Villainous Breakdown: Daryl, a couple of times, especially at the end.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Daryl Van Horne inducing vomiting via magic ("Have another cherry") and later suffering as the spell is used on him.
• We Want Our Jerk Back: Not enough to actually bring him back, though.
• "What Do They Fear?" Tape: Daryl makes one after he gets them drunk and uses it when they leave him. That's right, this guy doesn't get women drunk to have sex with them, he gets them drunk to find out his lovers' fears and exploit them.
• Woman Scorned: Multiply that by 3.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Daryl. The girls are forced to make some improvisations themselves.
  • Xanatos Gambit: At the end, although he's vaguely vanquished and/or dead, or at least forced out of the house he bought, his plan ended relatively well: he made the children he wanted, and can still get around the house to influence them.

The novel

• Hollywood New England.
• Name's The Same: Two characters are called Homer and Marge. Oh, and they're married.
• Widow Witch: In the novel, the women of the village of Eastwick only gain powers after their husbands/significant others either die or divorce them. It is mentioned that for some reason, it does not matter if the woman leaves or is left, she becomes a Malleus Maleficarum style witch (with bonus third nipple) automatically.

The musical

• Busby Berkeley Number: The choreography for "Dirty Laundry" deliberately invoked Berkeley's style.
• Henpecked Husband: Clyde: He ends up killing her with a frying pan. With her dying breath, she jams his tie in the garbage disposal and hits on.
• Elegant Classical Musician: Jane Spofford
• Motor Mouth: In the musical, Suki begins the song "Words, Words, Words" as a shy little stutterer. By the time she's halfway through the song, she's speedtalking/-singing.