Sarah Plain & Tall & Telekinetic

Shelley Winters in a 1978 made-for-TV Carrie ripoff streaming on Netflix? You can bet your Olympic swimming medal that has a place at The Doll’s House!

Quick Plot: The beautiful Patty and her mousy adopted sister Sarah are heading to college, the alma mater of their sorority queen mom/pointedly adopted sorority queen mom. Patty dreams of joining the likes of queen bee Jennifer (played by the always fabulously bitchy Morgan Fairchild) at the Alpha Bitcha Bitcha House (I didn’t write the name down, but I’m pretty sure that was it) while dowdy Sarah joins the girls with less money, looks, and manners over at Phi Blah Blah House. She also strikes up a mildly inappropriate romance with one of her teachers and reveals, as Patty is forced to play the Alpha Bitcha Bitcha role, a fairly obvious case of Carrie White.

Much like The Spell, The Initiation of Sarah is a made-for-TV leftover of the Carrie juggernaut. Apparently in the late 1970s, socially awkward teenage girls with telekinetic powers were all the rage, while their mean-girl tormenters ensured acting roles would always be available for icy blonds. Brunettes, on the other hand, were safely ensured the chance to play the dumpy girl’s even dumpier buddies (how Mia Farrow’s sister snuck in as Sarah’s violin-playing pal is a mystery) and thus keep the status quo safely in line.

And that’s were it stays in this far-too-slow movie. Though well acted by its young cast, The Initiation of Sarah is sadly duller than that freshman psychology class I took where my professor uttered the expression ‘um’ 60 times in two minutes (I counted, which was more interesting than the ummish lecture). As Sarah, Kay Lenz is fine, but hardly the tragic victim of Sissy Spacek, while sister Patty (Morgan Brittany) is quite likable, even if her story never finds a snug place to fit into the supernatural development of Sarah’s heritage. Because oh yeah...her birth mother was killed in a bewitching sorority ceremony by Shelley Winters. Or something.

See, Shelley Winters is Shelley Winters. Big, boisterous, intimidating at dinner parties and I imagine, DMV lines but also a presence that simply demands your attention. You understand why she’s credited as making a “special appearance” here because without the pure power of this sassy dame, The Initiation of Sarah would be pretty hard to survive.

It’s not a terrible movie; just a dull one. At around 95 minutes, The Initiation of Sarah somehow feels epic, even though the running time covers barely half a semester. A good deal of that is Netflix listing the film in the category of “Horror Films.” When more time is spent on Sarah’s Cinderella makeover and reinvigoration of her dowdy sorority than human sacrifice or dropping pianos on people (tease!), it makes for a tad souring of my evening.

High Points

Ain’t no bitch can deliver a line like “Girls! Put on your hoods!” with quite the same panache as Shelley

Low Points

If you’re going to spend five minutes setting up a piano being suspended from the second floor vicariously as minor villains pass over it, how dare you--HOW DARE YOU SIR I SAY--end the scene without...you know, ACTUALLY dropping the piano on someone

Lessons Learned

When a man you hardly know tells you that you look good in your bathing suit then escorts you into the water, he probably wants something a little more physical than synchronized swimming

Sororities aren’t all that bad. They just make you do horrible things to test your loyalty

In the 70s campus life, kissing was far more aggressive, perhaps because the whole damned world was drinking coffee

When lifting weights, think carefully before having your ticklesome girlfriend act as your spotter

The best insult to hurl at a nervous college student is to tease her for being a prodigy

Side Note

Apparently there exists a 2006 remake made for the ABC Family Channel and starring the TOTALLY mousy and unattractive Summer Glau in the title role, with Fairchild popping back in to play her mother. Not sure if there’s a shirtless Robert Hays or piano death though

Rent/Bury/Buy

I almost feel unqualified to give an ultimate ranking of this film. Is it fair to say I didn’t like The Initiation of Sarah because it wasn’t trashy? When the worst thing the bad girls do to our heroine is throw tomatoes and mud (or maybe poop; it’s more interesting if it’s poop, so let’s say poop) her way, it just doesn’t do much to give me any reason to smile.   The film is streaming, so it certainly doesn’t hurt to try out The Initiation of Sarah, but don’t expect a huge finale. There are a few deaths and a mild ‘splosion, but nothing that a little Piper Laurie prayers couldn’t top.

They're All Gonna Laugh At You (Until You Kill Them)

There is a great horror film about a chubby teenage girl waiting to be made.

The Spell is not it.

This isn’t too much of a shame. A TV movie made in the shadow of Carrie, The Spell is a brisk and entertaining slice of late ‘70s mediocrity that offers a few giggles matched by surprises. It’s perfectly fine for a quick Instant Watch even if you might forget everything about it one day after viewing. It’s fine. It is fine.

One of my favorite memoirs is Judith Moore’s Fat Girl, a painfully honest documentation of a woman battle-scarred by a lifetime of obesity. It literally hurts to read, and yet I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Oh. But I’m supposed to be talking about The Spell, which doesn’t hurt to watch but also...well...doesn’t quite make good on its potential.

Quick Plot: Teenage Rita is mildly overweight and majorly pissed about it and everything else in life. At school, the big-haired slim-waisted gymnasts tease her mercilessly. I suppose that’s bound to happen to the size 10 teen when every other student is in pristine physical condition. 

During one fateful day in gym class, Rita’s most outspoken tormenter has a deadly (and hilarious) accident, plummeting from the ceiling after she attempts a Ringling Brothers’ circus move on the rope. Anyone who’s seen Carrie--which, let’s face it, is why you’re watching the film to begin with--knows that a touch of telekinesis is surely at play.

See, Rita is, to put it kindly, surly. Aside from her sympathetic mom (Lee Grant), her family is cruel and friends nonexistent. Dad likes to make cutting fat comments and little sis (a tiny Helen Hunt) is a bad-pizza-making brat. Luckily for Rita, *someone* in town has an afterschool club on using psychic energy and little by little, her strength rows to increasingly bizarre murders, the best of which is the slowest spontaneous combustion of all time. Really it’s more a slow roast, which sounds much more delicious than it probably is.

The Spell wears its, ahem, influences on its belled ‘70s sleeve. On one hand, it’s an enjoyable enough slice of moldy cheese that passes 77 minutes as well as anything. On the other, it’s a huge missed opportunity.

The Carrie of Stephen King’s novel is not a Sissy Spacek size 4. She’s plump and pimply, and in that is a multi-dimensional story waiting to be told. The Spell could have done so. 

High Points

Maybe my sick day 50% functioning brain wasn’t at its most nerdy, but I was genuinely surprised by a few of the film’s twists

Low Points

As my review mostly states, it just seems like there was a genuinely interesting story to be told about Rita’s unhappiness. I really would’ve appreciated a film that dared to tell it

Lessons Learned

In the 1970s, it was standard physical fitness to be able to climb a rope

If the Nightmare On Elm Street saga has taught us anything, it’s that being a member of the swim team is a surefire way to a wet wild death. Take heed The Spell, take heed

The best way to show your unhappy psychic teenage daughter that you love her is to send the kid four thousand miles away for the next year of her life

Rent/Bury/Buy

Instant Watch is where The Spell belongs. It’s a breezy under-80-minute film that doesn’t really merit any effort, but is entertaining enough in its ‘70sness. One could do a whole lot better but hey...there’s also always a whole lot worse.