“You have the power to make anything you want happen.”

Justin’s rating: Yet we didn’t get the third movie in this unofficial trilogy, Teen Swamp Thang.

Justin’s review: I’m going to channel some serious old guy tones right now, but have you tried to watch a teen movie from the past decade? They’re awful. I’ve started several of these and can’t make it to the halfway point due to the insanely foul language and general unlikable, mean characters. If that’s a reflection of where teens are at today, I sincerely feel and fear for them.

Those experiences made me flee back to an era that, while certainly not perfect, told teenage tales that were relatable, quirky, and likable. And for today’s entry, I’m going to hang out with the excellent Robin Lively (Karate Kid Part III) as she navigates puberty with the help of surprise magic.

Louise (Lively) is a somewhat drab, meek nerd who’s swimming upstream against high school life. She’s embarrassed by her teachers, ignored by her crush Brad, has the creepiest movie brother ever put to screen, and saddled with outfits that look like she’s a middle-aged driving instructor. But this all changes when she’s informed by that Poltergeist lady that she’s actually a witch whose powers are activated on her 16th birthday.

These powers turn out to be less “sacrifice a virgin chicken under the blood moon” and more “rub a lamp and make some wishes.” So Louise gets to wishin’ the way that only a heartbroken girl can. She makes money, turns on a carousel, make the popular girls catty at each other, gets backstage passes to a concert, and tortures a teacher with voodoo. She even (unintentionally) turns her skin-crawlingly terrible brother into a dog. For a time.

It’s a blast watching Louise indulge in her powers for revenge, popularity, money, and helping those she cares about. However, she deliberately draws the line out of magicking Brad into becoming her love slave, so she’s going to have to woo him the old fashioned way.

To enjoy Teen Witch is to appreciate the campy groove that it’s establishing. This is a movie that throws a flirtatious rap battle between white teens and then moves on like it didn’t just do the most ridiculous thing in the world, because it’s got another appointment with doofiness in the very next scene.

It’s a good reminder of how some comedies from the ’80s and ’90s took advantage of the freedom to play fast and loose with reality in the pursuit of a good time. There are magical makeovers, a teacher walking through a car wash, the craziest nerd of all time, and a killer soundtrack. The lack of restraint is perfect for a teenager who has no brakes in her mind and makes a guy vanish only to never have him appear again.

By the way, am I the only one wondering what happened to that hyperactive predatory nerd? Where is his movie where he suddenly appears in a foreign country and has to learn how to milk Mongolian cows for a living all while crying for the American embassy to anyone who will listen?

Granted, this film has a HORRIBLE message at its core, which is that popularity and power is all that matters, not authenticity, friendship, or glasses. And it’s got kids rapping, ’80s style, which physically hurts to witness.

Still, I love that Teen Witch overcame a truly awful drubbing at the box office and with critics to become an enduring favorite of many (and even a musical). There’s a snap, crackle, and pop flowing through this pseudo-musical, and if you get it, you really get it.

Eunice’s rating: Huh. I must’ve really dug that jacket when I was a kid.

Eunice’s review: The last time I watched Teen Witch, start to finish, I was in single digits. As you can expect, my memory was quite different from the actual movie. How I remember it is a girl found out she was a witch and wanted to become a star so she got a singer (who I totally remembered being mall queen Tiffany) to give her this denim jacket that was her talisman.

Yeah, that is so not what happens (well mostly).

Louise (Robyn Lively) is a nerd and an outsider, she has two friends, bohemian dresser Polly and Ms. Malloy the drama teacher, and her fawning admirers from the Latin club. Other than them though everyone else pretty much hates her including the teachers. (The part where Mr. Weaver reads Louise’s diary page out loud is actually a little painful.)

Everyone hates her that is except her crush: BRAD. Brad (Dan Gauthier) is the captain of the football team, handsome, gets the lead in the school plays, beautiful smile, that guy everyone likes. If he has a flaw, it’s that he’s more concerned with being popular than standing up to his nasty mean girl head cheerleader girlfriend to do the right thing. While Louise dreams about Brad, he kindly pities her. Le drama! Add to this her cheesy family and criminal fashion, and her high school life is in a rut.

Then a week before her sixteenth birthday Louise meets fortune teller Madame Serena (Zelda Rubinstein). Only Madame Serena is the real deal, and tells Louise she is too. After her birthday, Louise finds a strange pendant, accidentally wishes away a terrible blind date, turns her brother into a dog, and a few other weird things happen. Going back to Serena she discovers that not only is she a witch, she’s the reincarnation of a rather powerful witch.

There was a run of ’80s teen comedies based around traditional horror, thanks in large part to Teen Wolf. Cashing in on the popularity of that, Teen Witch is a rather bizarre and silly take on witches, more fueled by disjointed revenge fantasies than an actual story. But it all comes down to outcast nerd girl (despite the fact she’s pretty) wants the crush, the popularity, the clothes and accidentally leaves behind her best friend, family, and true self, and sorts it all out in time for the school prom.

The thing that jumped out at me the most is the (horrible, awful) musical numbers. Now Teen Witch is not a musical, even with the numbers in there I still wouldn’t call it a musical. There’s a group in Louise’s school that does (horrible, awful) rap and when the cheerleaders do a “new cheer” in the locker room before PE called ‘I Like Boys’ I was really confused having completely forgot about there being any of that kind of singing in the movie.

It’s so random that I found myself thinking of ”Cause I’m a Blonde’ from Earth Girls Are Easy or the weird group prom dance at the end of She’s All That. Though I can’t decide if my life is more scarred or enriched by having seen the ‘Top That’ romantic rap battle between Polly and the leader of the rap group (It has to be seen to be believed, but let’s just say it starts with her saying how “funky” he is and spirals into ridiculousness from there).

Joshua John Miller is frickin’ creepy. He will always be Homer the kid vampire from Near Dark to me, I kept waiting for him to rip off Louise’s face. While he’s not as psychotically violent here, he may be just a little more spooky.

Miller isn’t the only thing that creeped me out though. I know it’s my 2013 eyes looking at an ’80s movie, and maybe this is a little influenced by having seen The Craft. The movie makes a point that Louise makes a decision to not use a love potion on Brad, but she does use a spell to make herself the most popular girl in school after Brad tells her that’s the only reason he’s going out with his current girlfriend. So it’s never really established why Brad likes Louise. Is it just the magic?

It’s not deep, but there are worse examples of teen wish fulfillment fantasy movies from the ’80s, and Teen Witch is definitely fun in a goofy way.

Intermission!

• Using a music video for your slow-mo opening credits, an interesting choice.
• Her brother is eating cake under her bed while she sleeps? That is beyond weird.
• White guys rapping very loudly in the hallway
• Time for a random locker room dance party to the hit song, “I Like Boys”
• The school play is Jean Giraudoux’s Ondine.
• Brad wears his football pads to his audition?!
• “I like your cutesy little Punky Brewster face.”
• Edna the egg
• The “condom” chant
• “You want to smoke some WEEED?”
• Eat a pastry every time that Louise says “Brad” in a desperate way, and you’ll end up incredibly fat
• “Give me some SOUL KISSES baby!”
• “Nobody wants to date you because you’re a dog, a DOG!”
• Beginner spells are weak, water cancels them too
• What is up with the yearbook from the 1600s
• “Kiki” is such an ’80s name
• If you’re like me and think Louise’s blind date David looks like Freddie Prinze Jr. well we’re wrong together. It’s actually Jared Chandler, who also fooled me as one of the college stoners in Feds.
• Were tutus really that big of a fashion staple?
• E pluribus unum, Wizard of Oz anyone? Means “Out of many, one” by the way.
• The frog-guy only able to ribbit is a joke you can see coming a mile away but it’s still funny
• “Where are all the chairs?” and then her closet full of chairs
• The teacher being led into the car wash because of the doll, haha
• I’M HOT YOU’RE NOT RAP BATTLE
• Wait, why does Brad know about this completely abandoned house that’s semi-furnished? Is this where he takes his victims before they end up on milk cartons?
• “My, aren’t we trend setting this morning?”
• She throws away the talisman and… nothing changes. Wha?
• Half of this soundtrack is dreamy saxaphone
• Lotta teen boys took their dates rowing into a marsh in the ’80s
• That final dance is a total Dirty Dancing ripoff — only without The Lift.
• Teen movie cliche: How can someone always get to the merry-go-round at night after the carnival shuts down? And if these parks are so easy to get into, how do they not ever run into nogoodniks?
• “The worst possible thing is happening. It’s like Birthday on Elm Street.”
• “Ms. Malloy, my life is a walking, talking tragedy.”