Teen Witch - WTF?

Ironically, I was having a conversation today with my best friend about Witch Movies. Which witch films are the best? Which are the worst? Which ones are awful but fun to watch? After several names like Witches of Eastwick, Hocus Pocus, 1 of 4 of the stories in 4 Rooms, Witches, etc. were batted around, we headed home from our lunch in WeHo and were deciding what to watch when I realized we had a Netflix sitting in the living room. It happened to be Teen Witch. Now I must admit, I hadn't really heard of this one until my good friend, Hayden, sent me a link to a YouTube post called Top This! It was a musical number: 1 of many from this movie. After seeing it I immediately went to my cue and bumped it to the top. I knew this was TOTALLY gonna fall into the WTF category.

Teen Witch (1989) is the story of Louise Miller (Robyn Lively.) She's tormented by the popular girls in school, and totally 

embarrassed in front of her class when her brother Richie (played by creepy kid star Joshua John Miller of Class of 1999) leaves a diary page in her creative writing assignment, which is then read aloud in front of her hot crush Brad (Dan Gauthier.) Gauthier proceeds to run her off the road and Lively seeks refuge at the mysterious home of psychic Madame Serina (Zelda Rubenstein, the little lady from Poltergeist.) Lively then learns a week before her 16th birthday that she's "special." After a series of wonderful montages and trickery spells she suddenly becomes "the popular girl" herself, and wins over Gauthier but for all the wrong reasons. And to top it all off Dick Seargant (one of the two Darrens in Bewitched) plays her father. Sergeant noticeably wears WAY too much eyeliner as he plays the doting father cast WAY too old as her father in this WTF film. 

There are sooo many oh so wonderful WTF  moments in this film - Let's start with it's a musical! ... filled with oh sooo many badly sung crazy choreographed rap and dance numbers that seem to bounce out of nowhere- it smells of something out of Breakin' or Breakin 2 but the camp value is turned way up to 11. Also, the wonderful 80's clothing, hairstyles, and references steal the show. There's even a moment when Lively's character is compared to Punky Brewster. Also the hot boyfriend crush Brad (Gauthier) is sort of like a poor man's Tom Cruise, only hotter looking. Kudos to Director Dorian Walker for getting his groove on with all the slo-mo (emphasis on MO) shots of Gauthier working out on the football field. Throw in Marsha Wallace (The Bob Newhart Show, Mrs. Krabappel in The Simpsons) as the crazy drama teacher;  a dykey best friend who's storyline never seems to get resolved; and Rubenstein's creepy character that eventually leads to a weird lap-dancingesque tender moment with Lively.

This film, for sure, is a DO NOT MISS 80's classic that is all in all just... magical!