Not a bad film that was made for TV. Quite entertaining really. Rita is a 15 year old overweight girl who is made fun of by the other kids. She finds out she has supernatural powers and uses them against those that she feels is causing her problems. I felt sorry for Rita in the beginning - but as the film progressed she became annoying - not listening to her parents, trying to act like she's an adult really became annoying to me. By the end of the film I was ready for Rita to be gone - well away from her family or something happen to her to straighten up and act right. Pretty good even though it's made for TV. Worth watching if you like the older films and occult/witches types of films.7/10

A teenaged girl, taunted by her schoolmates because she is overweight, uses her supernatural powers to take revenge.First of all, the lead girl that everyone calls "tubbo" is hardly overweight. Homely, sure, but not overweight. I mean, not nearly as much as she could be.Second, this film necessarily will have to be compared to "Carrie" -- two films about teenage girls who get teased and have magic powers, released around the same time. This is, of course, the poor man's "Carrie" and thus ended up on TV rather than in theaters. But is it really less of a film? Third, this film has the distinction of having an early appearance by Helen Hunt (one of my least favorite actresses). Here, she is only 13 or 14. If you happen to be a fan of hers (and I do not know why), this might be worth checking out if you want to see how she acted in her formative years (though, since both her father and uncle were directors, she sort of grew up in the lifestyle).

The Spell (1977) ** (out of 4) This made-for-TV horror film was shown just three months after the release of CARRIE so it's easy to see why it's been forgotten over the years. Lee Grant plays a mother who starts to get worried when her overweight daughter (Susan Myers) begins to act strange against those picking on her. Soon it appears the girl has supernatural powers that she's using against those who pick on her. THE SPELL is obviously a cheap rip-off of the Brian DePalma classic and I think what really kills this film is the screenplay. It's hard to feel sorry for the young girl played by Myers because she's really just an all around ugly person. In CARRIE we at least cared about the girl and even in the end when we might not agree with what she was doing. In this film there's never a single scene where we feel for the girl and this is really what causes the film to fall apart. Each time we see her she's being rude, ugly or trying to kill somewhat. This here isn't the best way to fall for any character. It's also rather annoying watching the mother walking around so stupid and never really being able to see what's going on. The film is basically told through the eyes of the mother and she goes back and forth so many times that it's hard to relate to her as well. Grant, for the most part, deliver a good performance as the mother and I was also impressed with Myers. A very young Helen Hunt plays the sister and does a nice job with it and we also have James Olson turning in a good performance. The direction is okay but I think a faster pace would have helped things. THE SPELL really doesn't come anywhere close to CARRIE but it's probably best that one doesn't try to compare the two films. Even on its own, this here is pretty weak and is only for those who need to see every film of its type.

I have to admit that I saw this film went I was pretty young. But that doesn;t really matter I saw the Omen at the time as well and i still like it as an adult.. I completely disagree with the review of the above poster. I don't think it's a Carrie rip off and The reason the 15 year old girl had these psychic powers was because it ran in the family. It was a family secret. It was one that her mother wanted to pretend didn't exist because it scared her too much especially because she knew her sister was Evil and wanted to use her own powers for evil things. The 15 year old girl in the film knew none of this. She only knew that went she was teased to the extent that she was by mean kids.. Things would happen to them. There were one or two example of this in the movie. Nothing major.. One got hurt and the other bully may have died from a freak accident. It wasn't excessive to say the least like the post above mine had said.. In fact there weren't masses of people dieing anywhere like he said.. The conflict and the final battle was contained within the immediate family. The above Poster clearly got his facts mixed up especially about the girl practicing the Occult. She did not and they never said she did in the movie... It was her Evil Aunt that did.. The girl did not know anything more than it seemed like she was causing her bully's to get hurt when she willed it and told her mother who knew everything but wanted to dust the facts of these powers under the rug ..The mother struggled with this through the film.. It was a very very good film.. There was a lot of cool things happening in it that I didn't want to give away here. ..I highly recommend this to anyone that likes truly scary and suspenseful films of the 70's .. I don't know where to get a copy for myself so if anyone know please e-mail me at.. [email protected]