Critic's Review
Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
The Academy Award-nominated The Witches of Eastwick captures composer John Williams at his most rapturous and playful, brilliantly communicating the sinister seductiveness of the Devil (played by Jack Nicholson) as he wreaks romantic havoc on the desperate housewives of a picturesque New England hamlet. Williams' score is romantic yet dark, its swelling strings underlined by a vague but palpable sense of menace. At the same time, however, The Witches of Eastwick is an archly comedic effort, embracing everything from wry satire to pure camp. (At one point in the film, Nicholson's Daryl Van Horne even whistles his own Williams-penned theme song.) Taken as a whole, it represents Williams' most complete and imaginative comedic score, with none of the heavy-handed whimsy of better-known works like Home Alone.
