Cast a Deadly Spell (1991) is a horror-fantasy detective comedy television film[1] with Fred Ward, Julianne Moore, David Warner, and Clancy Brown.

Cast a Deadly Spell combines two disparate genres – film noir detective stories, and eldritch tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.

A sequel entitled Witch Hunt was released in 1994, with Dennis Hopper playing Ward's role of Harry Philips Lovecraft.

(The character's name, as well as a number of plot elements, make reference to the work of weird fiction writer Howard Philips Lovecraft.)

[4]) Hackshaw chose Lovecraft for the job because Phil is notorious in Los Angeles for his adamant refusal to use magic in any form.

In The New York Times John J. O'Connor said that the "new HBO Pictures production that can be seen tonight at 8 on the pay-cable service, gives the city a spin that should make even its most jaded observers sit up, chuckle and wince.... Mining familiar formulas, Mr. Dougherty's Cast a Deadly Spell is engagingly different and special.

But none of what I've done or seen in that town can compare with what happens to H. Phillip Lovecraft in a special effects-filled and wildly successful original Home Box Office movie...