Witches’ Brew 1980

Set on a college campus, this story revisits a Leiber tale cycle—one that earlier film versions like Weird Woman (1944) and Night of the Eagle (1962) also explored—yet here the mood sits closer to light, with occasional comic touches amid the core drama. The central premise revolves around a group of wives who practice witchcraft to nudge their husbands’ careers forward, weaving magic into the daily life of academia and the politics of faculty chairmanships.

Margaret Lightman [Teri Garr] is at the heart of the spellwork, and her husband Joshua Lightman [Richard Benjamin] begins to doubt the value of her occult interventions, urging her to stop practicing witchcraft. His skepticism sets off a chain of misfortune that seems to answer his worries: Lightman experiences a series of troubling incidents that pull him away from the path to advancement. He cuts himself shaving, is accused by a male student of improper conduct—an accusation that costs him the psychology department chair—and a disgruntled female student takes aim from a college rooftop, firing at him with a rifle in a bid to derail his career.

Vivian Cross [Lana Turner], another key player among the wives, wields influence through a chilling instrument—a sculpture of an egg modeled on a demonic witches’ egg found in a spellbook. This egg houses a being that hatches and, with eyes that shoot green flames, becomes a malevolent observer and pursuer, following Joshua’s car and nearly causing a fatal accident before Vivian’s magic intervenes to destroy the threat.

As Vivian’s power falters with her own life in peril, she hatches a plot to trade bodies with Margaret. The plan would finally free Vivian from a frail mortal frame and place her in Margaret’s life, while Margaret would be cast into a perilous fate. The moment of choice comes when Margaret is sent plunging off a pier in her car, a fate reversed only by Joshua’s intervention through magic that saves her life. Yet Vivian succeeds in swapping souls with Margaret, flipping the balance of power in an instant.

The twist resolves with a reversal of fortunes: Vivian’s soul swap is undone in the end, Vivian is destroyed, and Margaret is restored to her own body. Back in her rightful form, Margaret resumes her role in the witches’ craft, once again aligning with Joshua to contend with the forces around them and harness magic to support his career—now more cautiously and with renewed purpose.