A little dark for a comedy, but not touching the emotions enough (until the end) for a drama about witchcraft.

Despite its excellent cast - Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing, Aidan Quinn - this is neither eccentric nor flamboyant enough to amuse us and send our pulses racing at the same time.

All the Owens women are witches: when they hear the sound of the death watch beetle, their man dies.

It all comes disastrously true for Bullock, rather negating the spell that aunts Channing and Wiest have put on Sandra and her man.

Kidman is also in trouble, being possessed by a bad lot in more ways than one.