"We don't have much in the way of Obamacare down here," says Eloise (Loretta Devine), the hoodoo-practicing matriarch who serves as the chief villain of Spell. That it's the most ominous line of Kurt Wimmer's screenplay provides some indication of the dearth of genuine thrills in the new horror film directed by Mark Tonderai that provides an African-American riff on themes rendered much scarier in Misery.