What makes it different from others?

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

The acting in this movie is really good.

"A masterful work..."? Who wrote that? Kirstie Alley in a masterful work about the Salem witch trials. Got to be worth a watch. I bailed after an hour and 25 minutes of my life that I bitterly regret wasting on this. If I hadn't had a pizza delivered and had my hands full, I might have had the will to turn it off.I've tried to bear in mind that it's 32 years old but that's really no excuse.The acting is truly awful. Accents that put Dick Van Dyke as the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins in a good light. Terrible cinematography, sets like a 1950s B movie. Plot devices and direction on the same level as a local am dram production.Sorry, but I can't find a single redeeming thing to say about this. The one star I've given was for Kirstie Alley's acting which was pretty good.

If I wanted to listen to a bunch of screaming for an hour and a half, I would go to a Justin Bieber concert. The only spoiler here is if you don't want a migraine, refrain from this garbage. The cast lured me in thinking this would be good. Anything but. Overacting by most of the cast, adolescent girls screaming their heads off the whole movie, men yelling, women yelling, just pure nonsense. I hoped for something good, now I will have to drink myself to sleep.

I admit that I've never really given much thought to the career of Kirstie Alley ... as I've never really seen her do anything worth making note of ... until today. In the Salem Witch trial, she radiates a truthfulness that I have never seen in any of her past performances. She borders, at times, of overacting ... however, one wonders if this is due to the script, or did someone forget to tell us that she was playing the part of a woman bordering upon insanity? I prefer to think it was a problem with the script.Shirley MacLaine ... OMG ... I have to say that I never ever thought I would see Shirley MacLaine in the all together, the all together as naked as the day that she was born ... and I'm not so sure I shall ever get over the experience! I can't believe that the script would call for her not to cry during this humiliating experience. But it is one heck of a soul baring scene. I do have to say that the prison scene "and I shall find GOD there" was sheer genius, and the acting made all the more memorable.I, obviously, found the scripting to offer so much less than what this most talented cast brought forth out of the depths of their bowels ... EWWW ... sorry, got carried away. Its just that most of the acting in this movie was worthy to be shown in theaters, and not as a TV movie. And i can't believe that I have only just discovered this movie 12 years after it was made.The Salem Witch Trials are true American horror stories that will never be forgotten, especially as it is a true testament to man's inhumanity to man ... for nothing more than the greed of man ... and, even more so, the church! More children of GOD have been tormented, tortured, and murdered, in the name of a false god that I pray I never come face to face with. Oh, that's right ... that god doesn't exist ... THANK GOD!Update ... I have just discovered that the DVD of this movie has a problem to which I have only been watching the last half of the movie! For the first time I am watching the full movie and now it makes sense.

Having read the play, "The Crucible" and being a fan of the play, this movie is a pure travesty. I think if the director of this movie was to watch the movie "The Crucible" he would have learned what to do and not to do in this movie.I was just wondering, where was the character that came to Salem, that specialist in witchcraft? I can't remember his name, but he was one of the coolest characters in the book, and he should have been in this movie. He is the guy that starts believing that the girls are just faking it.I think the acting of the girls "afflicted" by the "witches" did a superb acting job.