It’s always the season of the Witch
With The Witch out on DVD next week, on the day of bad omens (July 18th), I thought we’d take a look at some horror movie witches. Because there’s nothing like magic to carry you into the unknown and uncontrollable. I don’t know about you but when I was a kid Witches were pretty scary. Back when we played outside till the street lamps came on and you could hear your Mum calling you.
In our neighborhood there was one somewhat over grown house at the bottom the street, that for years we all believed belonged to a witch. It wasn’t even because of who lived there or anything, it was a sort of pretty cottage in a street of new(er) builds. The house was wrong. But there’s always one house right? And there’s always one kid who insists a witch lives there. Because this one time, after the street lamps came on, that kid saw something.
Horror Movie Witches can be Good or Evil
Magic is neither good nor evil, black nor white. Rather, it’s who wields it and what there intent is that determines it’s nature. So don’t go eating the witches guttering or destroying her bar.
The Blair Witch Project
Thought I best start with the obvious horror movie witch. The one with no actual witch. This is even scarier than sneaking up to the house at the end of the street to see if you can see the hall light on at Halloween. When I first watched it I wasn’t too sure about it, the weird camera angles were kind of a new thing, but once I’d got over that I thought it was pretty decent.
A group of students are trying to investigate a local legend about a series of murders. They’re filming it all themselves and camping out in the woods so they can get to out of the way locations. It doesn’t take too long before things start getting a little creepy. And once lost in the woods they just don’t stand a chance. The witch in this case was the murderer and part of the legend.
Sleepy Hollow
A Tim Burton special and erring on the side of humorous. It’s dark and twisty and has an actual witch this time. Several in fact appear throughout the movie – both good and evil. A police constable is sent to investigate the murders that have been occurring in the town of Sleepy Hollow. Murders attributed to the headless horseman who it is believed is controlled by a witch – but which witch?
Season of the Witch
An unusual story with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman transporting a witch in a cage to an Abbey. For the most part she’s just a girl in a cage, and uses that to her advantage when she can. Unfortunately she’s not just a girl in a cage. It’s a slow build but a pretty good movie.
Of course, there are like a gazillion other horror movie witches
Such as: The Craft (is this really horror?), Drag me to Hell, The Skeleton Key, The Woods. And I’m sure there will be more. I hope there will be more. I’m looking forward to sitting down on Monday and watching The Witch – maybe I’ll binge watch witch horror movies and see if I can find others to add to this list.
Horror and Fantasy Author – Also writing as K.T. McQueen. Love Western Horror, cowboy boots, my cactus Collin, & my Demon Cat.
Moths – I hate moths, the way they flutter at your face!
