The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A witch is a female practitioner of magic and Witchcraft. This is quite different from the male equivalent discussed in Magicians and Sorcerers (not to say there are not female magicians). Where a magician’s power derives from ancient knowledge – scrolls, occult objects and the like – a witch’s power is more earth magic, herbalism and sympathetic magic. (Wizards and sorcerers, for instance, never seem to use cauldrons, which seems an essential item in the witch’s repertoire).
There is a substantial body of films in fantasy and horror where a witch is a force of evil, ranging from assorted Fairytales to The Wizard of Oz (1939) and The Witches (1990). In these, she is frequently portrayed as something wizened and hideous. There are also a number of horror films about witches burned at the stake exerting supernatural influence in the present.
There is also a reasonable body of films beginning with I Married a Witch (1942) through tv’s Bewitched (1965-72) that shows the witch in a romantic or domestic relationship and the problems this can present. Other works from The Craft (1996) through Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Wendy the Good Witch to tv’s Charmed (1998-2006) see the witch in a more positive light and even her powers as something of an alternate religious practice.
For films dealing with the historic witch trials, which are nothing to do with witches as characters, see Witch Persecutions.
Directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson conduct a remake of their earlier film about resurrected cheerleaders. The question might be why – both have demonstrated they can do far better than this
Bizarre family film in which Russian princess Anastasia travels through time to the present day and discovers mall culture
A B-budget venture into the Arthurian Legends that never much finds the rich myth of the cycle and emerges as just a routine fantasy adventure
One of the more amusing titles in the gonzo zombie title mashup fad. On the other hand, this takes itself surprisingly seriously and, while well made, never fully goes for broke
The Troll Hunter director Andre Øvredal creates an intense and absorbing mystery about a corpse on a morgue slab and the unsettling spell it exudes on the two coroners examining it
A new Russian-made version of the Baba Yaga folktale where the old witch is rewritten as a seductive nanny stealing children and their parents’ memories of them
One of the first of Mainframe’s animated Barbie films, this creates a fairytale where reasonable effort gone into the animation and characters
The second of the animated Barbie films, this casts her as the title character in the popular Brothers Grimm fairytale, which has been considerably embellished. This suffers the glassy plasticity of the early Mainframe films
Seventh of the animated Barbie films, spinoff of the earlier Barbie Fairytopia, all delivered in sugary upbeat sentiments amid pastel colour schemes that would look eye-poppingly psychedelic if one were high
A visually extraordinary True Crime film based on the story of a Spanish woman who may or may not have abducted and killed a string of children in the 1910s
Another in the interminable softcore Blair Witch parodies with a group of minimally talented and clothed bimbos wandering around the woods and failing to take proceedings seriously
Following the success of The Blair Witch Project, this was an excruciatingly lame softcore parody with a group of girls tramping in the woods finding almost any excuse to undress and conduct sex-related takes on Blair Witch
The Bare Wench Project was an inane softcore parody of The Blair Witch Project. This is the first of four sequels in which another troupe of girls go wandering in the woods while finding almost any opportunity to take their clothes off
Animator Don Bluth conducts a spinoff from his previous film Anastasia, focusing on the adventures of the talking bat sidekick
Lushly made retelling of the Countess Bathory story, one that tries to make an interesting if historically questionable case that she was kind to servants and a misunderstood victim
The interesting idea of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast retold in a modern high school setting. Despite itself, the film manages to wring a reasonable sincerity out of the premise
Excruciating sequel to The Beastmaster that transports Marc Singer’s Dar to contemporary L.A. The whole film is wrecked by an attitude that seems unable to take the proceedings seriously.
Attempt to create another Twilight franchise that quickly becomes the anti-Twilight, shucking the pro-chastity message for a decidedly inflammatory stance against small-minded Christian prejudice
Cheaply made attempt to turn the fairytale into a fantasy adventure where Beauty becomes a kick-ass heroine who joins the Beast in defeating an evil lord and witch
This live-action remake of the Disney animated film is mounted with a lavishness. On the other hand, the romance at the centre never fully warms up, while the human characters have the show stolen from under by the cutlery and furnishings
Obvious but likeable attempt by Disney to replicate the success of Mary Poppins with Angela Lansbury as a good witch taking a group of children on a series of nonsense adventures
Charming fantasy in which James Stewart is tempted by capricious witch Kim Novak. This almost certainly served as the inspiration for tv’s Bewitched
Osama Tezuka is a cult figure in anime and manga – what is less well known is that he also made adult animation. This, about a woman’s temptation by The Devil in mediaeval France, is a mind-boggling array of psychedelia and eroticism
An interesting and worthwhile attempt to retell the epic legend of Beowulf but to give it grounding as an historical work. Filmed in Iceland with an international cast
The hit 1960s sitcom is repackaged as a frothy Nora Ephron romcom that suffers from a fatal mismatching of a showboating Will Ferrell and a more subdued Nicole Kidman who do not seem to connect in any way as Darren and Samantha
Tim Burton film where Albert Finney plays a habitual teller of tall tales whose son sets out to find the truth. Burton’s characteristic quirkiness seems buried by such a blandness you get the sneaking suspicion he has been replaced by a clone of Ron Howard
This has next-to-nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe. Instead, Luigi Cozzi makes a giallo thriller that makes claims to be the unofficial third chapter of Dario Argento’s at that point unfinished Three Mothers trilogy.
Forgotten Disney animated film that was not a success at the time it came out. It seeks to tell an epic fantasy tale in the J.R.R. Tolkien vein but ends up falling too much in the shadow of Star Wars
Powerful film from Christopher Smith set during the Middle Ages about a group on a journey to a village where a priestess can purportedly raise the dead. The film’s skewering of faith in an unforgettable ending is stunning
Classic tv movie that is one of the earliest horror/Westerns hybrids where Roy Thinnes plays a preacher who ends up in town only to find he cannot leave amid mysterious goings-on
Classic work that defined the Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s and turned Barbara Steele into a cult actress. Mario Bava shoots vivid, incredibly atmospheric scenes in black-and-white in ways that no other director does
This shot-on-video film that became a word of mouth sensation with many people believing they were watching real video footage of a trio lost in haunted woods by a witch. Of course, what nobody knew at the time was this was creating the Found Footage film
One of the films from director Ted V. Mikels made not long afterRosemary’s Baby and mostly seems an opportunity for Mikels to lecture about historical witchcraft. Certainly, one of the great exploitation titles of all time
A real head-scratcher from Pixar that seems to have been pitched as a cross between Braveheart and Disney’s Brother Bear. The usual Pixar humour and polish makes for a mostly amiable film but never lifts the show out of a lame duck premise
Probably the least satisfying of Terry Gilliam’s films that turns the real-life fairytale authors into scam ghost hunters in an adventure. Purportedly the subject of behind the scenes troubles, the film never quite comes to life on screen
The second of the video-released sequels to Casper where this time he crosses over to meet Wendy the Good Little Witch as played by Hilary Duff
Adaptation of a book by NZ author Margaret Mahy. Mahy has a sublimely poetic turn of phrase in the writing but the film strips the book down to the point we get no more than a by-the-numbers Young Adult work
Before the films, this was an earlier BBC tv mini-series version of the C.S. Lewis book, one of a series of four adaptations. This is faithful to the story but suffers from impoverished effects
This was the fourth and final, as well as the best of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, which works well enough despite the impoverished production values
The second of the Narnia films. Director Andrew Adamson seems so intent on copying Peter Jackson that the film becomes all epic fantasy flourishes and battle scenes to the exclusion of all else – even much of C.S. Lewis’s book
The film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s book sought to appeal to audiences for the Lord of the Rings films but between Lewis’s heavy-handed Christian allegories and Andrew Adamson’s inexperience as a director fails to fly
An effort from the early days of the Anglo-horror cycle about a town ruled by a reincarnated witch. This comes drenched in a good deal of heavy black-and-white atmosphere
This would be the last of the films made by stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen where he turns his creations towards conducting another Greek Mythology adventure. With an all-star cast playing the Greek gods.
Heavily disappointing remake of the Ray Harryhausen film where the replacement of Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation with CGI fails to achieve any magic
1950s B movie director Bert I Gordon makes a film in which present-day schoolgirl Susan Swift is possessed by her ancestor who was burned at the stake as a witch
Adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s pulp adventure stories and the film that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star. The script from Oliver Stone takes unevenly from Howard but director John Milius gives the film a brutal, primal majesty
This revival of Conan the Barbarian is a dismal effort that gets little of what made the character work, while Jason Momoa gives little impression he is taking proceedings seriously
This sequel to Conan the Barbarian makes the mistake of watering the primal brutalism down to a PG rating and what results ends up being a pedestrian comic-book adventure
A smart and well cast film about a quartet of modern teen high school girls who form a coven of witches. This starts well but loses it in an overblown second act
Blumhouse revival of/sequel to The Craft, the film about a quartet of teenage witches. This updates the original to the modern era in ways the original never did
A massive letdown of the year. A sequel that brings back several of the original cast and gives it to Yuen Wo-Ping to direct but is merely slickly paced, uninspired action that substitutes CGI for the graceful wirework of the original
Dreary film in which Vincent Price is a magistrate who is haunted by a manifestation of The Devil for his witch persecutions. The publicity falsely tried to sell this as an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation.
Fascinatingly torrid Mexican-made film about voodoo, which prefigures much of The Serpent and the Rainbow with striking effect
Dreary British occult film that wastes a great cast line-up, including Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele and an 82 year-old Boris Karloff in his last performance
A comic-book adaptation about vampire wars in a modern East European war zone. A slick Underworld-styled vampire action film that has some interesting ideas going on inside it
Tim Burton’s slide into mediocrity continues with this comedic update of the cult Gothic soap opera tv series, which is now played at a level of cartoonish unseriousness that resembles the Addams Family
Work of Russian horror that heads into pleasingly dark places as a woman enacts a love spell to bring her boyfriend back to her where you just know that something horrible is going to happen
Excellent film from Carl Dreyer, the director of Vampyr director set during the time of witch persecutions about a woman who believes she has the powers of a witch. Everything is told with a beautifully subtle ambiguity
A really bad low-budget film jumping aboard the Folk Horror bandwagon where construction work at a summer camp stirs druidic rituals from the past
Horror anthology with the novelty where all of the stories are horror versions of fairytales. Particularly amusing is the second episode, a modernised version of Little Red Riding Hood
Jess Franco rips off Ken Russell’s The Devils, although surely only Franco could take a story about nuns being tortured and witches burned at the stake and turn it into a work of softcore erotica
This has an appealing premise – the children of all the Disney villains have grown up and go to school together. This is promptly killed by the awfulness of the film itself, which is essentially High School Musical set in the Disney universe
Sequel to the painfully bad Disney Channel film that copied the success of High School Musical and featured the teenage children of classic Disney animated villains. This is just as empty-headed and unwatchable
An early Georges Melies whimsy only a few minutes long in which The Devil appears and causes mischief
Forgotten, unsold tv pilot based on the Marvel Comics sorceror superhero. Unlike other Marvel tv properties of this era, this has an imaginativeness in its reach for esoteric spaces that favourably compares to the comic-book original
Doctor Strange was one of the better MCU films. Here Sam Raimi takes over in the director’s chair. This readily delves into multiverse themes but requires a major crash course in a plethora of Marvel tv series to follow
A bizarre and entirely incomprehensible Japanese urban fantasy. I reached the end with no idea what this film’s string of strange happenings was about at all
Welsh director Caradog James impressed with his previous film The Machine. Here he makes a horror film concerning an urban legend about an old crone haunting those who disturb her, but fails to do anything notable
One of the early films from Lucio Fulci – the film that he always insisted was his best – concerning a series of child killings in a small town. Quite different to the sort of film Fulci became known for
UK’s Amicus Films had a reasonable hit with their horror anthology Dr Terror’s House of Horrors. Director/producer David L. Hewitt jumped in with a copy with a soundalike title produced on a poverty row budget
Charming anime from Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro about a young girl adopted into a witch’s strange household. The occasion where Studio Ghibli made the switch over to computer animation
The film debut of the horror hostess Elvia (Cassandra Peterson), a good natured film containing more bimbo jokes, double entendres and bad puns than one thought possible
One of the head-scratching animated oddities produced by Disney during the 2000s. Not unlikeable, the story concerns a self-centered Aztec emperor who is transformed into a llama
Another of the cheap made-for-video Disney animated sequels that were made during the 1990s/2000s, they tries to get by on association with its predecessor’s name
Disney film in which an animated fairytale princess emerges through into the real world to become Amy Adams. This becomes the opportunity to amusingly puncture the unreal world of the Disney fairytale
Probably the worst of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer witless and painfully unfunny films – this just consists of a series of vulgar gags run over a bunch of scenes from films that came out in the last twelve months
Follow-up to The Ewok Adventure, a tv movie released to theatres internationally. This is a better film than its predecessor that even captures something of the Star Wars spirit on occasions
The definitive film version of the Arthurian legends. John Boorman gives us a magnificent and soaring work of beautiful impassioned imagery that delves deep into the rich mythology of the cycle
The first film from Spanish director Amando de Ossorio, later known for the Blind Dead series. A Euro vampire film starring Anita Ekberg, this proves dreary on all counts
The third of the Fear Street films, this takes the story back to a 17th Century filled with absurdly modern attitudes and offers an explanation that ties everything together
The second of the R.L. Stine adapted Fear Street films, this one takes the action back to 1978 where it then becomes a vigorous homage to the slasher film
The first of the Fear Street films, somewhat more adult than the usual R.L. Stine adaptations. This can be considered the first Woke era slasher film
The second of the Flash Gordon serials, which relocates action to Mars following the popularity of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast. The film has a wonderful imagination that far outshines the tattiness of usual serial production values
This offers the amusing idea of a softcore parody of the old Flash Gordon serials. A surprisingly well-made film in terms of effects but the jokes often seems belaboured amid the witless mugging
US film based on a real Japanese historical incident that has been oddly spun out into a Keanu Reeves-starring epic samurai fantasy film. One of the biggest financial flops of 2013
An anthology of blackly funny tales, including episodes directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, all centred around Tim Roth as a long-suffering hotel bellboy
One of the early films from Paul Verhoeven, an amusingly blasphemous tale that draws more than a little from Don’t Look Now with gay writer Jeroen Krabbe becoming wound into the dealings of femme fatale Renee Soutendijk
The attempt to create another Lord of the Rings went astray with this adaptation of Philip Pulllman’s fantasy series, which cut many of the core elements of the books so as not to offend religious conservatives
TV mini-series based on the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel that spoofs The Omen and Biblical End Times prophecies. The series is very close to the book as though it didn’t want to edit any precious gag
Paco Plaza, best known for the [Rec] movies, returns with an unsettlingly effective film about a girl forced to tend her grandmother only to find increasingly sinister things going on
David Lowery has emerged as a director to watch in the last few years. Here he conducts a beautifully sparse and more ambiguous take on the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Osgood Perkins emerges as a top director in this dark and extremely adult interpretation of the fairytale. There is nothing about this that can be viewed as a children’s tale any longer
A X-rated, West German-made film that blends together several fairytales in a very adult adaptation. The result should be seen for its sheer bizarreness
A low-budget adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story Dreams in the Witch House about a student who moves into a house with occult geometry and stirs dark forces
One of a series of cheaply produced fairytale adaptations made by Cannon Films. This adapts the Brothers Grimm fairytale with tatty banality
Amid the 2010s spate of fairytales rewritten as dark adult fantasies, this was a quite good mockbuster copy from The Asylum. From the director of Sharknado, this is Hansel and Gretel by way of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Amid the early 2010s fad for adult fairytale reinterpretations, this has an anachronistic absurdity that invites you not to take it seriously. A series of action movie poses, CGI and splatter effects are transplanted into the fairytale.
Sequel to The Asylum’s spendidly grotesque Hansel & Gretel, this pits the two characters against one another for contrived reasons to justify its title but is just cheaply made
Another in the spate of animated fairytale parodies that came out in the wake of Shrek, this subjects Cinderella to an excruciating barrage of pop-culture jokes and one-liners
A bizarre pseudo-documentary from the silent era that claims to recount a history of Satanism and witchcraft. Much of the film’s thesis is spurious but the results are facsinating