Film Friday: 5 Seriously Witchin' Flicks

The Craft will forever hold a special place in my cauldron and my heart. I remember being a 12-year-old girl and thinking that my friends and I were just the coolest and craftiest gals ever because we were so into this movie. Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell and Rachel True starring as Catholic prep school witches is a total win, but trying to call the corners and play Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board at sleepovers was a total fail.

Based on the book, The Witches, by Roald Dahl, this film (and more specifically Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch) has terrified children for more than 20 years. I fondly remember watching The Witches during highly anticipated classroom movie days in elementary school. While some of my classmates cowered in their cubbies at the thought of being turned into a mouse, I sympathized with the witches and their plights of wig-rash and square feet.

Yes, Rosemary’s Baby is a film about a literal devil child, but lest we forget that it is a coven of Satanic witches that raises Ol’ Pitchfork from the depths of Hell to impregnate the naïve Rosemary Woodhouse. From the horror genre or not, Rosemary’s Baby is one of my favorite films, ever. It’s brilliantly scripted, acted and directed, so watch it and enjoy “All of them Witches.”

Yet again, one of my all-time favorite films (and not only because Thackery Binx was my first character crush). What’s not to love about Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy playing a trio of sisters who maintain their youthful-ish appearance by sucking the lives out of little children and turning a future Agent McGee into a black cat? If you enjoy this seriously, seriously witchin’ flick as much as I do, park your vacuum cleaner,  grab yourself a dead man’s toe and join me in this chorus:

“Come, little children, I’ll take thee away

Into a land of enchantment

Come, little children, the time’s come to play

Here in my garden of magic”

AND since it’s Halloween weekend and I am a sucker for trivia, do you know which movie poster of a popular horror film remake features the terrified, yet defiant face of Allison (but not her “yabos”) from Hocus Pocus? Click here to see the poster!

Do not groan at my decision to include The Blair Witch Project in my list; hear me out. Seeing this ingeniously marketed film in theaters provided me with my first experience of  moviegoer comradery. The theater was packed. We were silent together; we screamed together. I imagine that movie audiences in 1978 reacted the same way when Halloween debuted. And for all of you new school horror fans, Paranormal Activity, which (for the record) I loathe, learned its lessions from TBWP.

And now for an honorable mention because I cannot make a list of “5 Seriously Witchin’ Flicks” without at least tipping my hat to Mr. Harry James Potter.

And for continued witchy reading, check out my post “Frugal Fun: I’m the Witch!”

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