The month of October is the witching hour. As the summer season becomes fall, this is the time of year when witch costumes and witchcraft pervade the culture.
Be it in horror or in many offbeat rom-coms, witches in the 1990s fascinated the culture because they represented a powerful symbol of female autonomy, resistance against authority and the navigation of the unknown. In honor of applying season, here are three witch movies from the decade.
“The Craft”
The late 1990s were the start of a witch renaissance. On TV, we would get “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Charmed,” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.” On film, we would get “The Blair Witch Project,” “Practical Magic,” and “The Craft.”
Here we follow a group of wannabe-witches who use their growing powers to survive the hell that is high school. While I still feel act three devolves into a lot of special effects, on the whole the film works because the four witches are interesting characters.
A nicer film would’ve made these ladies “good witches” and proselytized about solidarity, but “The Craft” actually makes their witches wicked. We feel their pain and empathize with their anger at the world, resulting in a story where the witches don’t just turn on their enemies, they also turn on each other. I particularly like Fairuza Balk as a disturbed witch who starts out as a friend and gradually becomes a foe. ★ ★ ★
“The Witches”
Once upon a time, we got children’s films that actually wanted to scare children. “The Witches” was one such film. Blending the offbeat direction of Nicolas Roeg, the peculiar imagination of Roald Dahl, and the unique puppetry of Jim Henson, this was a wickedly entertaining kids’ horror film determined to both entertain and scare the sh*t out of children.
This adaptation of Roald Dahl’s story about a boy who accidently stumbles upon a national convention of witches isn’t out to play nice. Not only is the movie fun and fast-paced, it sports some very tactile monster effects that make its world feel all the more real. Example: The scene where Angelica Huston’s grand high witch pulls off her skin and reveals her monstrous exterior will be nightmare fuel for youngsters, and the scene where a young child is turned into a rodent is grade-A body horror. The result is that rare scary story for children that is actually scary. ★ ★ ★ ½
“Eve’s Bayou”
Let’s leave the world of white witches and go down south to the world of ghosts, voodoo, and psychic powers that is “Eve’s Bayou,” a sultry Southern Gothic tale that I hold in high regard.
Unfolding over the course of a long, hot Louisiana summer, we follow a well-to-do Black family whose women share psychic powers and more than a few secrets. What hooks me is how the story is told entirely from the point of view of a 10-year-old child who doesn’t always understand what she is seeing, even though the audience does.
This choice of perspective crafts both a haunting fantasy about Black magic and a strange coming-of-age story about memory. We see ghosts and witchcraft become entangled with generational traumas amongst women.
Magic aside, the film could be enjoyed for its specific sense of place. In between affairs and murders, director Kasi Lemmons emphasizes the humidity, mists, and atmosphere of summer in Louisiana. For me, it’s one of the highlights of ’90s cinema. ★ ★ ★ ★
