The Love Witch

Better than people give it credit for. Beautifully shot and acted. The late 60s' theme works great. You almost thing you are watching a film from that era. It has a little horror and a little comedy but not to much of either. The runtime could have been trimmed.

It´s been said, "The Love Witch" is technically brilliant. The imitation of older genre films is perfect. It´s not only the visuals, the scenery or the costumes, the sound design is just as good and every single character seems to be taken from another era. Even transitions from scene to scene are excellent. Anna Biller has a complete understanding of the movies she wants to emulate. It´s almost witchcraft.

From a feminist standpoint, it isnt´t subtle. I´m not sure if it should be taken entirely serious. I find it deceitully simple, though, and quite clever but it does at times seem taken from another era as well. The truth is i don´t get it completely. This film, feminist or not, is certainly feminine. The most feminine film I´ve ever seen. It´s a woman´s art, a woman´s idea, a woman´s everything. It´s absolutely drowning in estrogen.

The question is, if "The Love Witch" was actually a late 60s film would it be any good? I have no idea but I´m guessing it´s irrelevant. Revivalism is a crucial element. It uses older esthetics to prove a point now. The comedy works better in a 21st century context. It might be too long and slow, I´d recommend watching it in the morning, not a popular time to watch movies but a lot films work better that way, and this is definitely one of them.

This is the story of a beautiful witch called Elaine, well played by Samantha Robinson, who uses spells to get men to fall in love with her but every time she finds one it ends tragically. Fantastic use of colour here, in particular reds, pinks and blues. It is also an homage to the style of the films from the 1960's of the likes of Hitchcock. Plus it does serve as an interesting insight to the world of witchcraft for those who are not learned in the topic, in particular wicca or white magic.And it has plenty of nudity. However, after an engaging first hour the second hour is unnecessarily long and sadly lets the film down.

I was expecting something crazy and wild, but it was just OK. It should have been ar least 30 minutes shorter because by the end I was losing interest.

The movie looks great and the "bad" 60s acting is fun to watch.

It's just too long, that's all.

This is a difficult one to review because it isn't really a horror. There's nothing scary about it and I can understand that a lot of geeks out there rejected this throwback to the sixties early seventies.

If you watch it in that perspective then you will like this a lot because the way the cinematography was done is clearly an ode to those days. In fact, the score, the editing, the lighting, the colour grading the way of acting and speaking, it's all done in a sixties style. Maybe for some clocking in at two hours is way too long for some and I can understand that because it's all talking and talking. But it do offers some 'magick' when the witches arrive. It's so beautifully done and it all looks like a real coven. The nudity, the rituals, everything.

So if you are into witchcraft then this is one to pick up. If you are into very old horrors with talking and talking it's your stuff. If you think you are going to see gore or even red stuff, forget it.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 0/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5