Sunday, November 14, 2010

What are Your Favorite Witch Movies?


John Morehead of Theofantastique shared this link on Facebook today: horror-movies.ca offers a great list of Thirteen Top Witch Films. I like that they list a number of classics and older films, like Witchfinder General (1968) and Mark of the Devil (1970). They even named The Wicker Man (1973) their Number One choice!

But I did notice they omitted several films I'd have included: most notably, The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Rosemary's Baby (1968). And despite including a quote from The Witches of Eastwick (the novel, not the film), they don't include that film in their list.

So what are your favorite witch films? What do you think of the list?

My own list of 13 (good number) would be as follows:

1. The Wicker Man (1973)
2. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
3. The Craft (1997)
4. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
5. The Devils (1971)
6. Stranger in Our House (aka Summer of Fear) (1978)
7. Sorceress (1995)
8. Excalibur (1981)
9. Witchfinder General (1968)
10. The Initiation of Sarah (made for TV) (1978)
11. Satan's School for Girls (made for TV) (1973)
12. The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (TV mini-series) (1978)
13. Midnight Offerings (made for TV) (1981)

Note that a number of these were made for television films. 1978 was apparently quite a fertile year for them. I miss the wonderful occult-themed programming from the 1970s! It was practically non-existent in the 1980s.

Technically, The Wicker Man isn't about witches, but about paganism. But that's a minor quibble, I suppose. It's become a seminal film for neo-pagans and its representation of a pagan community that lives in a Shangri-la-like location in Scotland has inspired a novel (Whitley Streiber's Cat Magic) and has been called the Citizen Kane of horror films. The sequel is eagerly awaited.

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