You know the film. It’s a film you have never heard of. The cast might be composed of actors you know and love or complete unknowns. You stumble across it on streaming and wonder if it will be worth two hours of you time. This series will be devoted to reviewing films like these, the strange items that pop up when you are looking for a flick on the streaming service of your choice. This is “We Found It On Streaming”
FILM: The Love Witch
Release Date: November 11, 2016
Run Time: 120 Minutes.
Streaming Service(s): Peacock
Rating: Unrated
Elaine Parks (Samantha Robinson) is unlucky in love. She is currently reeling from the death of her ex-husband Jerry (Stephen Wozniak), so she decides to relocate from San Francisco to Arcata to start a new search for love in a new town, bringing all her spell books and potions with her.
See, Elaine is a witch, and you would think that being able to make love potions would make it easy for her to find a mate. But the men in Arcata are too full of emotions for the love potions to work properly, and she leaves a trail of dead lovers behind whenever she tries another potion. Enter Griff Meadows (Gian Keys), a man’s man who has no time for emotions. Why? Because his job won’t allow for it. He is a police detective, the one who is investigating the deaths Elaine caused. Yes, her best chance for love is the best chance she faces justice for her crimes. What will win out? Their hearts or the legal system?
When I was scouring the streaming services, looking for obscure horror movies to cover in this feature for the month of Halloween, I saw the banner for this film on Peacock, I thought it was some Z-grade film form the late 1960s-early 1970s that I had never heard of before, a film made to take advantage of the satanic panic of that era.
When I clicked through and saw them list the date it was made as being 2016, I thought they made a mistake. 1966 maybe, as an outlier 1976. But 2016? They had to be wrong.
They weren’t wrong. The Love Witch was made in 2016. But it was shot on 35mm film as a tribute to the technicolor-soaked horror films of the 1960s. And the fidelity in their attempts to recapture the look and feel of that era makes this film worth viewing.
Writer, director and composer Anna Biller is meticulous in her efforts of aping the style of that long gone era. The hairstyles and clothing are taken directly from the era, but those might be the easiest to reproduce. Biller doesn’t stop there. From camera blocking to the violin strings to emphasize dramatic moments to the holographic lens flares, Biller creates an immersive viewing experience. You feel like you are watching an old movie on the late, late show. So much so that when a late model car enters into frame, it’s a jolt to the senses.
However, this also makes it hard to review the movie as a movie. Take, for example, Samantha Robinson’s performance. I found it at times a bit wooden and stiff. Now, was she wooden and stiff because that is her acting style, or is she trying to ape the acting in those low-budget movies from days of yore? I’m leaning towards the latter, but you can’t really be sure. Her performance was enough, though, to impress Quentin Tarantino, who cast Robinson as Abigail Folger in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.
One way of viewing this film as a “if you buy the premise then you buy the bit” type of movie. You buy into the film being a reenactment of those cheesy and kitschy old-school horror films, so you can judge the film on what it is trying to do. And judging it on that basis, the film is a blast. It is helped immensely by its attention to detail, so when weird and wacky stuff happens like Elaine and Griff stumbling upon an impromptu renaissance fair when they are out horseback riding, it all becomes part of the funhouse ride.
The film isn’t just a goofy experiment to recapture classic Proto grindhouse cinema, Biller considers herself a feminist filmmaker and brings in some exploration of feminist ideas into the film. Come for the faithful demonstration of fringe nostalgia, stick around for some feminist thinking points. Just don’t research Biller’s social media presence after the film, because there are a lot of ideas there that are not worth examining.
I also want to throw a warning out there; the film is unrated for a reason. There is quite a lot of nudity in the film, albeit not much of a sexual nature. There are sex scenes, but those are mostly shot where they don’t show too much skin. However, when witches–both male and female–march around a prayer circle or perform a ceremony, there are a lot of naughty bits flapping in the breeze. Not pointing this out to be a prude or a pervert, but just feel you should get more warning about the amount of penis you will see. This is not a film to watch when kids are around.
In closing, let me once again say that this film is hard to review. On a technical level, it is a masterpiece. It does so well in duplicating the look and style of films made in the 1960s that it is uncanny. If you are looking for a campy, fun supernatural flick to watch over Halloween, and are willing to run with this film’s premise, you should have and enjoyable time. The Love Witch might not be the most accessible horror film you watch this holiday season, but I found it entertaining.
Have you found a film on streaming that you’d like us to look at? Leave it in the comments and it might appear in a future installment of this feature.
