The Love Witch (2016)

This fantasy tale just didn't work for me on any level. It is highly erotic and colorful, perhaps bordering even on resembling a soft porn flick. I imagine much of it is intended to be a tongue-in-cheek fantasy film but almost all of these intentions fell quite flat, in my opinion.

Samantha Robinson stars here as Elaine, who after a troubled marriage becomes a witch and begins to utilize erotic potions on men in the hopes of finding true love, but all it leads to is disastrous consequences. In my opinion, this movie came across as being quite anti-male, utilizing many male stereotypes. There's tons of nudity in the film, an explicit sex scene, various erotic seductions, plus a couple of rather gruesome bloody scenes as well.

Overall, the movie, written and directed by Anna Biller, can be sumptuous to look at but it never came together for me as anything more than that.

Fmovies: Advertised as a horror/comedy but more like an amateur soft-porn without the horror/comedy or any semblance of an engaging story-line. I valiantly watched till the end for some kind of explanation for the decent IMDb rating, but eventually realised the ratings were probably just for the tits.

I'm happy this time-culture clash exists. The Love Witch is a pitch-perfect pastiche of late 60s, early 70s exploitation movies. A witty examination of shifting attitudes toward gender politics, sexual relations and male-female desire from a vantage point 50 years on by a female director with an obvious affection/obsession for genre and a deep knowledge of the source material.

Visually, the look and feel of the era's style of film is perfectly recreated. So much so, as I watched I sometimes had to remind myself that this was made only last year in 2016. The occasional (and very intentional) glimpses of modern cars parked on streets, and characters talking on mobile phones were, probably, intended to shake the viewer out of that particular delusion. Perhaps, this was a budget constraint cleverly used by Biller to the movie's advantage, as self-reflexive moments like these seem to serve as reminders of the artifice of cinema and cultural style.

Although The Love Witch is a 'feminist' movie, it's not polemically scathing or mean-spirited. In fact, quite the opposite holds true. The Love Witch is gentle and playful; at times sympathetic and forgiving. It is often satirical and ironic and, on occasion, just plain bonkers and laugh-out-loud funny. The dialogue is suitably stilted and the cast's deadpan deliveries are in keeping with the straight/jokey dichotomy of the initial set-up. As for the design and look, Biller (who had several jobs on the crew) really does nail it. Sets, lighting, costumes, hairstyles, photography, editing, acting, story, script, soundtrack all converge and conspire to recreate several genres and sub-genres popular in their day.

However, ultimately The Love Witch is more than just a nostalgic exercise in style. It's a playful tribute to genre movies that actually has quite a lot to say for itself. A retro-style movie with more intelligence and wit than the films it lovingly emulates.

The Love Witch fmovies. First of all I must admit that it took me two attempts to actually get through this movie. Not because this was a bad movie, don't get me wrong. The first time I made it some 25 minutes into it before I had to leave it, as my wife wasn't impressed with what was transpiring on the screen. So I returned to the movie some two weeks later by myself, because I thought that the movie definitely deserved a chance, because I was entertained by what I had seen so far back then during the first round...

...And I am glad that I did return to watch "The Love Witch", because this is definitely an interesting and entertaining movie. I fear that this might be a movie that will be grossly underrated or overlooked, because it is definitely not a mainstream movie. If you happen to pick up this movie, you definitely owe it to yourself to take the time and sit down to watch it.

So "The Love Witch" is set in a modern age, yet there is something very 1970's about it, from the way that people dress, the make-up and the hairstyles. So was the movie supposed to take place during the 1970s or what? If so, then they sure did fail to get the authenticity correct with the cars in most of the scenes where there were cars, as they were cars of newer models. So was this set in the 1970s or modern age spiced up with that unique 1970s wardrobe? That was a little bit confusing.

Samantha Robinson was really great in her portrayal of Elaine, the witch character. She had a particular presence and charm to her which instantly made her the center of attention. Plus it really helped a lot that the costume and make-up department got the character spot on with the wardrobe and cosmetics. This was the first time that I got acquainted with Samantha Robinson and her talent, and she definitely seems like she could be very well on her way for bigger and greater things in Hollywood.

The cast in "The Love Witch" was actually quite good, and it was especially Samantha Robinson who carried the movie. But the cast in general were doing good jobs with their given roles and characters, and the talented performers were nicely cast for these characters.

"The Love Witch" has an alluring and very fitting music score that really accompanies the movie quite well.

Writer and director Anna Biller really had managed to conjure up something quite magical here with what she did with "The Love Witch". Ranging from dialogue and characters to mood and atmosphere, then it was all a great combination that definitely had been put a lot of thought and effort into.

The visuals effects in the movie were also very 1970's, having a very psychedelic feel to it, it terms of color, appearance and function. This was working very well in favor of the movie.

Labeled as a horror comedy, I somehow failed to see the horror aspect of "The Love Witch". It was more of a dark magical comedy of sorts - if there even is such a genre.

Being a movie that revolves around a witch who uses magic to obtain the love of men, there is of course some occult and supernatural aspect to the movie as well. It is done with enough grace and respect without delving into being too much of a focal point for the movie.

"The Love Witch" can be somewhat of an acquired taste, and I think that you must indeed have a love for the world of cinema to truly appreciate "The Love Witch" for what it is. This is not your ordinary mainstream movie by any means.

About 10 minutes into the film I paused it and read a couple of articles on the Internet and read up on the director and her, lets call it "agenda" regarding the film. I carried on watching. Carried on watching for the whole 2 hours. Even though I had enough at about an hour in.

OK, let's talk good points. The film was absolutely stunning to look at, with beautifully rich, vibrant colours and a good looking cast. Yes, it certainly had that homage feel to it. A little bit of 60s, but mainly 70s. It looked and felt like it could've been a lost Hammer film, recently restored to its full glory. Really nice set pieces and costumes. Even a touch of a eurotashy type score. Even the acting, as its meant to be, nice and cheesy. They had that spot on, if indeed it was meant to be a homage or actually set in the 70s (I'll come back to that later).

That's really all the positives I took away from it. You could say it's style over substance. Anna Biller certainly tried to add something of substance in there which just ended up being one long joke. A very long, 2 hour joke.

First of all, let's touch on the 70s vibe, remembering that I've only seen the one trailer (I don't watch many trailers or clips for the same film due to the amount of disappointed when watching the film) and read no other reviews, till that 10 minute mark anyway. My first gripe and probably the major one, with the way the movie looked and felt, if you're going to make a film so overpowered with a 60s/70s feel then set it in the 60s/70s. Seeing a very small amount of modern cars mixed in with all the old (the opening scene - the police car. Shortly after - the BMW pulling up outside the house) "classic" cars really throws off that feeling.

The other and only issue, a big one as a whole. The whole film was one big kick in the balls to men by a female director that's clearly one of these modern third-wave pseudo feminists (that's had a few bad experiences, but don't worry, her and her 10 cats will live happily ever after together)! Quite frankly it ruined the film turning it into, one big joke. It ended up being a 2 hour long feminist propaganda film. It ended up being a mess, not deciding what it wanted to be. A Pagan Witch film? A Hammer film? A homage film? Set in present day film? A sexist film? A feminist's wet dream? It's ended up being nothing more than a spoof.

You can read my full review on Maven's Movie Vault of Horror.

The first thing I have to say about The Love Witch is that it is one of the most beautiful looking new films I have seen for quite some time. Shot on 35mm it is sumptuously photographed, with exquisite use of colour and costuming throughout. It's a treat for the eyes, clearly going for the look of a film made in 1971. It achieves this very successfully, except perhaps for the presence of background modern vehicles and a scene with a mobile phone. Director Anna Biller – who also impressively wrote and produced this as well as scored some of it and made a lot of the great outfits – says that the film is supposed to be set in contemporary times but to be honest it never feels this way! This feels like it's circa 1970 all the way and, quite frankly, all the better for it. This extends to the acting styles, lighting and compositions, which all hark back to the styles of this earlier glorious cinematic era. Topping it off, there is some music taken directly from the 1971 films The Fifth Cord and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, both composed by soundtrack genius Ennio Morricone. These bits of avant-garde mood music are full of tension and female sighs and really fit into the feel of the film very well. The fact that the music also comes specifically from Italian giallo films cannot also be a coincidence. These stylish pulp thrillers hit their peak in the early 70's and much of the visual feel of The Love Witch felt like it was at least partially a homage to the delirious colourful approach these movies embraced back in the day.

The story is about an urban witch whose ultimate aim is to get the perfect man. She moves to a new house and immediately starts ensnaring men in her deadly web. Newcomer Samantha Robinson plays the title role and she is very impressive. She certainly looks the part with her great outfits and outstandingly provocative eye make-up. Her performance is lightly erotic and humorous. There are in actual fact several somewhat funny moments sprinkled throughout the movie with all of the actors successfully contributing. Unusually for a film of its type, it has a feminist message interwoven into it. Biller made the quite valid point that if you want men to listen to feminist ideas in a movie then you really have to include them in a film that they are liable to pitch up to in the first place. To this end we have a film featuring, on the one hand, a gorgeous seductive sensual witch, while at the same time, some feminist theory added to the mix – so everyone's a winner basically.

It could probably be argued that at two hours it's a bit overlong. But I loved the ambition and, in particular, the visual beauty of the thing. It's certainly one of the more bold and interesting genre experiments of recent years. Clearly it is going to divide audiences, as it will be too much for some folks to fully get behind but I think if you have a particular love of the early 70's strand of exploitation cinema then this one has a pretty good chance of rocking your boat.