Just a Bit of Hocus Pocus
I will admit something that most people who know me probably already know, I love witches. I’ve loved the concept of them since I saw Hocus Pocus when I was three. I dressed up almost every year for Halloween of my life as a witch, with only a few exceptions here and there. The type of witch depended on the age I was, like pre-teen me went as your green faced wicked witch of the west, older me would be Harry Potter style witch, and now I alternate between Harry Potter and one of my older witch costumes. I love the concept of magic, of power at your fingertips, and of being able to solve your problems but also causing more of them. Yet the darker versions of them that exist beyond the childhood movies and book crazes of magical wizards are the ones that were the most common throughout history. Much like the vampire, the witch has gotten a downgrade in terms of horror, possible at the same time as its bloodthirsty cousins. You can blame cinema all you’d like but horror does have trends, and the trend is starting to turn the other way for witches. So what does the witch archetype represent within horror stories? Many things, as many as there are subtypes and variations. We will explore as many as we can (though some briefly as they could be talked about in detail later) and discuss the general themes of witches and witchcraft in horror along with touching on a few modern twists.
Among my personal favorite witch hats...it has stars!
When most of us in the west think of witches, our minds go back to the stories we heard from Grimm’s Fairytales of strange old women in houses in the middle of the woods who wished for children to eat. The symbols of the broom, the cauldron, the ugly old face, and the black cloak and hat all fall in as well. These are the stories of the witches that came from Europe and overtime, mutated into stories of neighbors blaming others for their misfortunes under that word “witchcraft”. It was a slow move, but sped up with stories like those of James VI of Scotland who saw over 70 people accused of witchcraft for causing bad weather when the king went to Denmark to meet his betrothed. It kept going for hundreds of years, stopping only just as the 19th century was making its appearance. Nowadays the horror in the witchcraft trials of Europe and England is not in the witches themselves, but in the stories of those who were accused of it and tortured and killed for it. The worst part about this, is that some witchcraft trials are still going on in some parts of Africa, India and the Middle East to this day.
“Oh Lord, help me! It is false. I am clear. For my life now lies in your hands....”
Another thing people tend to think of when they hear of witchcraft is Voodoo, the woman or man with the ability to turn people into zombies at will like out of The Serpent and the Rainbow. The truth is less scary, as Voodoo or Vodou is just a mix of old African faith and Catholic teachings and while there are some who can do horrible magic, there are plenty more that can do good. Yet the strangeness of such a faith that would allow such things as animal sacrifices always does lend itself to being “othered” and therefore, always tends to be found in horror, even when unjustified.
Finally we come to our more modern witchcraft tales, and when I say modern, I mean those newer faiths that people associate with witches. While Pagans and Wiccans certainly follow older Gods, they only existed as a faith since roughly the 1950s when Gerald Gardener began to spread the teachings out beyond the inner circle he had learned the craft in. Needless to say, it has had a minor effect in horror, if only for the change in the representation of witches. Indeed, my first learning of Wicca was from a Scooby Doo movie as part of the plot (weird, I know, but the late 90s/early 2000s was the coming out period for Wicca since the Satanic Panic had slowed down). Another half of this is Satanists, but we shall get into them in a later blog post because it does deserve its own little section.
So, from here you can probably guess what themes horror involving witchcraft jumps into but to be more clear it falls into three categories: Xenophobia/fear of the unknown, fear of women with knowledge or power, and the idea of loss of power or control. Xenophobia is pretty straightforward: those strange people with that strange faith are probably trying to destroy our way of life. Any minority group suffers from this perception and every story where witches are the antagonists will focus on that idea. Think of stories like The Wicker Man, The Skeleton Key, and Rosemary’s Baby for examples of that kind of theming.
The fear of women in power or with knowledge is another one that more relates to the history of witchcraft trials. The reason given for why more women were witches over men was that women were more likely to give into the temptations given by Satan. The more likely reason was that the woman was a threat of some sort to someone in the community, especially the men in power. This is shown in the stereotype of the old crone sitting at her cauldron with a broom and a cat by her side, living alone in the woods. What sort of old woman, who by most would be considered weak and helpless, would choose to live alone? Obviously she must be up to no good. Also it was these women who often knew of medicines that the men dismissed as witchcraft. This is often portrayed in stories that focus on the women as victims, such as the Witch (where it is the eldest daughter who is blamed for everything, and being considered to be sent off to another family) and Sleepy Hollow (Ichabod's mother is the ultimate “persecuted witch” stereotype).
Lastly, in more modern takes, you run into this idea of loss of power or control. Think of movies like The Craft or Practical Magic. While the latter may not be a straight up horror movie, it does bring on horror elements based on messing with magic and not being in control of what you are doing. Lack of experience gets people into trouble with magic, and it produces all the problems, making the witches involved both the heroes and the victims.
What is your favorite theming of witches in horror? I have loved the Witch for its take on the New England legends of witches during that time period and the exploration of what it meant to be a woman in those rough early years of America. Let me know your favorite witch movies and I will probably go into further depth on this topic later. This is just an overview as I could not wait any longer to talk about my favorite supernatural creature type. Anywho, have a Happy Fourth of July to all my American friends and I will see you all next Food Thursday!
