Rohan Coleman looks back at the cinematic magic of comedy horror The Love Witch.
Anna Biller’s The Love Witch blends technicolour terror, a spooky score, and mystical messaging to create an enchanting feminist love letter to horror from a bygone era. Fuelled with explorations of the treatment of women, love, and obsession, this bewitching film gives a satirical critique of the repressive gender ideologies that plagued much of the period’s pop culture.
After starting over in a new town, the mysterious and alluring young witch Elaine (Samantha Robinson) sets out to find a man to love her forever. In her gothic Victorian apartment, she brews potent, colourful potions to enchant the handsome men she encounters. Armed with beauty, charm, and carefully crafted elixirs, Elaine draws in a series of suitors – until her magic begins to backfire. Desperate for true love, she will stop at nothing to make her fantasies real.
Played with magnetic intensity by Samantha Robinson, the titular Love Witch is a fascinating and richly nuanced character who drives the film’s exploration of subverted gender roles and female fantasy. Throughout the narrative, we see Elaine leaning into the objectification she faces at the hands of men, as she believes she can use this as a tool to find a lover, a plan which quickly falls in on her. This expression of her sexual desires and magical manipulation grants her a powerful edge over her suitors, and echoes the recurring themes in filmmaker Anna Biller’s past work.
Biller’s previous films, such as Viva (2007) and Three Examples of Myself as Queen (1994), examine similar satirical concepts. Biller notes the harmful portrayals and treatment of women across specific film genres by cleverly replicating them. In The Love Witch, this exploration of female desire falls comfortably into what she describes as the "female narcissistic gaze" in film, which she describes as "movies in which women are happy to be women" in an interview with Grimoire. "I love scenes where women are putting on makeup or trying on clothes, […] I love noir films where the subject of female sexual power is the theme, or pre-Code movies that are about the hardships of women having to rely on their sexual appeal in a world that’s tipped against them from the start,"
On this, Biller was not only writer and director, but also producer, editor, and composer. Producing an independent film can be challenging, especially with a modest budget of around $200,000. Despite this, the film secured an international theatrical release, earning approximately $229,000 in the United States and an additional $52,000 worldwide.
With dreamy set pieces, striking colour blocking, and vintage and expressive costuming, The Love Witch establishes a bold aesthetic identity. Biller crafted a mesmerisingly glamorous world within which her story unfolds, paying close attention to every detail, from the Victorian styling of her pink and purple set pieces to the colour theory that communicates our lead character’s emotions through her '60s mod-inspired frocks. Biller meticulously maps every design aspect of her films, as she believes that "audiences respond to cinematic images very strongly, no matter what those images are." She uses these elements to pay respect to pioneering horror classics, such as The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and Suspiria (1977), creating a weird and wonderful melodramatic atmosphere.
This is a stark contrast to the more naturalistic films of today, many of which curate visual worlds undesigned and unlit, a very conscious choice on the part of Biller. "Beautiful lighting and design does produce heightened emotions. It also enhances the story because the audience is being told what to focus on through what is treated with the best shots and lighting," as described in an interview with Luna Luna magazine.
Building on her strong reputation, Biller’s distinctly handcrafted aesthetic and clear authorial vision ensures The Love Witch holds a place in both modern pop culture and the feminist canon.
The Love Witch screened as part of Generation Fleadh.
