Witches

Witches

12 Episodes

From the eerie to the mystical to the glamorous, some of cinema’s most enchanting witches cast their spell in this satan’s brew of black magic and occult horror. Embodying cultural fears and fantasies around powerful women and the shadowy, forbidden flip side of the everyday patriarchal order, witches have captivated audiences almost since the beginning of filmmaking. In the silent era, the sui generis HÄXAN blended documentary and gothic horror to macabre effect, while the 1960s and ’70s cast witches as reflections of the counterculture in films like SUSPIRIA and THE GIRL ON THE BROOMSTICK. More recently, movies like SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH and THE LOVE WITCH have made women who dabble in the dark arts symbols of pop empowerment, occupying their own space between the earthly and the supernatural and connecting ancient traditions to modern rituals.

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Witches

12 Episodes

  • Witches Teaser
    00:50
    Witches Teaser
    Episode 1

    Witches Teaser

    Episode 1

  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch
    1:30:47
    Sabrina the Teenage Witch
    Episode 2

    Sabrina the Teenage Witch

    Episode 2

    Directed by Tibor Takács • 1996 • United States
    Starring Melissa Joan Hart, Sherry Miller, Charlene Fernetz

    Before the beloved sitcom that shaped a generation, there was this bewitching Sabrina movie, based on the Archie comic book series of the same name. Melissa Joan Hart stepped into her best...

  • The Love Witch
    2:00:53
    The Love Witch
    Episode 3

    The Love Witch

    Episode 3

    Directed by Anna Biller • 2016 • United States
    Starring Samantha Robinson, Gian Keys, Laura Waddell

    Elaine, a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment she makes spells and potions, and then picks up men and seduces them. However, her sp...

  • The Witches
    1:51:30
    The Witches
    Episode 4

    The Witches

    Episode 4

    Directed by Mauro Bolognini, Vittorio De Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Rossi, and Luchino Visconti • 1967 • Italy, France
    Starring Silvana Mangano, Annie Girardot, Massimo Girotti

    Five of Italy’s greatest directors contributed segments—each starring the divine Silvana Mangano—to this offbeat...

  • Suspiria
    1:38:32
    Suspiria
    Episode 5

    Suspiria

    Episode 5

    Directed by Dario Argento • 1977 • Italy
    Starring Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci

    One of cinema’s most potent hallucinogens, Dario Argento’s witchy freak-out is a sustained spectacle of outrageously stylized violence and eye-popping art direction. When doe-eyed American ballerina S...

  • Black Sunday
    1:26:33
    Black Sunday
    Episode 6

    Black Sunday

    Episode 6

    Directed by Mario Bava • 1960 • Italy
    Starring Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi

    Italian maestro Mario Bava left his first indelible mark on horror cinema with this gothically stylized tale of witchcraft and revenge, loosely based on Nikolai Gogol’s oft-adapted short story “Viy.” I...

  • Il demonio
    1:39:58
    Il demonio
    Episode 7

    Il demonio

    Episode 7

    Directed by Brunello Rondi • 1963 • Italy
    Starring Daliah Lavi, Frank Wolff, Dario Dolci

    For his second film as a director, famed screenwriter and Fellini collaborator Brunello Rondi (LA DOLCE VITA, 8½) created this shocking and deeply unsettling folk horror nightmare that would influence a wave...

  • Viy
    1:16:36
    Viy
    Episode 8

    Viy

    Episode 8

    Directed by Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov • 1967 • Soviet Union
    Starring Leonid Kuravlyov, Natalya Varley, Vadim Zakharchenko

    In nineteenth-century Ukraine, a seminary student (Leonid Kuravlyov) is forced to spend three nights with the corpse of a beautiful young witch (Natalya Varley...

  • Alison’s Birthday
    1:38:27
    Alison’s Birthday
    Episode 9

    Alison’s Birthday

    Episode 9

    Directed by Ian Coughlan • 1981 • Australia
    Starring Joanne Samuel, Bunney Brooke, Lou Brown

    Something like an Australian answer to ROSEMARY’S BABY, this satanic-panic shocker remains one of the most chilling—and criminally underseen—Ozploitation outings of the 1980s. When a Ouija board séance w...

  • The Girl on the Broomstick
    1:19:40
    The Girl on the Broomstick
    Episode 10

    The Girl on the Broomstick

    Episode 10

    Directed by Václav Vorlíček • 1972 • Czechoslovakia
    Starring Petra Černocká, Jan Hrušínský, Jan Kraus

    In this charming Czechoslovak fantasy, irrepressible teenage witch Saxana (Petra Černocká)—facing three hundred years of detention at her sorcery academy—casts a spell that transports her to the...

  • Häxan
    1:45:49
    Häxan
    Episode 11

    Häxan

    Episode 11

    Directed by Benjamin Christensen • 1922 • Denmark

    Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-o...

  • Witch Madness
    08:50
    Witch Madness
    Episode 12

    Witch Madness

    Episode 12

    Directed by Faith Hubley • 1999 • United States

    Faith Hubley’s abstract animation documents the persecution of women as witches throughout history.

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