You Won’t Be Alone (2022)
Folk Horror/Body Hopping Witch
An absolutely extraordinary work of Folk Horror about a young witch who learns the ability to inhabit the bodies of others
Witches
A witch is a female practitioner of magic and Witchcraft. This is quite different from the male equivalent discussed in Magicians and Sorcerers (not to say there are not female magicians). Where a magician’s power derives from ancient knowledge – scrolls, occult objects and the like – a witch’s power is more earth magic, herbalism and sympathetic magic. (Wizards and sorcerers, for instance, never seem to use cauldrons, which seems an essential item in the witch’s repertoire).
There is a substantial body of films in fantasy and horror where a witch is a force of evil, ranging from assorted Fairytales to The Wizard of Oz (1939) and The Witches (1990). In these, she is frequently portrayed as something wizened and hideous. There are also a number of horror films about witches burned at the stake exerting supernatural influence in the present.
There is also a reasonable body of films beginning with I Married a Witch (1942) through tv’s Bewitched (1965-72) that shows the witch in a romantic or domestic relationship and the problems this can present. Other works from The Craft (1996) through Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Wendy the Good Witch to tv’s Charmed (1998-2006) see the witch in a more positive light and even her powers as something of an alternate religious practice.
For films dealing with the historic witch trials, which are nothing to do with witches as characters, see Witch Persecutions.
The Wretched (2019)
Body-Snatching Witch Next Door
The biggest box-office hit six weeks in a row in 2020, albeit during Corona lockdown. This gets some extremely creepy effects in that managed to work on a jaded viewer
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Adventures in a Magical Land
An indisputable classic fantasy … a gorgeous sparkling fantasy that made full use of Technicolor in an era dominated by black-and-white and is told in such bold and earnestly heartfelt tones that it becomes the nearest we have to a piece of genuine American mythology
The Wizard of Oz (1910)
Silent Adaptation
The earliest surviving film version of The Wizard of Oz , one of a number made during the silent era. It makes interesting contrast to the 1939 version but at best serves as a series of highlights from the story and drawing heavily on the stage version in its often crude methods of presentation
The Wiz (1978)
All-Black Musical Wizard of Oz Remake
Musical modernisation of The Wizard of Oz relocated in New York City with an All-Black cast. Despite a clear budget arrayed, the film lumbers and never much comes to life
Witchslayer Gretl (2012)
Faiirytale Adaptation
A low-budget film that prefigures the big-budget Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters in turning the fairytale brother and sister into witchslayers in a generic fantasy adventure plot
Witching and Bitching (2013)
Town of Witches Comedy
Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia makes what is essentially a comedy version of From Dusk Till Dawn albeit with witches instead of vampires. This has one of the funniest openings I’ve seen in some time but thereafter dissipates into broadly farcical and overlong runnings around
The Witches of Oz (2011)
Wizard of Oz Sequel/Modernisation
Sequel/modernisation (it is confusing what) to The Wizard of Oz relocated in New York. This tv mini-series may be the cheapest work ever served up bearing the Oz name and flounders amid the shabbiness of its effects and utter lack of magic its director conjures
The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
Witches vs the Devil/War of the Sexes Comedy
Deliriously frothy and enjoyable George Miller film with Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer as three witches who conjure forth Devil figure – Jack Nicholson in full barnstorming mode
The Witches Hammer (2007)
Vampire Assassin vs Witches
Low budget vampire action about a vampire woman who is recruited into a secret government organisation
The Witches (2020)
Evil Witches/Roald Dahl Adaptation
Robert Zemeckis’s remake of the Roald Dahl story and Nicolas Roeg film proves a head-scratching effort that misfires on almost every cue
The Witches (1990)
Evil Witches/Roald Dahl Adaptation
Nicolas Roeg and Jim Henson collaborate on an adaptation of a Roald Dahl book. Roeg leaves the grotesquerie and gleeful malice intact making this one of the best Dahl adaptations
Witchcraft (1964)
Resurrected Witch
Entry in the Anglo-horror cycle with a resurrected witch and an imported Lon Chaney Jr presiding over deviltry in a sleepy English village
Witchboard (2024)
Occult Witchboard
A remake of the 1980s horror Witchboard. The original was just a VHS release and here is given a better budgeted workover, but disappears among a host of ouija-titled films of recent years
The Witch Files (2018)
Found Footage/High School Witches
Imagine a version of The Craft with a few dashes of The Breakfast Club – all shot as a Found Footage film. This is far more entertaining than one expects it to be
The Witch: A New-England Folktale (2015)
Puritan Era Fear of Witches
A fascinatingly different and original work. A scrupulous effort is made – from the dialogue and clothing – to place us inside a 17th Century setting dominated by insanely legalistic religious superstitions and fears, at contrast to which there lie a series of phantasmagoric visions of witches
Willow (1988)
Epic Fantasy
Outside of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, not much else that George Lucas has made has been a success. This Ron Howard-directed epic fantasy proved to be a big flop where Howard’s lightweight touch fails to make a one-dimensional plot fly
The Widow (2020)
Woods Haunted by a Witch
Russian dark fantasy and horror has emerged as one of the most exciting genres in recent years. This incredibly spooky little film is a Russian equivalent of The Blair Witch Project
Wicked Stepmother (1989)
Witch Moves In Comedy
The worst film from the usually great Larry Cohen, an unfunny comedy in which a household is taken over by a witch. Bette Davis quit soon into shooting and is replaced partway through by Barbara Carrera
Wicked: Part 1 (2024)
Musical/The Wizard of Oz Prequel
The first half of a two-part adaptation of the hit Broadway musical that is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, showing The Wicked Witch’s origin story
Wicked: For Good (2025)
Musical/The Wizard of Oz Prequel
The second half of the film adaptation of the musical Wicked. This essentially operates as Wizard of Oz fanfiction and substantially wrenches the characters and backstories from the 1939 film out of shape to write its own story
Weird Woman (1944)
Witchcraft in Academia
The first of several adaptations of Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife about witchcraft being conducted between rivalry faculty wives in academia. The best version of the story is still the second one Night of the Eagle but this has some eerie moments and great performances
Weapons (2025)
Mysterious Disappearance
Captivating and original film from Zach Cregger about a town that is affected by the mysterious disappearance of a class of children. One film where you definitely can’t predict where things are going
The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)
Sword and Sorcery
One of the spate of sword and sorcery films that came out during this period, marginally better than most. The plot is a blatant copy of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo where a swordsman (David Carradine) sets two rival gang factions in a town against one another
Warhunt (2022)
WWII Soldiers vs Supernatural
A supernatural variant on Overlord where G.I.’s during WWII enter the Black Forest and encounter something supernatural
Viy (1967)
Soviet Horror Film/Monk Fights the Forces of Hell
The only horror film ever made in Communist Russia. Adaptation of a classic story about a monk sequestered with the body of a woman for three nights, the film creates an undeniable atmosphere and mounts to a wildly fantastical climax where he must face all the minions of Hell
Virgin Witch (1971)
Witchcraft Film
1970s British film about two sisters being drawn into the coven of witches. This comes with much in the way of softcore nudity but there is a surprising degree of innocence about all of it
Village of Dreams (1996)
Mischievous Twins' Childhood/Magical Realism
Japanese Coming of Age tale about two mischief-making twin brothers growing up in the 1940s
Venus (2022)
Occult Horror/Sinister Apartment
Jaume Balaguero of [Rec] fame returns with an occult horror where a woman on the run is drawn into sinister happenings at an apartment
The Undead (1957)
Hypnotic Regression/Mediaeval Witchery
An early Roger Corman film that stirs a fascinating mix of elements involving hypnotic regression, witchery, time travel and appearances from The Devil
Ulysses (1954)
Greek Myth Adventure
Lavishly made Greek myth adventure, an adaptation of The Odyssey with Kirk Douglas as Ulysses/Odysseus
Twitches Too (2007)
Twin Sister Witches
Having to sit through the Mowray twins airhead natter again in a sequel to their early Disney Channel film feels the equivalent of nails being scratched on a blackboard
Twitches (2005)
Twin Sister Witches
Inane Disney Channel film with twin sisters Tia and Tamera Mowry as sisters who didn’t know it who discover they are witches. A film that has zero interest in its fantasy elements and is entirely taken up by airhead teenage airhead natter
The 12 Slays of Christmas (2016)
Christmas Horror Anthology
From Troma films, this is an anthology made up of twelve Christmas-themed short horror films for what supposed leading indie directors – so acclaimed I’ve only heard of two of them before
Troll (1986)
Mischievous Creature
Low-budget Charles Band produced film that has entertainment value for its cheesily absurd creature effects and an amazing cast line-up
Tin Man (2007)
Modernised Wizard of Oz
Nick Willing conducts the first of his SF revampings of popular tales. Here The Wizard of Oz is reworked into a Steampunk fantasy with some startling reinterpetations of the familiar characters
Thumbelina (1994)
Animated Fairy-Tale
Animated film from Don Bluth, an insipid adaptation of the fairytale that eventually bogs down as a comic picaresque (*)
The Thief and the Cobbler (1994)
Gonzo Arabian Nights Adventure/Animation
Legendary animated masterpiece from Richard Williams that was butchered in release. Williams’ animation is visually extraordinary
They’re Watching (2016)
Found Footage/Superstitious East European Village
The Found Footage genre has become fairly much strip-mined of all possibilities and I felt little enthusiasm for yet another. That said, this film about a reality tv crew in a heavily superstitious East European village, proves surprisingly well made and entirely wins you over with a bravura climax
The Theatre Bizarre (2011)
Horror Anthology
A horror anthology featuring episodes from seven different directors. As with other anthologies, the episodes vary in quality, ranging between the so-so, the mostly quite good and one standout segment
Terror (1978)
Supernatural Deaths
A key work of British exploitation director Norman J. Warren centred a series of supernatural novelty deaths
The 10th Kingdom (2000)
Fairytale Parody Mini-Series
Hallmark mini-series set in a world 200 years after the classic fairytales have occurred, this wittily deflates or contrasts classic story elements with the present-day
Teen Witch (1989)
Teenage Witch Comedy
Amiably lightweight 80s comedy in which average teenage underdog Robyn Lively gains magical abilities and the complications these create
Tangled (2010)
Disney Animation/Rapunzel Adaptation
Disney fairytale Lite. The story of Rapunzel gets hiply modernised and is now no more than a cute adventure/romance about a handsome rogue and a girl who has magical hair. Eminently forgettable Disney animation.
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
Horror Anthology
Film spinoff from the Tales from the Darkside tv series, this is an anthology of three horror tales, the result is a surprisingly slick and well made film
Tale of Tales (2015)
Anthology of Fairytales
A trio of tales from the world’s oldest fairytale collection – but quite different to anything you expect … While there is all the magic, ogres and princesses, this is a beautifully lush film made for adults and less about simple homilies that about fate and its cruel twists
Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1984)
Sword and Sorcery
Cannon Films make an adaptation of the Mediaeval legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Routine 1980s fantasy cinema with Sean Connery looking embarrassed as the Green Knight
The Sword in the Stone (1963)
King Arthur's Childhood/Disney Animation
Forgettable Disney animated film telling the story of King Arthur’s boyhood where the Arthurian legends are sidelined in favour of talking animals and slapstick
Suspiria (2018)
Witchcraft in a Girl’s School
Dario Argento’s original Suspiria was an almost entirely narrative-free work set around a series of extravagantly arty deaths; this remake could not be a more different film. Not to say it is uninteresting in what it does
Suspiria (1977)
Witchcraft in a Girl's School
The work on which the cult of director Dario Argento was built. The film consists of a series of extravagantly arty deaths at a girls boarding school, although comes without any real plot connecting this
Superstition (1982)
Supernatural Retribution
Fairly negligible film about a family who move into a house to face the vengeance of a witch
Supergirl (1984)
Comic-Book Superheroine
The producers of the Christopher Reeve Superman films turn their attentions to Superman’s cousin Kara whose screen debut is derailed by a horrendously overacting Faye Dunaway
Summer of Fear (1978)
Witch Comes to Stay
An early, little known Wes Craven film originally shot for tv in which Linda Blair believes that that cousin who comes to stay might be a witch
Suicide Squad (2016)
Team-Up of DC Comics Super-Villains
This team-up of C-list DC super-villains proved a surprise hit. The script is all over the place but Margot Robbie owns the screen as the gleefully insane Kewpie Doll gone wrong Harley Quinn
The Sudbury Devil (2023)
Puritan Witchery
Fascinating film set during Puritan witchery as men travel into the woods to confront a witch, this has many similarities to Robert Eggers’ The Witch: A New-England Folktale. Made by an historian who makes everything authentic to the era
Stardust (2007)
Epic Fantasy Adventure
Matthew Vaughn adapts a Neil Gaiman book in this undeniably appealing fantasy that comes with a story of epical sweep that vies between fantastic imagination and broad humour
Spirited Away (2001)
Anime/Afterlife Bathhouse
One of the masterpieces of Hayao Miyazaki, a gentle, beautiful work of anime set in an afterlife bathhouse where Miyazaki’s range of extraordinary creatures and quiet tenderness finds something that Western fantasy rarely ever comes near
The Spine of Night (2021)
Animation/Adult Fantasy
Surprisingly good animated sword and sorcery film, made with a darker edge and definitely not for children
Spectre (1977)
Occult Investigators
Another unsold Gene Roddenberry tv pilot, this would have made for a potentially worthwhile series involving Robert Culp and Gig Young as occult investigators
Sorceress (1995)
Erotica/Suburban Witches
Jim Wynorski is a B-budget director whose films feature women with massively oversized breasts. Beyond epic-sized mammaries, this softcore tale about housewives engaged in witchcraft that makes no sense on a plot level
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010)
Apprentice Wizard
A live-action film based on the titular segment from Fantasia. From Jerry Bruckheimer meaning that it is a film of empty-headed special effects that fails to conjure any magic of its own
Song of the Sea (2014)
Animation/Selkies and Celtic Mythology
An Oscar nominees for Best Animated Film – a unique and exquisitely drawn dive into Celtic mythology that comes with wit, humour and the emotional tenderness of a Hayao Miyazaki. This deserves to be seen far more widely than it ended up being
Something Weird (1967)
Psychic Powers
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s film, this features a totally demented plot involving a man who develops psychic powers and his encounters with witches and LSD trips
Snow White (2009)
Fairy-Tale Ballet Adaptation
An amazing reinterpretation of the classical fairytale as modern ballet for adults. This does amazing things to reinvent the original and is visually extraordinary
Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961)
Idiots Enact a Fairytale
The Three Stooges are transplanted into a retelling of the fairytale, although their slapstick inanity feels drowned out amid the maudlin banality and Cinemascope spectacle
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Disney Animation/Fairy-Tale
The first full-length animated film ever made and the beginning of the Disney tradition. A superlative effort, full of an adorable anthropomorphism where Disney instinctively grasps all the elements of the formula
Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Adult Fairytale Adaptation/Epic Fantasy
The second of 2012’s Snow White films after Mirror Mirror, this turns the fairytale into an epic fantasy. Well produced but ultimately a film that lacks anything unique nor pushes far enough into the dark fantasy it promises to be
Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)
Adult Fairy-Tale
Beautifully made and very adult version of the fairytale, which seems determined to play up the terror aspect of the title, resulting in a work that seems a long way away from Disney
Snow White (2025)
Disney Live-Action Remake
The live-action remake of Disney’s Snow White comes surrounded by controversy on every side and served to make it a critical and box-office flop that left doubt over the future of the Disney remake industry
Snow White (2001)
Fairy-Tale
Caroline Thompson, a regular Tim Burton scriptwriter, directs a uniquely revisionist version of the fairytale in which she digs in to explain the origins of many of the familiar aspects of the story
Snow White (1987)
Fairy-Tale
One of the better of Cannon Films cheap fairytale adaptations featuring a grandly over the top Diana Rigg as the Wicked Stepmother
Snow Queen (2002)
Fairy-Tale/Epic Quest
The Hallmark tv mini-series version of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale is lushly produced but tends to plod when it should come to life as fantasy
The Snow Queen (1995)
Animation/Fairy-Tale
Lightweight British animated adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale made for children
Sleeping Beauty (2014)
Fairytale Adventure/The Asylum Mockbuster
In the early 2010s, we had a series of fairytales rewritten as dark adult fantasies; The Asylum served up their own cheap copies – this was their version of Maleficent. Directed by actor Casper Van Dien, this not uninterestingly plays out as a fantasy adventure that follows the prince’s attempts to enter the castle
The Sleeping Beauty (2010)
Fairytale
Catherine Breillat, a director usually known for tackling issues of female sexuality, adapts the classic fairytale in a muddled effort that singularly fails to fly either as fairytale or deconstruction
Sleeping Beauty (1987)
Fairytale
One of the cheap fairytale adaptations made by Cannon Films in the 1980s. A dreary impoverished run through by the numbers with Morgan Fairchild as the Wicked Stepmother and Tahnee Welch in the title role
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Disney Animation/Fairy-Tale
One of the finest of all Disney animated films, an adaptation of the fairytale made with the full artistic resources that studio could bring to bear
Sinister Squad (2016)
Team-Up Between Fairytale Villains
The Asylum made Avengers Grimm as a copycat of The Avengers films, featuring a team-up of fairytale heroines, and so for the release of Suicide Squad they made this sequel featuring a team-up of fairytale villains. Both films are utterly incomprehensible and require you to essentially ignore the originals
Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989)
Arabian Nights Adventure
An incredibly bad Italian-made Sinbad adventure starring Lou Ferrigno that is laughable in its dialogue and acting and incredibly tatty in its budget pinching
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
Arabian Nights Adventure
The third of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films, this came out the same year as Star Wars and Harryhauden’s stop-motion animated creatures look much more flat in comparison
Side Effect (2020)
Witch’s Spell
Another work of Russian dark fantasy where a man asks a witch for a spell to help his wife, only to get very different results than intended
Shrek Forever After (2010)
Animation/Fairytale Spoof
The fourth of the Shrek films. By this point, the freshness and originality of the first film has been buried under animated film formula, while the plot is a tired rehash of It’s a Wonderful Life
Shadow of the Hawk (1976)
War Between American Indian Sorcerers
Jan-Michael Vincent plays a young man who is reluctantly drawn in by his Native American grandfather’s war against a black sorcerer
Seventh Son (2014)
Epic Fantasy/Monster Hunter's Apprentice
An object lessons in how not to adapt a Young Adult series – take a book series about an apprentice witch hunter set in an alternate England and turn it a generic Lord of the Rings copy
The 7th Dwarf (2014)
Animation/Adventures of the Seven Dwarves
German animated film about the adventures of Snow White’s Seven Dwarves. Lightweight and trivial, this feels like it has come along ten years too late to the fad for fairytale parodies and mash-ups we had in the mid-2000s with films like Shrek and Hoodwinked!
The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1985)
Italian Muscleman Adventure
Cannon Films produced remake of The Seven Samurai as an Italian gladiator film starring Lou Ferrigno
Season of the Witch (2011)
Mediaeval Action Fantasy/Escorting a Witch
Medieavel fantasy action film with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman assigned to escort a witch who may be able to deliver the land from the Black Plague. The wider moral issues of the film are buried under action and CGI
The Scorpion King (2002)
Sword and Sorcery
Back when Dwayne Johnson was a wrestler billing himself as The Rock, this was a forgettable sword and sorcery effort spun off from his appearance in The Mummy Returns. This led to a surprising number of sequels
The Sacrifice (1986)
Praying Back the Nuclear Holocaust
Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, a slow and weighty meditation upon questions of faith as one man prays to turn back a nuclear holocaust
Row 19 (2021)
Haunted Plane Flight
Spooky Russian film about a haunted plane flight, this recalls something of The Twilight Zone’s famous Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Satanic Impregnation
Classic film and one of Roman Polanski’s finest works, the comically paranoid story of a housewife who increasingly comes to believe that the child she is pregnant with was fathered by The Devil
Revenge of the Blood Beast (1965)
Resurrected Witch
The first film from Witchfinder General director Michael Reeves. A blatant copy of Mario Bava’s i>Black Sunday that is done in by its cheapness, a lack of anything interesting happening and mismatched comedy elements
Return to Oz (1985)
Wizard of Oz Sequel
Almost forgotten Disney-made sequel to The Wizard of Oz, this takes a far darker outlook than the version you knew
Red One (2024)
Christmas Action Film
Essentially Christmas the Action Film featuring Dwayne Johnson as Santa’s bodyguard going into action accompanied by Chris Evans as a nerdy hacker when Santa is abducted
Rebirth of Mothra II (1997)
Japanese Monster Bash
After their successful revival of Godzilla in the 1990s, Toho revived Mothra for a series of standalone battles, albeit with a very juvenile focus made for children. This was the second and better of the three films
Rebirth of Mothra (1996)
Japanese Monster Bash
One of the worst among the usually worthwhile Japanese monster movie revivals of the 1990s. Much of the film is played down at an inanely silly children’s movie level, with there only being the requisite mass destruction effects to enliven the show
Pumpkinhead (1988)
Demon Unleashed
Makeup effects artist Stan Winston takes the director’s chair and creates one of the truly original monsters of the 1980s. Several sequels followed
Pufnstuf (1970)
Gonzo Children's Film/Magical Island
Mind-spinning film spinoff of the tv series H.R. Pufnstuf, this plays out like The Wizard of Oz on hallucinogens
Psyched By the 4D Witch (A Tale of Demonology) (1972)
Sex and Witchcraft
Fascinatingly bizarre psychotronic film about an innocent drawn into the secrets of sexual witchcraft. Bad filmmaking on almost every level
Princes and Princesses (1999)
Animated Fairytale Anthology
From Kirikou director Michel Ocelot, an anthology of animated fairytales that prove quite delightful