Spooky season is upon us, which means it’s time to marathon the movies and media that go bump in the night. Fortunately for us horror fans, this year has delivered an abundance of options across all kinds of subgenre. Now, I don’t know about you, but I like to alternate my annual watches with as much new fare as I can manage, and one of my go to haunts is the ever-delightful genre of witches going as ham as inhumanly possible. Arrow Films’ latest, TWO WITCHES, is, luckily, here to deliver on all counts.
Written by Kristina Klebe, Maxime Rancon, and Pierre Tsigaridis and directed by Tsigaridis, TWO WITCHES is a visually gruesome tale of witchcraft, jealousy, possession, and power-grabbing from one generation to the next. Told in chapters and through at-first-disconnected-seeming stories, the film introduces us to Sarah (Belle Adams), an expectant mother, and her boyfriend Simon (Ian Michaels). While stopped for dinner on their way to a friend’s house, Sarah encounters a mysterious older woman she believes to have cursed her with the Evil Eye. In typical horror movie fashion, Simon believes Sarah is overreacting and does little to assuage her concerns. Upon arrival at Melissa (Dina Silva) and Dustin’s (Tim Fox) house, Simon jokingly confides Sarah’s anxieties, and the group eventually gather for a Ouija board session. Naturally, it is quite ill-fated and all manner of chaos ensues. Meanwhile, roommates Rachel (Kristina Klebe) and Masha (Rebekah Kennedy) are experiencing rather explosive tensions of their own.
TWO WITCHES does everything in its power to keep you on board its horrific journey into the world of witchcraft and curses and the ways in which such things consume victim and villain alike. With frequent use of closeups, gory effects, and spliced shots of the elder witch credited aptly as “The Boogeywoman” (Marina Parodi), the feeling of being watched and evaluated, and even consumed, never lets up. Tsigaridis handled the cinematography and film editing himself, in addition to co-writing and directing credits, which gives this film an added layer of passion-project that should endear it to the audience.
In a film brimming with violence and gore, it may seem strange to assert particular scenes as standouts, yet I cannot let discussion of this movie pass without mentioning—or perhaps warning about—the baby eating sequence in the middle. Rather than cut away from the visual, TWO WITCHES is emboldened enough to actually focus on two separate but closely-timed-together sequences of fetuses, one of which is a firmly disturbing sequence of the Boogeywoman eating the head of a fetus, complete with a closeup of her chewing. This could pretty firmly and fairly put anyone off watching the rest of the film, but if you are strong enough of stomach to stick it out, TWO WITCHES is perhaps one of the ideal popcorn flicks for a spooky night in. Not quite a good-for-her style witch narrative, but no less immersive for it, I imagine it pairs rather well with the Adams Family’s HELLBENDER from last year for a double dose of witchy power transition dynamics from slightly different ends of the spectrum.
A nod for standout performance must be given to the Boogeywoman herself, Marina Parodi, whose constantly menacing presence adds a layer of tense terror to an otherwise gory but fun movie. She is both the backbone and most terrifying part of the story not least because she leans so heavily into the role of menacing witch ascribed to her. You get the sense that she is both exactly and not quite what you fear, the stranger with the threatening aura who could just as well be minding their business going about their day as totally consuming fetuses and stalking expectant mothers in pursuit of their hunger for retaining their supernatural power.
While it may not be a five-star deep dive, TWO WITCHES is exactly the kind of movie we need to get into the mood of the season. Creepy, bloody good fun that makes no move to flinch away from anything, be it fetus-eating, burning flesh, or trapped, full frontal male nudity, it might just have enough jump scares in its 98 minutes to leave you looking over your shoulder and the slightest bit afraid of the dark.
TWO WITCHES is out now from Arrow Films
Tags: arrow films, Belle Adams, Dina Silva, Hellbender, Ian Michaels, Kristina Klebe, Marina Parodi, Maxime Rancon, Pierre Tsigaridis, Rebekah Kennedy, Tim Fox, Two Witches, Witchcraft, Witches
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