Two Witches (2021)

There’s no time wasted in Two Witches: it lays out its approach straight away, making it clear that this is going to be a quick-paced, overblown brand of occult horror, in places almost more of a montage of witchy scenes quite nominally linked together, rather than a film with much of a complex overarching story or structure (though presumably the ‘Two Witches’ of the title refers to the two separate chapters which make up the film). That’s all well and good; there’s room in the world for these kinds of immoderate horrors. If you crave slow-burn and atmosphere, then you may – on balance – be disappointed. If you’re good with a big melting pot of scenes and influences from Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, Rob Zombie and even a dollop of Anna Biller (yeah, you heard), then you’ll be more than happy. After all, a lot of the best films by those directors are more blood and gore than War and Peace.

So we’re soon acquainted with Sarah (Belle Adams) and her boyfriend Simon (Ian Michaels), who are out at a restaurant for the evening. Sarah can’t help but notice a distinctly unfriendly woman sitting at a nearby table, who stares at her continually: Simon puts her feelings of distress down to her pregnancy, a pregnancy he’d completely forgotten about a few moments earlier when asking Sarah what wine she wanted with her meal, but which serves as a great catch-all excuse for anything outlandish she goes on to say or feel. It’s an excuse he’s soon turning to, again and again: after the restaurant experience, Sarah’s convinced that the strange woman has given her the ‘evil eye’ somehow, and claims that she is being stalked by her. Could her pregnancy be a factor, though? The audience is already clear that this scary woman has designs on newborns – we’ve seen it. In fact, we saw it before the opening credits ran. Perhaps Sarah is being targeted by someone, or something, after her baby.

Luckily – or sort of luckily – Sarah and Simon go to visit some friends of theirs, and find Dustin (Tim Fox) and his partner Melissa (Dina Silva, who looks rather uncomfortable in the gothy makeup she wears for the role) far more amenable to the idea that something paranormal could be going on. That being said, their attempts to help her seem to exacerbate the phenomena, as always happens: seances, even unsuccessful seances, just wind spirits up. It moves things along even more quickly, though: soon it’s all going down, with the power going on and off, eyes rolling, spasmodic physical movements, aural hallucinations, jerking jump scares – you name it, and it’s in there. This ordeal is only one part of the film, however, as events shift elsewhere, picking up with a different story arc and ideas of witchcraft as hereditary.

The film’s speed-dating approach doesn’t leave a lot of time to get into characters, particularly in the second chapter (yes, chapters still prevail) and plot is always rather thin, but all in all, the film seems to do what it sets out to do. Its love of the malign feminine has shades of Suspiria, Lords of Salem and Drag Me To Hell throughout. Speaking of the gender divide: yes, it’s blown up to fairly large proportions here with no need for more subtle inference, but in that, it matches up to the rest of the film and fits perfectly well. Any points about female sexuality and the occult are more aesthetic than anything else; that’s okay. There’s plenty to enjoy, even if you start to miss neutral facial expressions by the end of the film. It also enjoinders the audience to expect another film at some point, which could be interesting, though would probably necessitate some of the answers we can fairly happily do without for now.

Director and co-writer, Pierre Tsigaridis, is something of an unknown quantity; with only one short film under his belt as director prior to this, his has been a pretty sharp career arc; he clearly loves horror, though, and this is a promising first feature which shows off that affection. It’s also a big plus point that another of the writers here, Kristina Klebe, not only acts in Two Witches but has a long and detailed horror filmography in her own right. There’s a lot of fun to be had here, and a second instalment would definitely be appealing.

Two Witches (2021) is available now on Arrow Player in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland.