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Review by
Musanna Ahmed
Directed by: Elle Callahan
Starring: Abigail Cowen, Gideon Adlon, Elizabeth Mitchell, Christian Camargo, Echo
Campbell
Witch Hunt begins in New England with a witch being burned
at the stake. Except this isn’t Salem 1692 – it’s today. Witches exist and
witchcraft is illegal, and an evidently well-equipped police force is
carrying out these executions on the regular. Before the flames consume
her entire body, the pale, red-haired sorceress pleads for two pale,
red-haired young girls watching from afar to flee as fast as they can. It
feels like an extension of the rapper M.I.A’s hard-hitting video for her
song 'Born Free', in which the Sri Lankan artist made a point about the
extrajudicial killing of Tamil men by depicting a group of red-headed
white men being violently persecuted for the way they look.
It was a broad metaphor for racism and this supernatural thriller pretty
much has the same intentions. Those two girls who saw their mother put to
death are called Fiona (Abigail Cowen) and Shae (Echo Campbell), and they find themselves in Southern California a few months later,
still on the run, avoiding law enforcement and pursuing asylum across the
border, seeking to escape racist America. They get a helping hand from a
kind-hearted woman named Martha (Elizabeth Mitchell, who you may
know better as Juliet from Lost) with a big house in rural Cali who subliminally offers help with a sign
above her mailbox. Other sympathetic locals know the sign means her home
is available as shelter for witches before they proceed with the perilous
journey to Mexico.
But the film’s perspective is primarily from Martha’s high schooler
daughter Claire (Gideon Adlon from Blockers and
The Mustang, quickly carving out an eclectic filmography). Claire’s empathy is
questionable at first, as she argues with her mother if it is necessary to
play with the risks of allowing witches in their home. But this is a story
with many strands, including the budding friendship between the
similar-aged Claire and Fiona, bonding over personal secrets and
Thelma & Louise. Meanwhile, the ruthless Detective Hawthorne (Christian Camargo)
uses a pressure tracking device to figure out which places are likely
housing witches.
As Claire experiences severe internal conflicts with her initial reticence
towards witches and her school friends’ apathy around police brutality, in
addition to her increased anxiety and asthma attacks, writer-director
Elle Callahan captures the heroine’s difficult journey through
traditional horror tropes, utilising nightmares, jump scares and
supernatural occurrences within the home. The chills are effective, and
the thrills are plentiful, as the suspense begins right off the bat with
the aforementioned purge, an image that recurs throughout the briskly
paced 96 minutes for the fateful implications it will have on the
principal characters.
Callahan is an extremely economical filmmaker who easily manages multiple
subplots and writes effective dialogue, consistently serving us with
context and information, ensuring everything ties up together.
Consequently, Witch Hunt fares well on a re-watch as the
viewer knows the outcome but can pay closer attention to the connective
tissue. It is hard to poke holes in such a tightly packed narrative,
however I will confess that it is a fairly predictable storyline, with
viewers very likely to telegraph the inevitable finale before it occurs.
Even though M.I.A may have got there a long time ago,
Witch Hunt also offers an effective metaphor of racism, this
time through one of the best modes of political storytelling – the horror
movie.
Witch Hunt is on Shudder UK now.