Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Pierre Tsigaridis
Starring: Rebekah Kennedy, Kristina Klebe, Tim Fox, Belle Adams
In 1597, King James IV of Scotland, who would go on to be the king of
England six years later, wrote a treatise concerning witches: how to
spot them, what they got up to, and ways to kill them. This work wasn’t
a mad novel, or fantastical allegory: it was a serious, non-fiction
document regarding what James and others believed to be an existent
threat. The actual ruler of a country! It would be like Liz Truss
publishing a guide to tracking werewolves, or a safari manual for
hunting unicorns (and if you think that would be needlessly cruel and
elitist, then you should see her end of year mini-budget legislations,
etc, etc). James also put his might where his message was, overseeing
the North Berwick witch trials where men in power who wanted to believe
in fairy tales organised the torture and murder of women under suspicion
of being, or consorting with, witches.
The figure of the witch is a constant in global culture. Circe, Lilith,
Baba Yaga, etc: the witch abides within religious texts, folklore and
Classical literature. Embodying specific archetypes, their ‘in-diegesis’
powers are always drawn from feminine attributes projected by men:
physicality, skewed motherliness, unknowability. Following the ubiquity
of the witch in the horror genre from Méliès'
House of the Devil onwards, has there been an especial
resurgence of the witch in cinema over the last decade? With
representations ranging from depictions of witchy herstory (The VVitch, the
last one of that Fear Street thing), to modern relevance (any excuse to mention
Hellbender, along with the
Ari Aster stuff)? If there is, then perhaps these narratives correlate with the
renewed interest in gender discourse, as every witch story ever told is
driven by gender ideologies, with the delineation depending on who is
telling the tale. The witch can now be a symbol of empowerment
(strikingly so on social media), or still yet a gynophobic manifestation
of the purest evil (I just remembered - apparently Aster made
Midsommar as therapy following a bad break up: so
embarrassing!). Suitably, Pierre Tsigaridis’ (co-writing duties
shared with Kristina Klebe and Maxime Rancon) new
mumble-coreish Two Witches conjures with the enduring
witch trope in an almost abstract, but, frankly, often utterly
terrifying, narrative diptych relating to female roles and paradigms.
In the first story, we follow Sarah (Belle Adams), a young
soon-to-be mother who is persistently haunted by wretched visions of the
older woman who gave her evils across a diner one night (with boring
simplicity, the abject implication of the witch is usually located
within misogyny surrounding women who are not youthful). The loose
narrative has themes of fears both relating to pregnancy and the, still
weirdly taboo, topic of motherly apprehension (as if any woman worrying
about their parental suitability is somehow an unspeakable failure).
Sarah’s wicca-esque pal Melissa (Dina Silva), a recognisable
stereotype, chips in with some suburban sorcery of Ouija and the like
along the way. The storyline of Two Witches, here and in the second part, is a secondary matter however,
incidental to the rush of unsettling and genuinely frightening imagery
that Tsigaridis invokes. Bluntly, the acting is sporadic. The plot is
back of a beer mat stuff. But by Hecate, if I wasn’t unduly scared by
this film.
The experience of watching Two Witches is like having one
of those dread fuelled nightmares, murky and restless and nonsensical,
ultimately pierced by something so vividly alarming you wake up still
scared. The film grimly coalesces like the sick churn of a cauldron: the
performances often have a deficiency which place them at a remove once
from recognisable comportment, and the plot, such as it is, chops and
changes like an October wind. Yet, punctuating this discombobulation,
the most concrete and consistent aspect of Two Witches is
the scares, which are a bit cattle-proddy (at least two are stolen from
Insidious), but how! Tsigaridis’s ‘boo!’ imagery is crafted to such a profoundly
unpleasant mien, and concurrently arranged with a disorientating lack of
respect for the established pacing of horror storytelling, that the
experience of watching both stories is a genuinely unnerving experience.
The second half focusses on another young woman, Masha (Rebekah Kennedy, with fittingly emo-phase-Wednesday-Addams energy), a witch we meet
having sex with some bloke. After being interrupted in flagrante, she
proudly announces her sex positivity to her good girl roommate (Rachel,
played by co-writer Klebe) with the explanation, "fucking is in my
blood" (another of the witch’s grim manifestation of male fear: the
woman who dares to enjoy sex). Rachel has rushed into Masha’s bedroom
following what she believes is rough stuff gone bad at the expense of
Masha. She’s half right: while having it off, Masha started to strangle
her beau to perhaps death before he, as a last resort, bopped her on the
nose to save his life. Rachel has none of his protestations though, and
turfs him out. This situation - Masha seducing men and then falsely
crying assault - becomes a motif in Two Witches’ second story, and it can’t help but read as a refuting of ‘Believe
All Women’. It’s... certainly a choice. And one which Rachel pays for as
Masha continues to basically wind her up in ways which are increasingly
distasteful, but utilise such in vogue techniques as gaslighting,
defaming and the old appearing in the bathroom mirror behind the
shoulder trick.
The treatment of issues which specifically affect modern women and the
use of horror tropes to explore them, is superficial at best here. More
than a complex exploration of these topics,
Two Witches appropriates them to mobilise its main
intention - which would seem to be to make the viewer feel alternately
weird and scared, which it does with the disquieting exactitude of a
curse. Along with exploiting the aforementioned cultural contexts,
Two Witches also mines atavistic fears, and, perhaps,
lingering social prejudices concerning women. It wouldn’t be fair,
however, to coat down Two Witches for its unpalatable
ideologies - they’re so ineptly communicated for one thing. The odd,
outsider art feel of this film is what gives
Two Witches its atmosphere, the stabbing shock images its
undeniable punch. Masha’s abilities involve possessing her victims,
manipulating them from within. Like its MVP,
Two Witches has a similar impact: it gets in your head.
Two Witches is available on Arrow 1st October and released
on Blu-ray 17th October.
