The Curator of Schlock #214 by Jeff Shuster

The Love Witch

Be careful what you guzzle.

Looks like the SyFy Channel will be airing a new show about the—wait a minute! When did it become SyFy? I thought it was the Sci-Fi Channel. I guess I didn’t get that memo. But why change the spelling? I’m sure it has something to do with synergy, but I don’t know what synergy means.

Where was I? Oh, yeah.

The SyFy Channel will be airing a called Krypton. It’s a series about Krypton, the planet Superman came from. This show will be a prequel, so with this and Metropolis we now have two Superman prequel TV shows being made. Yay. I wonder if we’ll get to see Superman’s parents fall in love.

Speaking of love, Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! I’m planning a romantic getaway with my girlfriend, Lizeth. She lives in Nova Scotia in case you were wondering. Lizeth doesn’t have much of an online presence. She’s also never had her picture taken for spiritual reasons, but I assure you, she exists. What? You think I’m lying? You can stop reading this blog right now! And we haven’t even gotten to this week’s movie yet. It’s 2016’s The Love Witch from director Anna Biller. This is a good one.

The Love Witch looks like it could have been made right in the middle of the Swinging 60s. It was shot on 35 millimeter and the director, Anna Biller, and her cinematographer, M. David Mullen, do their best to imitate the shine of classic Technicolor movies. Anna Biller even managed reuse Ennio Morricone’s score from The Fifth Cord, and it actually works here. Typically, I don’t like it when directors use another film score for their own movie, but, I don’t know. It seems to fit this movie like a glove.

Maybe I’m just mesmerized by the star of The Love Witch, Samantha Robinson, and that turquoise eyeliner of hers. She plays a witch named Elaine, moving to a small town in northern California to start a new life after her husband died under mysterious circumstances. All Elaine wants is for a real man to fall madly in love with her. While she doesn’t have much trouble attracting the attention of the men around her, she has the added benefit of witchcraft on her side. She picked up some tips on how to use sex magic from the oily warlock who runs her coven, how to dress in the right way and dance in the right way to provoke a man’s innermost desires.

Elaine also makes love potions to finish the job. The only problem is once the men she attracts take the potion, they turn into blubbering fools who can’t live a second without her. This, in turn, causes Elaine to lose interest in them. Eventually, these men can’t stand the longing they feel for her and die as a result. The movie keeps driving home the point that Elaine is dangerous. In fact, she’s more or less a serial killer, but there’s something about her that make me want to ignore that information. Maybe it’s her turquoise eyeliner. I don’t know. The Love Witch is currently available on Prime Streaming.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.