There will always be witches: New movie series at IPH offers a history lesson
Witches have been pervasive in movie history from the very beginning.
It can trace way back to the short films of French director Georges Méliès and audacious films such as “Häxan,” or you can look more recently with “Hocus Pocus” or “The Witch” to see the humor and horror of the character.
“This is the story of the way women are treated in America over time,” said Payton McCarty-Simas, author of the book “That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film” and programmer of a new series at the Independent Picture House this weekend: “That Very Witch.”
“The witch is the only predominantly female horror monster. She is a very specifically feminine archetype, and the reason for that is because she is also one of the few horror monsters who’s based on an actual history of real atrocity.”
‘Witchy’ stories
McCarty-Simas said she’s always been a “witchy kid.”
“I grew up in Massachusetts, which is the birthplace of (witch hysteria) for the U.S. When I was little, people used to call me ‘The Blair Witch.’ So I always love this kind of stuff. I grew up on Poe. I really loved the Gothic (stories). And I was raised by a bunch of strong women. So those things kind of came together to really bring in my interest on this subject from a young age.
“I think really what initially drew me to this subject was the witch film boom of the 2010s. I was watching all these movies during COVID, and I kept seeing the same things over and over and over again. This is right at the height of the Me Too movement, the women’s march. I realized that in order to understand it better, you have to go back. You always need to ground yourself in your history, or you can’t learn anything.”
McCarty-Simas’ book begins during the second wave feminist movement in the late 1950s, early ‘60s and continues into the 2000s, touching on moments of female individuality that permeated the zeitgeist such as the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll of the ‘70s to the Moral Majority in the latter half of the century.
“It’s the political history of that period, the cinematic history of that period; what’s going on with Hollywood, what’s going on with the independent films, the feminist history of that period and how all of those things come together in the horror films and the witch films in general.”
How the witch story still resonates
Starting Friday, the IPH will feature talk backs from McCarty-Simas following screenings of “The Craft,” “Bell, Book and Candle,” “The Witches of Eastwick” and “The Love Witch.” She says that horror has generally been a place to explore witches, and these examples offer different paths to understanding the views of witches in different periods of American history.
“If you think about horror films in general, there are stock plots that come with them. Like a vampire movie, you know the rules. A zombie movie, you know the rules, a witch film, etc. There are some plots that repeat, but it’s less fixed in its narrative conventions, which means that she can absorb the aesthetics and the concerns of the time,” she said.
In previous stops where she’s talked about her book, McCarty-Simas said that a strong interest in the history of witches and related movies has been strong. “I think it’s really about the connection to the political present. And when people read the book, seeing them kind of appreciate the fact that, not to this extreme, but that we’ve been here before, that the rhetoric to which women are subjected has a precedent; that political disillusionment on the wake of a big peak in feminist activism, is par for the course.
“It’s been nice, particularly younger people, college age kids, feeling more armed with knowledge … seeing people kind of process their childhoods through this lens.”
“That Very Witch” begins on Friday night at the Independent Picture House with a 30th anniversary screening of “The Craft” at 7:15 p.m. Screenings of “Bell, Book and Candle,” “The Witches of Eastwick” and “The Love Witch” will follow throughout Saturday.
McCarty-Simas will be hosting talk backs after each screening and will have copies of her book available. Find screening times and tickets here.
Independent Picture House
Location: 4237 Raleigh St, Charlotte, NC 28213
Instagram: @iph_clt
This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 2:04 PM.
