This Witchy Horror Gem on Peacock Blends Retro Glamour With Feminist Fury
Anna Biller’s 2016 film, The Love Witch, is a sumptuous horror gem, characterized by bright colors, Gunne Sax dresses, and deliberately stilted line readings that evoke the campy films of the ’60s and ’70s. It’s as though Lana Del Rey took a break from music to direct a horror movie. It became an important if not imperfect lodestar during my own feminist journey in my late teens (and a major influence on my eyeliner journey, which is a conversation for another time, but seriously—why do all the horror baddies have the best eyeliner? Yes, this includes The Crow’s Eric Draven).
The Love Witch follows Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a beautiful witch who is looking to “start a new life” after the death of her abusive husband. She brews potions, consults tarot cards, and prays to Goddess to find her one true love. However, the men she enchants often struggle to handle themselves and their emotions. Eventually, they all end up disappointing her. Or dead. Usually both. What was that short story Flannery O’Connor wrote? Oh, right—“A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”
What makes The Love Witch so magical is Biller’s near Kubrickian attention to detail, down to the actors’ unnatural line delivery. Biller, who calls herself a “fetishist, a cinephile,” wrote, directed, edited, and designed the costumes and sets herself. She even shot The Love Witch on 35mm to capture the deep and saturated colors of vintage celluloid. The result is, as one Letterboxd user put it, a “scandalous piece of Technicolor phantasmagoria, tilted through erotic primary hues and fiery to the touch.”
But Biller’s work hasn’t been without controversy. She’s been accused of misunderstanding the Satanic Panic and has been labeled a TERF, both in connection to her past tweets (that have since been deleted) and themes in The Love Witch. Some critics read the film as “bio-essentialist,” noting that Elaine’s witchcraft draws explicitly from her anatomy (a used tampon is a vital ingredient in one of her spells). For some viewers, this emphasis comes across as exclusionary, reducing womanhood to biology.
The beauty of the horror genre is that it’s one of the few spaces that celebrate and center the voices of queer, transgender, and gender non-conforming fans and creators, and it’s important to have these discussions and listen to these perspectives. To be clear, I personally believe that womanhood is complex and nuanced, shaped by our unique lived experiences and cultural and societal expectations. However, it is worth noting that Biller has addressed these accusations, stating that she believes that “trans people should have the same rights as everyone else,” that her “politics lean far left,” and that she is a “feminist.”
I also can’t help but notice the uneven way we dole out criticism in the horror community. Many male horror directors have said or done things that are openly toxic, ill-informed, or exclusionary, yet their work is rarely dismissed outright or the subject of such intense scrutiny (Eli Roth denouncing Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars Speech and posting that Greta Thunberg “needs to be eaten by cannibals” for attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza comes to mind).
The Love Witch exaggerates the beauty and the absurdity that come with navigating the world as a woman, no matter the decade. Can a woman pander to the male gaze and still feel empowered? Do we have to choose between independence and intimacy? Between femininity and self-respect? Is there anything worse than dating a Pisces man?
You can fall under The Love Witch’s spell on Peacock. If you love it, let me know: @ashjenexi on Instagram and X.
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