7 Witches (2017)

The members of the Boyle family – a paradise of dysfunction – come together to celebrate the marriage of daughter Rose (Danika Golombek) to her girlfriend Agatha Sklar (Megan Hensley). The wedding is taking place at the home of Agatha’s family, to follow the rituals of her family. The Sklars, you understand, are a family of old school witches, whose ancestors had come to America at the same time as the puritans and have barely survived persecution, so they live in a rather out of the way place. They are also very, very weird, dressing only in black, and rather old-fashionedly at that, not doing that whole “smiling” thing you may have heard of, and generally acting stiff in a most creepy manner.

That’s certainly going to make the whole wedding business rather awkward, particularly since the Boyles can’t manage to not be at each other’s throats even for a single wedding weekend. Our main viewpoint character Kate (the lovely named Persephone Apostolou) is certainly the most pleasant of the bunch – not that that’d stop her and Rose from tearing each other apart verbally at the slightest provocation – but pleasantness might not be the personality trait she’s going to depend on once it becomes clear what kind of wedding ritual the Sklars have in mind.

The rest of the Internet apparently doesn’t agree, but I found Brady Hall’s 7 Witches a very pleasant surprise. But then, to me, the film reads very much as an attempt to make a non-retro horror movie on the budget and tech level of contemporary seats of their pants indie horror that still keeps in the spirit of stranger 70s genre films with comparable ruthless sensibilities when the time comes; though I could certainly see it also as a somewhat sardonic answer to all those US non-horror indies about dysfunctional families breaking down at some kind of family gathering, preferably Thanksgiving. It doesn’t matter much to my enjoyment in this case, for both directions are very much catnip to me.

So I’m rather enamoured with much of the film. Hall does a lot with what can’t have been much of a budget, ending up with a film that seems focussed on the important details rather than small. The film uses some very atmospheric locations apparently located in the vicinity of Seattle to build the proper mood of isolation and evoke the sense of a place where the creepy rituals of folk horror seem to fit the surroundings. There’s nothing quite like nature to creep this viewer out, though the closed down military fort the climax takes place in is rather wonderful too.

The – often genuinely funny - dialogue of the Boyles has the effectively snarky tone of people who have been horrible to each other for quite some time and stands in telling contrast to the unmoving stiffness and old-fashioned speech patterns of the Sklars. One can’t help but think that even if this weren’t a horror film, things would not end well between these two families. I’m rather happy it is one, though, for the malevolent practices of these cultists are very cleverly done, showing a folk horror bent that provides their occult activities with a feeling of internal consistency, though fortunately not one that ends in big villain speeches or direct explanations. The film clearly assumes the audience to be able to understand the folkloric references and resonances in the script, and to go with that understanding as far as we please. In any case, I love how much the strangeness of these people’s beliefs actually fits the real-word strangeness of the real beliefs many of us have.


There’s much else to like here too. The film has many a creative and appropriately weird sequence to offer, like cooking sequences made somewhat disturbing (and foreshadowing) with the help of Hall’s effectively minimalist score. Or how about the wonderful staging of the wedding sequence and its unappetizing aftermath? Or the tight and exciting final set pieces of well-staged action scenes that lead into a point-perfect ambiguous ending? Frankly, there’s little I don’t like about 7 Witches.