Excerpt from Nightmares Be Damned: Writings About Horror Films Worth Staying Up For

Saturday 4/26/25

In the intense rivalry battles between horror archetypes (though I prefer to believe eldritch agents are closer to buddies than enemies) ghosts may be the toughest to topple, because they are the most like us given that we might become—and for all intents and purposes sometimes already are—them. A broomstick-resembling peg below, you’ll find witches beating out vampires, which anyone who has ever had to contend with a vampire knows is no small feat.

Witches are often what we first embraced as scary—the good kind of scary. Our initial experiences with horror films, cartoons, and television programs, typically involves their ilk. They were the stuff of autumn decor from our earliest school days, what we drew in art class come spooky season. If we didn’t dress up as them, we knew innumerable people who did.

Witches seemed unlikely to murder you, haunt you, rip you to pieces, damn your soul to hell, like Robert Johnson with his ex in “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day.” Less stress, less mess. They could entrance you, but what’s the harm in that? Entrancement passes. And who doesn’t wish to be entranced? As in, “You entrance me, my love.” Would you rather that John Keats never wrote his eternal verse? Don’t be a hater.

There was also the possibility—however remote—that you could take that aforementioned broomstick for a ride, and fly over your best friend’s house and the woods and jet through some clouds, before sweeping down past the spire of the old church in the village green while giving a wave to the wise owl hooting on the ledge.

Witches had cats, and how dastardly are you if you love animals? Then there were the spells. Who wouldn’t want to cast intone a few words ensuring that you passed your spelling test or got your mortgage paid off (excepting the star-crossed family in W.W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw). Eye of newt and toe of frog—or whatever the recipe calls for—and some creepy crawly worms that had come out with the rain; you needn’t go further than your own backyard to do “the shopping” for the kettle. Plop it all in, stir, and then it’s basically just a matter of wishing (like with getting mom to reduce the number of days for which she subsequently grounded you).

Or warning. Witches excel at portent. Consider the three weird sisters in Macbeth. Imagine if you knew someone who could predict the results of sporting events a fraction as successfully as that trio outlines the future for the untimely-ripped Thane of Cawdor? You could buy a bunch of houses. Then there’s the argument that a really convincing prediction becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. People love the word “manifesting.” But witches got there first.

Don’t be put off by that label of “weird,” either. Witches are free thinkers. Critical thinkers. They won’t toe the line—not even a line of toad toes—automatically. A witch says, “Why, exactly, does it have to be like this? We mustn’t be in lockstep with mechanized societal forces merely because they are mechanized societal forces.” Or something like that. The witch is independent, but also pro-community. Witches watch each others’ backs, attend witchy events in groups, collaborate on spells like Orson Welles and Gregg Toland put their heads together for Citizen Kane, take trips in friend groups across the evening sky. Stir the pot in shifts.

One could argue that witches have greater appeal to girls than boys. How many boys have wanted to be a witch for Halloween? A boy can think witches are super neat, and he may learn about warlocks—the boy version of a witch—but costume-wise, that won’t feel the same to him.

But he’s likely to love witches regardless and think that Lucy looks cool as one in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown—talk about the perfect marriage of girl and garb. And though he’s apt to be more open about this at the tenderest of ages when we are less compromised by fears as to how others are judging us (NB: They’re fixated on themselves), he’ll still love witches as a man if he’s successful as a human adult because those are the people who retain the best aspects of the children they were.

We needn’t descend into speculation about how witches would be inclined to vote or their take on AI, because a reasonable person can surely work that out for themselves, but witches have a knack for being on the right side of history, which is ironic given how frequently they’ve been historically wronged.

A witch is adroit at guarding a bridge and making sure you say the right words in order to pass—a vocation that has fed many a witch family over the centuries—and they also make for a great gateway to an eventual and life-long love of horror films. They are akin, say, to a Beatles greatest hits record on the road to the White Album, or marijuana on the path to meth, but there are good witches—as in the first example—and bad—i.e., the second—so make sure you treat each as a separate case, just in case.

Witches are the ultimate spirit sisters of Halloween and they also have their own holiday tucked away in spring with Walpurgis Night, those final hours of April into the first few of May. But it’s always witch season, isn’t it? Maybe a bit more in parts of Europe and New England. Definitely New England.

All of which calls for a recipe of our own. Let’s witch it up, bitches. Ugh. Forgive me. I’m excited. Pretend you have a big cauldron in front of you and you’re out there on the moor, and by moor I mean your couch in front of a screen, but it’s dark and the carpet can pass for heath. And what this recipe requires isn’t snake fangs and bird feathers, but a sublime cross section of witch-riddled films. Recipes vary, but here’s one I think is worth trying out. Stir it all together, do an incantation or two, and see what you get.