The Love Witch

When a witch’s love life becomes just as dangerous as her spells, what happens? In Anna Biller's 2016 film The Love Witch, we see a young woman's journey of finding love turn into a deadly path for the men courting her. Although our main character's compelling beauty may seem to portray her as innocent, she is truly a femme fatale. You do not have to watch The Love Witch in order to understand her duality: By simply viewing the movie's poster, you can sense the danger behind her beautiful face. While dropping hints of our main characters twisted personality, The Love Witches promotional poster also gives onlookers a preview into the movie's retro aesthetics. This movie poster manages to show a distinctive style of film while also capturing the movie's themes of witchcraft, seduction, and rebellious femininity.

Anna Biller has a history of making films that comment on societal norms and breaking boundaries of social expectations. In her 2007 film Viva, she also discusses the role of women within their relationships. Each of her movies involves an empowered female who takes control of their own lives. Viva is set in the 1970s, and has a similar movie poster to The Love Witch. Billers stylistic choices time travel her audience to the mid-20th-century. Her target audience can range between young women searching for empowerment, to retro film lovers that search for cult classics and campy tones.

The poster focuses on several elements that contribute to its overall aesthetics. Instead of using an HD photo, this movie poster is a painted portrait, which time travels us back to an era where movie posters were drawn rather than made with photographs. The typography chosen is a classic example of a retro style font, bearing large letters and bold curves. The main character, Elaine Parks, is portrayed wearing 1960s and 1970s style makeup, with her hair done in a kitschy beehive. Without knowing that this movie is a 2016 film, it is easy to assume that The Love Witch is a 1970s classic. The vibrant colors used are reminiscent of psychedelic and supernatural themes often seen in mid-20th-century film posters. These elements combined make The Love Witch seem like a true 1970s horror, although it was released decades later. 

The Love Witch has strong themes of female defiance, which is incredibly relevant to the misogynistic world we live in today. Her character is constantly breaking free of gender roles, and her disregard of the status quo is first displayed within the movie's promotional poster. One of the most obvious ways we see Elaine stray from modern expectations of women is her stylistic choices. By dressing as a 1970s harlot rather than a modern woman, it is very clear that she doesn’t care for mainstream norms. Her expression also sends tones of dominance and assertion, as her gaze is confident and assertive. Although her striking beauty and obvious femininity may lead people to believe that she is a passive figure, she makes it clear that her gender does not define her. Not only does her expression send the message that she is a force to be reckoned with, her bloodied hands in a commanding position also conveys the idea that she is more dangerous than she may look. Elaine's identity as a witch is conveyed within this movie poster, as she is portrayed wearing a pentagram around her neck. The mystical colors of our poster also enhance her supernatural aura. Because witches are often used as a symbol of female power, the role of witchcraft within this poster is incredibly important.

This poster appeals to the rhetoric of Pathos by invoking conflicting emotions upon viewers. When we first look at this work of art, we might be easily impressed or seduced by Elaine's striking beauty. The poster's stylistic choices invoke a sense of comfort upon viewers, until they see her hands. Her hands conflict with her warm aura, as they reveal her dark side. This duality draws viewers in, making them question Elaine's true character. We see a beautiful woman, surrounded by warm and inviting colors, bearing bloodied hands and a pentagram necklace. These stark differences ensue incompatible feelings towards the main character.

According to Viktoria Prohazkova, marvelous horror includes “seemingly irrational and incomprehensible phenomena that can be explained only by accepting the second layer of reality” (Prohazkova). The Love Witch falls under this umbrella due to its reality warping themes of witchcraft and spells. The promotional poster for The Love Witch helps viewers understand which genre it falls in by displaying themes of the occult within its art. This also connects to The Love Witches subgenre, which is occult horror. The movie poster conforms to this subgenre by displaying obvious symbols of mysticism, such as pentagrams, a siren like lady and vibrant colors that appeal otherworldly. 

The Love Witch is a great example of a movie poster displaying its horror category and subgenre, while also exemplifying the key features of art horror. The poster for The Love Witch fulfills several key aspects of art horror. Carroll defines art horror as a genre that involves confronting the viewer with the monstrous and the unknown. The character of Elaine represents a contradicting figure, as she represents a victim and a villian. Her beauty contrasts with her red stained hands, which highlights the element of categorical incompleteness within art horror. Her depiction also blurs the lines between the human and the supernatural, which connects to supernatural monstrousness. Elaine embodies the tension between human and monstrous.

It is easy to be distracted by Elaine’s striking beauty on The Love Witch movie poster, but a deeper visual analysis reveals much more about the film’s underlying themes and narrative. The promotional image cleverly reflects the film's retro aesthetic, supernatural elements, and feminist undertones, using visual cues to hint at the complexities of its plot. By presenting Elaine as a powerful and assertive figure, the poster not only promotes the film but also challenges traditional gender roles in horror. Furthermore, the poster subtly alludes to The Love Witch’s art horror base, introducing viewers to the tension between beauty, danger, and the supernatural that defines the movie. Through a careful examination of this seemingly simple portrait of the main character, we can uncover layers of foreshadowing that provide a glimpse into the film’s deeper narrative and subversion of classic horror tropes.

sources:

Carroll, Noel. The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart. Routledge, 1990.

Disobedient Sounds. “The Love Witch Will Leave You Spellbound.” Disobedient Sounds, 3 May 2021, https://disobedientsounds.com/2021/05/03/the-love-witch-will-leave-you-spellbound/.

Prohazkova, Viktoria. "The Genre of Horror." Journal of Genre Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 2019, pp. 145–158.