Elle Callahan’s “Witch Hunt,” world premiering in the ‘2020 Spotlight’ section at this year’s SXSW festival, is the kind-of movie that always gets me excited about genre film. It’s a stunning commentary about hatred towards minority groups—immigrants most specifically—but also LGBTQ+ that is told through a truly smart lens.
Claire (Gideon Adlon) is a high school student living in Northern California in an America that is totally normal, except for the fact that witches are real and witchcraft is illegal. This is expressed in the opening scene where a woman is burned at the stake. More shocking is that this is modern day America, 400-some years after the Salem Witch Trials.
Claire can hang with her friends at school but has to be private at home since things are much different. Her mother Martha (Elizabeth Mitchell) has a system in place where she lets persecuted witches stay in her walls to evade the Bureau of Witch investigations.
Then, one of her colleagues takes the witches over the border to Mexico, where accused witches are being offered asylum. Claire’s prejudices are tested when a girl her own age, Fiona (Abigail Cowen) and her sister Shae (Echo Campbell) stay in their home. You see, a new Bill called ‘Prop 6’ is being voted on that would take away the rights of any children of persecuted witches.
In concept alone, “Witch Hunt” had me hooked from the start. It feels like Nazi Germany as witches hide from the BWI like Jews hiding from the Nazis. Imagery of witches hiding in the walls calls back to Anne Frank, as well as more recently in Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit,” another film about learning to let go of prejudices through friendship. It’s even more relevant to America, too, with the immigration crisis in America and how children were held in cages. For this reason, the commentary isn’t exactly subtle and could be divisive depending on your own personal beliefs. However, watching this, you might learn a thing or two.
This is the case with Claire who shows racism and prejudice can be learned from a friend group, as her friends at school repeatedly berate a classmate of theirs whom everyone believes to be a witch. This is because of her red hair, and in this America, that is the common gene for witchcraft. At one point, Claire tells her mom in the middle of the night they can’t continue risking their lives for these people. Martha tells her daughter that’s what they are, people.
We know this behaviour wasn’t learned from the mom who fights for these people, and Mitchell is great in the role. She’s compassionate and protective, and when a neighbour comes over and bad-mouths witches, Mitchell is equally convincing switching her tune to be a like-minded bigot and tell her what she wants to hear.
Claire is interesting because as she starts learning about herself and her fears and anxieties, her preconceived prejudices are challenged in fascinating ways as she befriends Fiona. The dramatic chemistry between Adlon’s Claire and Cowen’s Fiona is fantastic as two teens sheltered in very different ways. Their performances are individually strong and they’re better together. The film is as much a tale about unfair persecution as it is a coming-of-age tale of discovery and acceptance. How Callahan uses this specific tale to tell that has great ingenuity. Claire’s full arc is joyous to watch, too.
I can talk about Elle Callahan’s rich themes all day—she directs and pens the screenplay, as well as doing the sound design—but her horror sequences have just as much merit. There’s more of a reliance on jump scares but the way the film plays into a haunted house sub-plot is legitimately creepy. The horror always feels frantic, though the “wispy” effects look to be the weakest aspect of “Witch Hunt,” but otherwise the effects shine in certain witchcraft moments.
Callahan injects a fair bit of dramatic tension, too, especially when we think Fiona and the young Shae will be found out. Every investigation into this happens believably throughout the film given the sequence of events. As well, Callahan gets that the most terrifying aspect of a witchcraft story may just be a young witch who hasn’t been able to train their powers, nor do they understand their powers. This leans into the unpredictability and entertainment factor of the film as “Witch Hunt” shines.
*”Witch Hunt” premiered 3/17 at SXSW and is available to watch for registered participants through 3/21 at 1 AM CST.
