I have maintained for several years now that horror films don’t do well if they’re allowed to go on for too long (Mr Romero’s Dawn of the Dead being a notable exception), and I think I’ve just found more supporting evidence; at a shade over two hours, The Love Witch is a lot longer than it has any business being. The film is celebrated for its fetishisation of 60s/70s film style, which seems to be a large part of what draws people to it (and I’ll confess to that being the case with me too); it is apparently one of the last films to have been not only shot on 35mm film but edited on film and printed to film from that negative too, there was no digital tomfoolery and the singular look of the film is down to the stock and the camera filters used. I completely understand this visual appeal—which is enhanced aurally by the generous amount of Ennio Morricone music from actual 70s gialli—cos the film does look amazing, and I respect Anna Biller’s grind in getting things exactly how she wanted even if she had to make some bits of furniture herself (e.g. the pentagram rug that apparently took her six months to make). It’s just… the rest of it? There’s an element of somewhat strange humour to the film, with a semi-parodic aspect to proceedings, and I appreciate that Biller is doing a sort of feminist reclamation of period melodrama camp… but the humour here is on a wavelength I clearly don’t share, and the artifice of the enterprise extends into the performances to the extent that I genuinely can’t tell if they’re good or not. Especially Samantha Robinson as the titular witch. And if this were an actual 60s/70s horror, it probably wouldn’t have such withering pacing and it’d be over and done with in about 85-90 minutes. A considerable disappointment.
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