Heir of the Witch review
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. For those who know me you know about my love for horror films so once a month I’m going to review and discuss a scary flick. We’ll look at the classics, some new films, and I want your suggestions on what I should review. I’ll do my best to cover all the different genres within the genre – slashers, ghosts, monsters, etc.
SPOILER ALERT! – These will be reviews so if you haven’t seen the movie you’ll want to watch it first before you read this. Let’s do this.
heir of the witch review
A woman’s voice tells the tale of the Moldovan Strigoaică, a witch that having died an unnatural violent death will come back to haunt the living with a curse that is only bound to women. Two topics I love – Eastern European folklore, and witches so I’m in. This is the first feature film from the production company Pasha Entertainment and is written, directed, and starring the talented Victoria Bell with a mostly female production crew which is nice to see.
A Moldovan woman named Anna (played by Bell) is a seemingly ordinary seamstress who is trying to make a living while taking care of ill Aunt. However, she is plagued by nightmares of her grandmother who was a witch and has now passed on a curse to her. Along with this, we learn that as a child, she had to watch her father be physically abusive to her mother. Her work speaks for itself as she begins to take on clients with deep pockets but in addition to making dresses, she takes on the role of nanny for one family. Anna is kind but quickly gets herself into an affair with a married man and things get even deeper than that. All this begins to spiral out of control as the curse from the witch begins to dominate her life.
Bell is great as the quiet, respectful Anna who just wants a normal life – to be in love she says at one point. The dying Aunt is the link to the abusive father and is played well as the light that Anna so desperately needs. The film features quite a few flashback scenes that I was very impressed with. The scenes with the grandmother witch were very spooky and didn’t shy away on the gore either. Good set designs that created believable torture rooms. Sepia tones and great uses of things like runes, symbols, and spell books created a great overall atmosphere of evil. The scenes involving the abusive father were powerful. You can see the young Anna is truly traumatized and it’s sent through back to the audience. You feel for her character which is exactly what the goal should be.
The witch is in every moment of this story and while I love that, there were a handful of moments where what was happening seemed maybe out of place with the overall story or weren’t needed. A few scenes weren’t necessary to continue the story. That being said, this plot has a lot to it, so this picture needs your full attention. I was anticipating the ending as we got closer. At certain points it had a feel of the film Hereditary. This picture was created from personal stories which can sometimes make things biased, but it seems to work well enough here.
The strigoi is essentially an evil spirit in Romanian folklore and used in this context as the strigoaică – or witch - but is certainly prevalent to Eastern Europe overall. The darkness and power that come with evil spirits and witchcraft are ancient stories that regardless of accuracy and stereotypes, fascinate us. I like that we were given a new dose of it here.
Enjoy the trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKJMc5qcRjc