Review #311: Witches' Night (2007)

October 2024 Horror Origins Review #28- Witches' Night (2007)

[So, watching this movie is kind of a conundrum. It's not available on any streaming platform, and when I attempted to upload a ripped copy of my DVD to YouTube I was informed it's already been struck before at request of the creators so YouTube won't allow it. Originally I planned to include a Google Drive link so anyone who felt comfortable could download it from me, but while writing this review I found out that there is actually one single way to watch it online- I'll detail it at the end- and it felt kind of scummy to circumvent a legitimate method of digital purchase, even if it likely means nobody will see it. And I really do think this movie is worth watching, even for the $5 price tag that it costs!]

I don't much remember my first time viewing Witches' Night, nor did I really remember much about the movie at all- except that I remembered being really impressed for some reason. I'm happy to say I feel the same way after this latest viewing- I think this is a shockingly good movie, if a bit bland, and its only crime is that it looks and feels low-budget.

Witches' Night follows a group of four friends on an emergency road trip after one of them was left at the altar and the other three dropped everything to take him somewhere he could get drunk and forget his troubles. On the road they decide to rent some canoes and make it a camping river trip (despite it being the chilly end of October)- but they get spooked by some local stories about witches, and then find themselves seduced by some beautiful young women in the woods. The following night is Halloween (on a blue moon, no less), a sacred Witches' Night- and it seems these four friends have been targeted for death to complete an evil ritual. Will they be able to get back to civilization alive? And if they do- what will it cost them?

I'm going to get out the only bad things I can say about this movie: it's not particularly exciting and nothing is very bombastic or impressive about its execution, and this movie looks and feels incredibly low-budget. (The only sets to speak of are a bait shop and a cabin in the woods, the rest of the movie is just four dudes out in the wilderness.) Also, there's two or three times when we're supposed to be scared by the sight of "a witch"- basically, an actor in a bad-looking old crone mask- and it lacks the desired effect because the obvious mask looks bad every time and we barely get a chance to see it. (And it really makes me ask, why did they need to use a bad old woman mask anyway? Could they not have found an actual old woman to just stand in front of the camera for two or three shots?) And that last part really does the movie a disservice- because there's times when the main character will act terrified just remembering this creepy witch he saw, and if the witch actually looked creepy it would have added a lot to the experience. But since we barely saw it and what we did see didn't look scary at all, it really robs the movie of any sort of tension or atmosphere it was trying to go for.

But, really, that's it. Otherwise I only have good things to say about Witches' Night. The performances all feel realized and realistic- at least, when they're supposed to. So often I watch movies like this and I have to ask myself, "Why are these people friends? They clearly hate being around each other." But in Witches' Night, the characters actually feel like friends- sure they rib each other sometimes, but it never gets outwardly hostile, except for a period in the movie where it's intentionally over-the-top because one of the characters isn't acting like himself. I really like the moments when everyone is joking around, I really like the dynamic between the two brothers, and even when the characters do something I wouldn't do (like go back and try to rescue their friend that has certainly been killed or turned evil or whatever) it still feels fitting for the history they have and the personalities they've shown.

Also, something I absolutely love (and it was the one thing I remembered from my first viewing) is that this story incorporates an actual real-world book about witch hunting, the Malleus Maleficarum. One of the characters steals it from a local shop owner early on (not understanding what it is) and later on they realize that it has information they can use to figure out who the witches are and what their goal is. But, you see, so many times a movie will have the characters find one single book or website that tells them one single trick they can use to defeat the evil, and it always ends up being correct (even when the evil in question would, in real life, have hundreds of conflicting stories of how to combat it). In Witches' Night, however, multiple times it's stressed that the Malleus Maleficarum isn't a magic spellbook or anything like that; it's a book written by the police to justify assaulting innocent young women, so even if it does have actual information about witches in it, you can only trust it so far.

So, again, this movie looks pretty cheap and doesn't really have any sort of big flashy "pizazz" that would make me go out of my way to watch it. But it's a solid, well-made movie that succeeds at nearly everything it was trying to do, and it really goes to show that even a low-budget movie can still do its due diligence to make sense and try to be good. It's a little difficult to scrounge up a copy of this movie these days but I definitely recommend giving it a watch.

Overall Rating: 8/10 Rainbow Unicorn Sweatshirts

Nostalgic Rating: 6/10 Instantly-Discarded Sickles

Blast From the Past: So, I mentioned that Witches' Night isn't available to stream anywhere online, but did you know you can buy a digital "iPod download" from their website? That's right- http://www.witchesnight.com is still up and running, and looks exactly like it did in 2007 when this movie came out. (Want see photos from the shoot? Want to see a page introducing the characters? Want to just see some witch-centric art that was used as inspiration? It's all on there, in its early-21st-century glory!) The "buynow.html" page advertises that you can purchase the DVD for $9.99 and the "iPod download" for $4.99, and the DVD purchase link is dead, but the iPod download button still works! (It directs you to Paypal, and after submitting your purchase you're given a link to watch and download the movie, albeit in fairly low resolution.) If you want to watch this movie and throw the creators $5 like I did (if they even realize the website is still active) I highly recommend it.