Witchcraft Portrayed in Films

An ugly and frightening old woman crouches ominously over a big worn cauldron, set over a crackling red fire. Her skin is wrinkled, cragged and coloured in a strange tone that isn't quite natural, and her face features a long and crooked nose, adorned with a few erratic warts. She is wearing a long black robe that has seen better days, and a tall conical hat with a large rim covers her untidy hair. She concentrates on her cauldron, in which some unwholesome-looking liquid is boiling and sending off coloured fume into the air. In the background, one can glimpse a row of jars and pots, each filled with exotic and macabre ingredients. Her old broom, made not for sweeping but for flight stands in a corner, and she is watched by the glowing and unmoving eyes of a black cat that sits calmly atop the table. Now she takes one of the jars with her long crooked fingers, and after inspecting it, she opens it and plops some of its contents into the cauldron, which begins to bubble fiercely as soon as the gelatinous balls mix with the liquid. "Eyes of a newt," she says in a raspy voice with a satisfied overtone as she takes a large wooden spoon and begins to stir the liquid in the cauldron. Her eyes glint diabolically, because her latest potion is nearly complete. Later that potion will be used in some sort of mischievous plot involving the people that live in the nearest village.

This is the familiar image of the fictional witch - the evil, ugly crone, the "wicked witch" from Wizard of Oz, and it's the image that's engraved into our culture as an association to the word "witch." This caricature is what we see in drawings when one wants to reference Halloween, and the witch costumes we always see around that time are those of black capes an...

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... what bugs most Pagans I've meet, who realize that life is lived on a spectrum of colours, not black and white. Also the Magic is Vulgar and not the way the world works as I've seen it.

Both films seem to think that only women are into magic and Paganism. While that is a trend, it is far from the truth, especially with the druids. If you want a good source of info on demographics try "Voices from the Pagan Census", which I have checked out at the moment from KU, but I'd be willing to return it if you want it.

It is fair that we are all fairly young, but I would say we're generally closer to 30 then 20. I would say they portray someone who hasn't been Pagan that long and/or hasn't met a lot of other Pagans.

What age group do you think these movies appeal to most?

25 and under and/or women. The Craft and Sabrina more just Women and Blair Witch under 25