Movie Review: "Little Witches"

It would be nice to believe all the holier-than-thou crusading movie producers have died off, but "Little Witches" shows otherwise.

Taking place within a convent school, the misfit girls sneak into a previously-sealed, newly-unearthed room beneath the church. They find an ancient book of magic written in Latin, containing spells to call "He Who Comes," a.k.a. Lucifer. Producers used Hollywood magic to make this magick as bloody, carnal, and demonic as possible -- they succeeded with unfortunate excellence. What they also succeeded in , which many non-Pagan viewers would notice at first, is making the demonic ritual a mirror image of Neo-Pagan/Wiccan rituals. The book of "black magick" was labeled a "book of shadows" on one occasion.

The copied images to Wicca and Neo-Pagan rituals included: calling the Four Corners (termed Gates in the movie), a type of binding spell, rituals done skyclad (nude), and naming the demon to be summoned "The Horned God." Not hard to see how the public can hear this Christian demon labeled so and then hear of the Wiccan "Horned God," linking the two together. Adding the term "witch" obviously doesn’t help the issue any either.

The "heroine" is played by a good, faithful Catholic girl, who was the do-gooder from the start, and portrayed as the voice of "logic." This voice of "logic" wasn’t a warning against doing evil, rather a warning against experimenting. Where I come from experimenting is popularly called free-thinking, which the Church has labeled an Enemy for it’s first appearance. (How are they going to control the people if the people go do stupid things like Think?!)

Major inaccuracies abound in this movie. Terms such as "black magic" further emphasis the anti-thinking intentions. Common sense says magick is not evil, rather the evil is in the person wielding the power. If all magick WAS evil, it would suffice to simply say "magic" without the "black" attached. It is stated that for the "magic" to work, the girls must remove all modern articles, stripping completely because modern articles interfere with the spells. This is obviously an anti-nudity attack, stating that by keeping your close on you will be protected from the "black magic." *LAF* On the other side of the coin, the film makers do a good job of covering up the political aspects of the Church procedures. For instance, the confessional is portrayed as a time the priest can provide guidance for the students. They don’t tell how the confessional is really a tool for acquiring information from the church tenants. (Confession should be to god, not to a middle-man priest.) The confessional is truly a political stroke of genius, I wonder why the go through so much trouble to hide it’s true purpose.

The second voice of "reason" is a nun who acts as "The Lord’s Guardian," and while she is alive "The Horned God" cannot come into this world. The "Guardian’s" role is to protect god’s territory from the demonic evils of Hell. Perhaps this is a stupid question, but…..

To top it off, the leader of the evil "witches" is a highly sexually oriented young woman (as many of the Wiccan female population is), who delights into showing off her lovely body and questioning the priest, nuns, and god. Sounds like a Pagan in general to me… surprise, surprise. I know, I know, how evil of her , thinking that the body is a thing to be treasured. Ridiculous girl! To prove the evil of the body, the producers centered the mild pornography around this girl, who also prompts others to do the same, linking carnal pleasure to evil; always a mission of the Church to banish thoughts of the body. We all know how women rebel when the get the foolish idea that they are worth more than the lint in their husbands pocket. Thoughts like that are a definite no-no.

Public Rating: B+ or higher unfortunately

Witchcraft Dawning Rating: F -

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