The Last Witch Hunter seems to have absolutely no problems with this. This has the awkward effect of positioning our hero in opposition to nature and suggesting that mankind’s history is ultimately one of usurpation and colonisation. The Last Witch Hunter retains a visual association between the witches and nature – a reflection of paganism that naturally leads to bug-scares and also to a variety of tree- and greenery-related imagery. “You are trespassing in our world,” the witch queen insists in the film’s opening sequence. Care is taken to cast male witches and female watchers, but The Last Witch Hunter is essentially the story about a bunch of patriarchal men (who are members of the Catholic Church) who hunt down a pagan religion that hopes to resurrect its “queen.” There is something rather tone-deaf about all this, particularly when The Last Witchhunter casts its female pagan antagonist as representing an indigenous population and its hero as a masculine colonist. It does not help matters that The Last Witch Hunter actively plays into this sort of iconography. There is something uncomfortable about a film that decries persecution only when the wrong people are persecuted. The film does suggest that he was only not cool with it because innocent people (and not witches) were burnt at the stake.
The eponymous witch slayer laughs when he is described as an “immortal fascist.” There is a really cringe-inducing sequence in the middle of the film where the characters allude to the Salem Witch Trials, with the title hunter making it clear that he was totally not cool with that. The Last Witch Hunter tries to laugh off the comparison. Given the historical tendency to burn people alive for accusations of witchcraft, not to mention other contexts, this could get awkward. After all, the word “witchhunt” is seldom used in the same context as “monster hunter.” It is not as if audiences are anticipating the long-awaited sequel to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter titled Joseph McCarthy: Witch Hunter. This puts The Last Witch Hunter in a somewhat awkward position, given the historical association between witchhunting and religious (or political) repression. Indeed, paganism has undergone a resurgence in the past few years. In contrast, witchcraft is tied to pagan religion and philosophy, anchoring it in something akin to the real world. While zombies might actually exist in Afro-Carribean culture, they are markedly different to the ghouls popularised by George R. Most obviously, witchcraft has a very long and complicated history in western civilisation. This muddles what should be a fairly simple plot, as the action pauses for pseudo-magic techno-babble that attempts to impose order on the story as it ties together “dreamwalkers” and “memory potions.” More often than not, witchcraft works according to whatever is easiest for the plot.Įven allowing for the logistical difficulties of trying to fashion witches into stock horror baddies, there are other potential issues. The script to The Last Witch Hunter has no idea what to do with witches, and so devotes considerable space to awkward world-building and clumsy exposition as characters relate details and stories that everybody involved in the conversation must already know. As a result, it is very hard to figure out how exactly witches are supposed to work as a generic antagonist in a “secret war” film like this.
The archetypal witch is more about appearance than “rules.” Indeed, The Last Witch Hunter has a bit of fun with the familiar associations one witch jokes that her best friend is a “cat person”, while complaining about the stereotype of green skin and pointy hats. There is no steak through the heart, no garlic there is no crucifix or silver bullet.
There are a number of logical and organic limitations and expectations that come with a horror movie based around a vampire or a werewolf or a zombie. Although the finer details change from film to film, most movie fans are roughly familiar with the “rules” for vampires and werewolves and zombies. On a level of pure plot, witches lack the elegant simplicity of the undead. The Last Witch Hunter suggests a number of possible reasons why witches never caught on with the same fervour as zombies or other ghouls. While there are any number of memorable films about witches – The Witches or The Witches of Eastwick come to mind – they are not as ubiquitous as their monstrous kin. Witches are something of an underrated horror movie monster, lacking the matinee appeal of vampires or werewolves. Witches seem to be going through something of a pop cultural renaissance with films like Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and television shows like American Horror Story: Coven. A certain amount of the movie’s problems might be inherited from the premise.