Witch Hunt Review

Last Updated on July 6, 2022

PLOT: In a world where witchcraft exists and is highly illegal to practice, a mother and her family help smuggle witches into Mexico for safety. Things seem to be going well until a suspicious government agent comes around seeking out refugees.

LOWDOWN: Director Elle Callahan is back with her sophomore effort, Witch Hunt (WATCH IT HERE). A step in a different direction compared to her dark and underrated debut Head Count. Witch Hunt is far more of a dramatic tale with a strong YA focus and a heavy political message to boot. Set in a grounded world where the one fantastical thing is the existence of witches. Now, to keep with a real-world feel, the witches here are random girls with a genetic mutation that bestows them with some magical abilities. Not a Hocus Pocus or The Craft style sorceress, but these girls are more akin to a mutant from the original X-Men trilogy. I bring this up because the advertising sells a different product than what I got, and a lot of how well this works for you will depend on if you can get into a different kind of flick. Like the wrong cocktail served to you by an overworked bartender on a crazy busy night, at least it’s something, right? Let’s jump in to dig into what works and what doesn’t.

Martha (Elizabeth Mitchell) is a widow living on a farm with her teenage daughter Claire (Gideon Adlon) and two sons along the California/Mexico border. Martha uses her house as a rest area and safe passage for witches on the run, like the underground railroad. With secret passages in her walls and an entire delivery system on getting them in and out, Martha has dedicated her life to helping. But Claire is an angsty teen who wants to fit in and have a normal life. She is not overly sympathetic to their cause and sees her mother’s involvement as a determinant of her life. Claire can’t go out or have friends over and has to worry about the Bureau of Witch Investigation (BWI) catching on to their illegal operation. Fiona (Abigail Cowen) and Shae (Echo Campbell) are the newest house guests who had escaped after watching their mother burn as punishment by the government. Once their transport never comes to usher them across the border, and Detective Hawthorne (Christian Camargo) comes to town, snooping around, Martha begins to worry that her family may be in danger.

What works extremely well here is the cast. Selling the fear of running an operation keeps Martha in a constant state of worry and genuine concern. At the same time, Claire is the teen trying to figure out herself in a world that’s pretty damn crazy and a home life surrounded by an unnatural force. The conflict and overall tone worked on a superficial level, but everyone here is on their A-game acting-wise. Elizabeth Mitchell is such a heartfelt actress and can do so much just with her eyes. As a mother trying to do her best at raising a family and helping people who desperately need it, she gives a lot of humanity to Martha. Gideon Adlon leads the show as Claire, the teen we see the world through. Adlon has an innocence to her yet a command of the screen that was impressive. I felt for her and how she had to deal with life at that age. How strange and confusing it can be even without the element of magic and government intervention. What works is the mother and daughter relationship, and though story-wise it’s pretty thin, Mitchell and Adlon do their damnedest to elevate the material.

An allegory for immigration, Witch Hunt is so on-the-nose; the sheer weight of it made this fall flat on its face. I couldn’t tell if a second screenwriter came in and added the witch sub-genre into the story because it’s that noticeable. It’s such an awkward transition between a family drama and the illegal immigrants (witches) they are trying to help. It seems like magic is tossed in every twenty minutes just to honor its namesake. The main focus is not getting caught by Detective Hawthorne, whose rouge attitude and love for the job makes him a great, if not comically, over-the-top villain, yet the supernatural stuff always feels out of place. The world-building was very shallow and amounted to everyone hates witches, and if you see one, report them. They hinted at a few cool ideas, like witch tests at school, but it’s so quick and sparse that I’m not sure if it was always the story’s intention. In fact, all of the witch-hunting stuff is in the trailers, amounting to maybe fifteen minutes total? Also, the CGI used for the little magic we get is rough. Like, unfinished video game rough. I can usually give it a pass, and since the acting is excellent here, I could at times, but others were tough to let go of.

Because this has such a strong message, every story beat or character moment is punctuated by an event in town or a conversation about how they “don’t belong” or “are a danger to society.” The story always comes last, and what a scene is trying to say about a particular point is always the driving narrative. I don’t care if a movie is political, but make it organic to the story so that the execution elevates the message into art. If not, you end up with a lot of unintentional humor as we get here. Witch Hunt wants to be something so much that it doesn’t realize it has an excellent mother-daughter story ready to be explored.

GORE: No gore or blood here.

BOTTOM LINE: Witch Hunt wasn’t the worst thing I’ve seen and even has a few solid things going for it, but man, I wish I got the movie from the trailer instead. I get the positive message and believe Elle Callahan’s heart is in the right place, but I’m just too old and cynical for such a naive and sappy story. But I can also admit that this tale isn’t for me. I’m just not the target audience. The lite and cute magic, paired with an adolescent finding herself, may resonate with young teens. And you know what? Good. If you got a daughter, this might be a good family movie that dips its toe into the supernatural but never gets intense or outright creepy. Mitchell and Adlon are great and do a lot of heavy lifting, keeping this from dropping even lower. Who knows, you may find the heart in what’s being said. For me, though, Witch Hunt ultimately underdelivers on its premise.

WITCH HUNT Hits Theaters, On Demand and Digital on October 1, 2021.