An Intriguing Supernatural Gorefest

By Guillermo Rosario

Two Witches follow the story of a mysterious pair of women and their ominous influence on a community in which they menace a family and group of associated people. The film was released in 2021 and is distributed by Arrow Films. The film modernizes some of the most horrifying aspects of folklore witches from ritualistic sacrifice to pacts with nightmarish entities to attain power or other desires.

The Gruesome Pursuits of The Witches

This dark tale follows two different perspectives and stories that collide in the third act. First act focuses on a married couple with the wife being pregnant when she starts suffering nightmarish visions of an old woman who’s creepily fixated on her. The second then focuses on the titular character Rachel and her mysterious roommate Masha. Masha is revealed to have some unusual abilities herself in line with the old woman in the previous act and her actions directly affect the characters around her.

The ultimate motivation of these characters’ remains enigmatic. Many of their actions and pursuits are based on the folklore of women that practice mysticism and witchcraft. Yet their drive to haunt the victims with visions, lies, and distorted friendliness carries the mystery and elevates the tension. Even as the film closes to the climactic confrontation, not everything is revealed in the film.

The Horrifying Performance of The Two Witches

Rebekah Kennedy, the actress of Masha, has sold the performance of a creepy, ominous, and outright uncanny young woman. Her mannerisms and quirky kindness and violence sell the unsettling unpredictable nature of her character. She also does a lot of character acting with her eyes and twisting facial expressions.

Masha is definitely the most stand out character, to the point of being a compelling villain protagonist. The other characters such as the roommate Rachel and the pregnant woman Sarah are pivotal in that they are affected by the actions of the witches. Their reactions to the horror and eeriness of their circumstances is convincing with skepticism and instinctual fear. Many of the other characters were fairly onenote and there in the movie just to tell the other characters they’re crazy or to perish gruesomely.

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Two Witches Crew Joins Dead Talk Live March 13th!

Gloomy Sets, Shocking Flashes of Nightmare

Half of the film is creepy performances in a dark and dreary setting and a multitude of flashing moments of nightmarish visuals. Most of the film’s main source of scares is setting up or randomly bombarding viewers with jumpscares. From a flash of light to a scene of gore and startling sound effects. While these are meant to evoke terror and give a glimpse on what the characters are exposed to, these sudden jumpscare transitions occur too frequently and start to lose their effect.

The gore scenes are all done mostly with practical effects and are pretty well made. The gross out factor is high and through the gratuitous violence it sells the threat of the witches. The imagery is similar to the infamous camera scene of Event Horizon that showcased a gore fest of flash moments that will cause the curious to pause in order to see what’s happening.

Anticipation For What’s Next

Two Witches is a hard sale. The motivations of the titular characters remain a mystery with the obvious satanic ritual that were alluded to through the flashing visuals that are easily missed if no attention is drawn to it. The hows and whys remained this way and viewers are left piecing the story together. Rebekah’s performance as Masha is amazing and worth watching whether for a genuine scare or a chuckle. The movie was a decent watch with genuine moments of disgust and horror. Even after the climax, there is foreshadowing of darker forces at work and the horrors of the two witches and their commune of horror are bound to continue.