Halloween countdown: Top 7 witch movies

In honor of the upcoming magical holiday of Halloween, a countdown series featuring the films about common Halloween monsters with the first week dedicated to witches.

It’s finally September and for Halloween fanatics, that officially marks it as the start of the spooky season. Now is the time to eat all things pumpkin spice (or feel bad for those who hate it) and doll up the house like it’s the haunted mansion, but most importantly, it’s time for the scary movies.

Other than Christmas, Halloween is the holiday with the most movies made in its name, with studios using it as an excuse to make excess amounts of slashers and supernatural thrillers about ghouls and goblins every year. Sitting on your couch in the dark and getting scared is a sacred Halloween tradition no different than lighting up the Christmas tree or roasting a Thanksgiving turkey. So, in honor of that, I’m doing a horror movie countdown for each week leading up to Oct. 31, and first up are witches.

Unlike other popular Halloween monsters, witches are very real. No, not the ones covered in boils that eat children, but there is a rising number of people who have proclaimed themselves members of the Wiccan religion and practice a type of spiritual magic. Though it’s not just modern-day Wiccans that intrigue people but the infamous history surrounding witches that make them so popular.

They appear in our history books as victims of the times, people sentenced to death for things they didn’t do. Very different from the first cases of lycanthropy and vampirism where the accused were men that had something noticeably wrong with them.

Anyway, here is my list for the top seven witch movies. If by any chance your favorite witch flick isn’t on here somewhere, don’t get mad at me, I can’t put them all in.

7. Hocus Pocus

I’m not really a fan of this movie, but it’s considered by the people that to go crazy over it a Halloween classic, so I feel it’d be wrong not to include it somehow. Nothing about this movie is scary. If this movie gives you a fright then you’re either someone who shouldn’t be out at night on your own or you’re under the age of five.

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Out of all the witch movies aired during the month of October, Hocus Pocus is probably the most-watched and celebrated. It’s got a cult following and is a treasure for the town of Salem where it’s become the focus of many festivals.

Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker star as the three Sanderson sisters hanged for witchcraft in 1693 then accidentally resurrected by some teenagers 300 years later on Halloween night. Once they get over their initial shock of being in the 20th century, they start their fun. First by mistaking a man in a devil costume as their master and singing a cover of “I Put a Spell on You” at a party.

Hocus Pocus focuses on the type of witches that commonly appear in children’s folktales, the kind with long noses and long fingernails that speak in shrieking high-pitch voices. They’re very silly in their evilness.