So, witches are cool now because of Oz The Great And Powerful. But, come on! Witches have always been cool. They hang about in girl gangs, never suffer fools and have actual powers. Admittedly, Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz (aka The Hottest Woman Of All Time) make one pretty exciting coven in Oz, but here are five other reasons to be fans of witches on film...
1. The Craft: OK, until Fairuza Baulk goes mental and is all "I'm invoking Manon", who didn't want to be one of the witches in The Craft? They make racist bullies lose their hair, make themselves look hotter and do that really cool thing only Nineties girls could do by making over the knee socks, a mini skirt and a band t-shirt look cool.
2. Hocus Pocus: The sheer joy of coven in this film! Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy (who - squee! - also plays Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act). It's all just so wonderfully silly - they just want to look younger (hey, who doesn't?) and so decide to suck the life out of children (er, harder to relate to). That aside, brilliant costumes and watching Carrie pre-Big reminds you SJP has always been awesome.
3. Sabrina The Teenage Witch: Sabrina Spellman had a talking cat called Salem, ancient aunts who were cool and a boyfriend called Harvey Kinkle. The best thing? Even though she became a witch on her 16th birthday (much more exciting than being able to get hitched or legally have sex) she was totally like us and a massive No Doubt fan girl.
4. The Witches Of Eastwick: If you had to put together a coven that no one would mess with, it would definitely include Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer, right? These witches are brilliantly sisterly and join forces to seduce and kill Jack Nicholson's devilish Daryl. Ha, take that evil man! The casting is perfect, mostly because it's not hard to imagine that Cher genuinely does have actual powers and secondly, because they all have magnificently huge hair.
5. The Blair Witch: Man, she's punk. So punk she doesn't even show up in the film. Everyone's freaking out and doing close-up shot monologues and she's probably just chilling on her broomstick (not really) being like, "Yep, I'm one seriously scary Mary. Hey you! Stand in the damn corner". Never has an absent character caused so much hysteria and sniffing.
WITCH STYLE! Check out Gareth Pugh's gothic Autumn/Winter 2013 collection...