Fantastic Film Fest 2024 Review - Hood Witch
Images courtesy of Original Spin.
You’ve heard of Save The Cat - now get ready for Regurgitate That Frog. Saïd Belkitibia’s Hood Witch promised a story exploring the perjuring of women in an internet surveillance state, with elements of modern-day witchcraft and the vibes of a blood-curling thriller, but it failed to deliver on all fronts. The film opens with protagonist, Nour, in an airport, being pulled aside after something moves under her coat. It’s a lizard. Nour is revealed to be carrying a terrifying quantity of exotic critters on her person, ranging from amphibians to reptiles. This was a great character introduction after a slightly tacky opening sequence of Ye Olde witch burning pictures nabbed from the web, but after she is pulled aside by security, we never find out how Nour escapes the eye of the law. Or why she thought she would get through security with a couple kilos of live contraband to begin with. Hood Witch seems to approach narrative structure with the blasé attitude of a high school student in a creative writing class. ‘I don’t need a coherent resolution to my story!’ it boasts. ‘I have lizards!’.
Nour’s place within her world is unexplained and unexplored. She has a well connected client base for her mysterious witchcraft app, yet a hateful mob jumps at the chance to lynch her when a client solution goes wrong. Police have no bearing on this incongruous fictional world. Like a dada art piece, Hood Witch communicates through surreal tonal dissonance and unconventional imagery. An unleashed Komodo dragon doubles as the protagonist’s security system. Unlike a Dada art piece, Hood Witch requires 90 minutes of your attention. I only successfully made it through 50. The fourth bout of loud French shouting led me to rediscover my free will and walk away.
Hood Witch is redolent of self-importance, so deeply invested in its own world that it barely pauses to consider the viewer’s ability not to care about its mediocre characters and plot delivery. If you recently finished a film and thought to yourself, ‘God. I wish the characters spent more time mistreating animals’, then Hood Witch is the movie for you. For a production pitched as an edgy, feminist narrative, this film featured its female protagonist having the crap beaten out of her with near-gratuitous frequency. I feel sorry for the komodo dragon that spent its time being shepherded on and off the film set of this sad production. However, these negative opinions are my own. Maybe you’re looking for a frog regurgitation hidden gem. I advise you to check the content warnings on this not-so-magical tale.
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Hood Witch is screening as part of Fantastic Film Festival Australia 2024. The festival runs from the 17th of April to the 10th of May, check out the festival website for tickets and more info here.