DVD Review: The Witch Files (2018)

Now Available 

Once upon a time the Project Greenlight co-winner for Battle of Shaker Heights, although Kyle Rankin admits that only after filmmaking fads are past their prime that that's when he thinks he might want to make one, the Night of the Living Deb director's first foray into found footage horror is mostly a success.

Set in and around a Brunswick, Maine high school where five girls from different backgrounds become unlikely friends after a new student manages to set off the fire alarm with her mind and gets them released from detention, The Witch Files is presented as a series of clips compiled by security cameras as well as digital footage shot by the characters themselves.

And even though, as the school’s Queen Bee Brooke (Alice Ziolkoski) jokes, "trying to be a witch in Brunswick is like wearing Mouse ears at Disney," the girls are intrigued enough that they ask the faux firestarter Jules (Britt Flatmo) to teach them how it was done.

Agreeing to meet her at midnight in the middle of a park where (rumor has it) witches were murdered over two hundred years ago, as soon as words are chanted and locks of hair are buried, the five bond together to form a coven.

Starting out small while testing out their newfound powers, once they realize they can levitate not only a book but brainy high school reporter Claire (Holly Taylor), things quickly escalate.

From money-free shopping sprees to wishing for Brooke's mom to stop hitting the bottle and Claire's unemployed dad to find the perfect job, Brunswick's newest witches start using their powers to fulfill their every wish before they learn that nothing in life is free.

Discovering that even spells made with the best of intentions have consequences, members of the coven start suffering from strange side effects including double root canals and early onset arthritis.

Scared enough that some of the girls refuse to tempt fate anymore, when it becomes apparent that their powers are now strong enough that they don't actually need the entire coven to continue to cast spells, witch is pitted against witch.

With each girl wondering not only what is real but also who they can trust, a battle begins brewing which could bring down everyone in the process unless Claire can get to the bottom of what's really going on in Brunswick before it's too late.

Penned by Rankin and Larry Blamire, Witch's whip smart script is delivered very handily by its talented cast, especially frequent scene stealer Ziolkoski and the always authentic Americans MVP Taylor as well as Criminal Minds actress Paget Brewster (who also produced) as a local police detective.

Sure to appeal to those who enjoyed Pretty Little Liars, from his Breakfast Club inspired beginning, Witch feels like an amalgamation of everything from Heathers to Charmed to The Craft and as such, it has more than its share of amused smiles than scares.

And while its obviously rushed shoot does hinder a few scenes which just don't deliver the full impact of the words on the page, Witch still manages to impress nonetheless with some terrific wire-work stunts and special effects that up its thrill value (which you can explore in the special features).

Threatened to be overlooked in the October onslaught of big budget horror movies pouring onto streaming sites in time for Halloween, for those looking for something off the beaten path that you can safely show your teens which (like many films in the genre) has a worthwhile moral buried within the found footage story, this Witch is for you.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

TV on DVD: Penn & Teller: B.S.! -- The Complete Sixth Season

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page





It's sad but true; although I was definitely aware of the duo Penn & Teller by name, my first real exposure to the magical funny men was when Penn Jillette bravely decided to join the cast of Dancing With the Stars. And way too many jokes about his "enormous" feet later--which as a fellow overly tall individual made my eyes routinely roll-- Penn was kicked off the series and free to return to his real gig of being the talking half of the famous two-some (alongside Raymond Teller) who have performed together for more than three decades.

Aside from their Las Vegas home base at the Penn & Teller Theatre at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, recently I discovered one of their many other ventures with the DVD release of the complete sixth season of their award-winning and frequently Emmy nominated Showtime series, Penn & Teller: B.S.! (or Penn & Teller: Bullshit! depending on your preference).

However, they're leaving the magic back in Vegas as they offer an extremely graphic, no-holds barred and highly entertaining show which prides itself on being as politically incorrect as it can be... and then some. Needless to say, Bill Maher has nothing on these guys and Teller doesn't even say a word-- but filling the episodes with odd B.S. experiments involving using fake doctors or professionals to host faux sensitivity training workshops where men must try on bras or new age healing sessions involving a plunger definitely provides some food for shocking thought.

With a juvenile inclination towards incessant gratuitous nudity involving topless subservient women who cheerlead, feed the men nuts (hmm, ironic!) and snuggle as an extension of the Las Vegas lifestyle and a first episode dealing completely with the war on adult entertainment, it's safe to say, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the series.



However, throughout the eleven episodes, I realized that even when I disagreed with Penn's assertions or felt that some of their arguments seemed a bit fuzzy on the logic-- other than being consistently entertained by Penn's over-abundance of f-bombs and curse happy narration-- the one thing it never failed to do was garner a genuine reaction to process what I'd just seen and think about it in a new light.

Having served as lecturers at Oxford University and the Smithsonian Institute as well as appearing as Visiting Scholars at M.I.T., it's amazing to watch the precision they apply to comedy and magic work in tandem with building what they assume will be a fail-proof syllogism of if "a," then "b," then "c" with of course "c" being bullshit. Furthermore, the two hosts and their talented WGA award-winning and Emmy nominated writing staff consistently impress with a variety of topics and unusual approaches.

While a few of the episodes don't shed too much new light on topics with which we're more than familiar and are more genuinely amusing than enlightening such as one wherein the guys debunk childhood myths in "Stranger Danger"-- a majority of the episodes in this 2-disc and roughly four hours and thirty minute long set admirably fluctuate between frightening us and finding the funny all at the same time.

In the slim-packaged set, Penn & Teller weigh in on everything from people who worship dolphins so much that they want to deliver a baby in the ocean (with the absence of doctors and the presence of sharks) as well as introduce us to a wide array of wackos who live in the southwest and host extremely expensive workshops and classes to get in touch with your inner dolphin or undergo "eco-anxiety therapy" because of the tremendous guilt we all feel in our efforts to go green.



Yet more than just providing silly gags in a show that jumps way past "R" and directly into "NC-17 territory" from the start-- the two startle us by taking a moving stance in an episode on NASA in which former astronauts and those who knew firsthand of the dangers regarding the Challenger and Columbia including the reasons those missions ended in tragedy jolt viewers out of the initial giggle-instinct Penn's usual narration takes.

And-- similar to the heaping spoons full of smiley sugar we're served in Comedy Central style "fake news" programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (though this makes those shows seem downright wholesome and 60 Minutes like), Penn & Teller's B.S.! is all the better for refusing to just dish up the easy laughs in situations that essentially make you want to do the opposite.

For, in between some of the mad stunts and goofy interviewees, we're hit with some serious truths we definitely could call beyond inconvenient in the episode that one of my "green heroes" Al Gore definitely doesn't want you to see in "Being Green." And this continues on in the unlikeliest of places as well as the men's revelation about some of the UN's (ahem) less than peaceful actions overseas. Moreover, throughout the course of the multiple Emmy nominated and award-winning Showtime original series, their program has not only led to enormous controversy and serious threats but more importantly (and for the positive)-- they've helped further honor that First Amendment Award they received eight years ago by never passing up an opportunity to go for freedom of speech whether or not we want to hear it.

And it's a curious issue to use the phrase "speech" since-- while Penn is always highly vocal throughout, relishing in every opportunity to season the dialogue with as many f-bombs as he can squeeze into the episode's less than thirty minute running time-- the fascinating Teller never says a damn word. It's in this effect that on the surface, they immediately resemble a classic comedy team like Laurel and Hardy with some definite homage to the duos that came before them as Teller for example made me first recall Harpo and then Buster Keaton but they're decidedly of this particular era given their interests and all the naked women.

However, between B.S. and Dancing With the Stars, I'm still no closer to understanding quite what the two men do in their sold-out popular appearances in Vegas although I'm assuming it's a combination of topless girls, magic tricks, and Penn's twisted love of language. Yet, while I think they should leave the series' cheesy introductions back in the '60s variety show format where they belong (and ditto for the nonsensical nudity), ultimately they've turned me into a fan. Or, to honor their choice phrase-- not just a fan but as Penn joked--possibly only the fourth or fifth woman to enjoy watching their series... even if I learned that my adopted home state of Arizona provides them with enough crazy new agers to fuel an entire spin-off.