Gian Keys and Samantha Robinson in The Love Witch.
Near the beginning of Anna Biller's The Love Witch, a psychodrama dripping with camp and nostalgia, Samantha Robinson's title character announces, with a mix of innocence and malice, that there's nothing wrong with being a witch: "All it means is using your will to get whatever you want." What The Love Witch wants is to be an unabashed love letter to a cinematic time long gone – an era in which Technicolor melodramas mixed with Russ Meyer sexploitation flicks. The Love Witch handily achieves its goals, employing Biller's strong sense of retro style and Robinson's wink-wink performance to deliver a subversive homage to a host of out-of-fashion genres. The thin plot revolves around the misadventures of the enchanting Elaine, who goes on a tear through a new town, coaxing men into bed before bumping them off. But the narrative is just an excuse for Biller to riff on the power of femmes fatales. This is not a potion fit for everyone, but for a select few, The Love Witch offers powerful magic. – Barry Hertz
Barry Hertz