The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/classics-of-pagan-cinema)
“As a nation, we love to cast our projections on the witches of Salem,” writes Meg Elison as she examines America’s favorite film about witches. “What we want from the real people who died by state violence, the places where they hanged, the hysteria that killed them, is fun. We want Salem to be a theme park, to amuse us and titillate us.”
“Pagan nonsense, celebrating the feast of Lughnasadh. This is the month of August. The feast of our lady’s assumption into heaven.” Meg Elison returns with a review of the 1998 Irish-American film “Dancing at Lughnasa,” which juxtaposes Catholic misery and Pagan joy.
The years between puberty and adulthood can be exciting and difficult,” wrote Silver RavenWolf in 1998. No one would have agreed with her more vociferously than Louise Miller, protagonist of 1989’s most tubular film: Dorian Walker’s Teen Witch.
“Armed only with some dude’s book of nonsense and her own determination and national pride, Eglantine Price could fly. She could conjure. She could make change.” Meg Elison is back with another Classic of Pagan Cinema: Disney’s 1971 musical “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” a story with surprising resonance for her Wiccan tradition.
Meg Elison reviews a film that she argues is tonally dissonant, incoherent, and rambling – and also perfect. It’s 1998’s “Practical Magic,” starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, in today’s Classics of Pagan Cinema!