Eight Movies About New England Witches You Should Watch

Although the Puritan era witch trials ended centuries ago, the fear of and fascination with witches still lingers in New England. Witchcraft doesn't die. It just bides its time and waits. 

Here is a short list of films, primarily horror movies, that deal with New England witches of several varieties. Watch them for entertainment or as cautionary tales. You'll never know what you might see out in the woods or what that mysterious neighbor is really up to. And don't forget: a witch hunt is always scarier than a witch.


Horror Hotel (aka City of the Dead) (1960)
College student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) has an interest in the history of New England witchcraft. At the urging of her advisor (Christopher Lee) she decides to visit Whitewood, Massachusetts, where  a witch named Elizabeth Selwyn was burned at the stake in 1692. Whitewood is a perpetually foggy and slightly surreal village filled with eccentric inhabitants but Nan settles in at the Raven's Inn to pursue her research. She soon discovers evidence that that Elizabeth Selwyn may not be dead. What else do you expect when your adviser is Christopher Lee?

I feel compelled to point out that witches in New England were executed by hanging, not by burning. That's just a minor quibble about an overall great horror movie, though. Horror Hotel starts out pretty mild but becomes surprisingly scary and has a shocking plot twist about halfway through. The black and white cinematography is atmospheric and creepy. Don't watch this one alone at night.

Dunwich Horror (1970)
I think I was ten or eleven years old when I first read H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Dunwich Horror." I was so scared I had to stop reading halfway through (although I finished it the next day). This 1970 film version isn't particularly scary but is still a lot of fun. Once again we have a college student getting into trouble, but this time it's all-American sweetheart Sandra Dee as Nancy Wagner, a student at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. After a lecture by her professor Nancy is returning a copy of The Necronomicon to the library when she's approached by Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell), a dreamy young occultist from rural Dunwich who just wants a peak inside the forbidden book. Her professor interrupts but Nancy ends up giving Wilbur a ride home. Faster than you can say "Yog-Sothoth!" she's drugged, hypnotized, and the focus of a demonic sex ritual...

This is definitely a product of it's time, with a psychedelic monster in the attic and hallucinations involving sinister pagan hippies. Nancy's ritualistic rape still feels shocking, though, particularly in this #MeToo moment and is the one serious note in what is otherwise campy Lovecraftian fun.

Crowhaven Farm (1970)
Maggie (Hope Lange) inherits an old farm in Essex County, Massachusetts after a relative dies in a bizarre accident. She and her husband Ben (Paul Burke) decide to leave New York City and relocate to the farm, hoping it will rekindle their failing marriage. After she learns a coven of witches was executed there in the 1600s, Maggie begins having visions of angry Puritans and to feel a strange sense of deja vu. Things get really weird when Maggie and Ben take in an orphaned adolescent girl who becomes sexually fixated on Ben. Will Maggie learn the  secret of Crowhaven Farm in time to save her marriage - and her life?

Crowhaven Farm was made for television and is fondly remembered by people who saw it when they were kids. I've only seen it as an adult. I thought it was kind of funny that the producers tried to pass off mountainous Southern California as Massachusetts and that the characters talk about Lowell like it's a huge metropolis. On the other hand, the orphaned girl is creepy in a few different ways and the movie does have a nice shocking ending.

The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978)
Another made for TV production, this two-part miniseries was based on Tom Tryon's bestselling 1973 novel Harvest Home. As in Crowhaven Farm, a couple leaves the big city for the country hoping to find a peaceful life. But the Connecticut village of Cornwall Coombe is more than your average rural farm community. It's also home to a pagan fertility cult ruled over by the Widow Fortune (Bette Davis), and she takes her religious duties very seriously. Every seven years the villagers choose a new man to preside as Corn King over the Harvest Home celebration. But why won't anyone tell the newcomers what happens at the festival?

I was debating if I should include this one on the list. On one hand, the villagers of Cornwall Coombe aren't Satan-worshipping spellcasters like some of the witches on this list. On the other hand, Tom Tryon was obviously inspired by the writings of anthropologist James Frazer and poet Robert Graves, two writers whose work also inspired the modern witch-cult of Wicca. And the Widow Fortune's interest in herbalism would resonate with a lot of Instagram witches today. Think of this one as the American version of The Wicker Man.

Hocus Pocus (1993)
Once again Puritan-era witches return from the dead, but this time they're played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy. Oh, and the movie's a comedy from Disney! But despite the comedic overtones the plot is still rather dark. Three executed witches who are accidentally resurrected by a teenage boy trying to impress his crush devise a plan to suck the souls out of all the children in Salem on Halloween to gain eternal life. Not the lightest of comedies!

 

This was a modest hit when it was released in theaters but gained a huge following in subsequent when it aired on cable and as a VHS and DVD rental. Hocus Pocus still brings in millions of viewers when it airs on cable, particularly around Halloween. I guess those witches do have some magic after all! One bonus attraction for New Englanders: many of the outdoor scenes were shot in Salem and Marblehead, giving the movie some authentic Massachusetts flavor.

The Crucible (1996)
All the movies I've mentioned so far have been horror movies, but The Crucible isn't. Based on Arthur Miller's classic 1953 play, this drama points out what the other movies don't: there weren't really any witches in Salem, just innocent people persecuted because of ignorance and hatred. Although The Crucible isn't 100% historically accurate it drives home its point with strong performances from Daniel Day-Lewis as John Proctor and Winona Ryder as his accuser Abigail Williams.

Although The Crucible was praised by critics and nominated for multiple awards it didn't take in much money at the box office. I guess viewers would rather be scared by fictional witches than be reminded about the dark side of this country's past.

The Lords of Salem (2012)
When Salem radio DJ Heidi Hawthorne (Sheri Moon Zombie) plays a record from an unknown band called the Lords of Salem she has an eerie vision of witches worshiping Satan. Her co-workers at the radio station brush it off as just a hallucination, but Heidi's not so sure, particularly when other strange things start to occur. Heidi's downstairs neighbors give her an ominous Tarot reading. A local historian interrogates Heidi about the Lords of Salem's music, which is oddly familiar to him. And most importantly, a hideous naked witch keeps materializing in Heidi's apartment...

 

The Lords of Salem was directed by horror-rocker Rob Zombie and I think it's probably the best movie he's made. It's beautiful to watch, with innovative costumes, sets and special effects. Although it is another variation on the "dead witches won't stay dead" theme it filled me with an impending sense of dread, making it one of the more effective movies on this list. Rob Zombie is also from my hometown of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and he ably captures the New England gloom with scenes shot on location in Salem.

The Witch (2015)
Another film made a New England native, Robert Eggers's The Witch made a big arthouse splash when it opened and also made a goat named Black Phillip a pop culture phenomenon. Much like Crowhaven Farm and The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, it too focuses on a family whose plans to leave their old home and start anew are thwarted by witches, but this time the family in question is kicked out of a 17th century Puritan settlement and moves deep into the New England wilderness. Eggers worked hard to make the film feel like a window into the past, going so far as to incorporate snippets from 17th century documents into the script as dialogue. I think audiences expecting a traditional horror film were puzzled but The Witch is now considered a classic in the folk horror genre. 

Well, that wraps up my list. If you have any other suggestions please leave them in the comments. I'm always looking for good movies about witches.

How Did Tituba Become Black?

Tituba is one of the key figures in the Salem witch trials. A slave owned by Reverend Parris of Salem Village, she was one of the first people accused of being a witch. She was also one of the first people to accuse others of witchcraft while she was on the stand.

I think it's well-known these days that ethnically Tituba was an Arawak Indian. Reverend Parris and his family had lived as plantation owners for many years in the Caribbean, the Arawak homeland. It seems likely the Parrises purchased Tituba and her husband John as slaves while living in Barbados.

Although historians know that Tituba was an Indian, pop culture tends to portray her as being of African descent. (For example, on the TV show Salem Tituba is played by a black actress and speaks with a Caribbean accent.) For many years I also thought she was black, based on what I had learned when I was a kid.

Ashley Madekwe as Tituba on Salem.

So how did Tituba become black in the popular American imagination? Historian Ben Ray's 2015 book Satan and Salem gives some clues.

Ray claims that it started with famous New England poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1868 Longfellow published a work called the New England Tragedies, which included the play Giles Corey of the Salem Farms. Tituba is one of the main characters.

As the play opens, Tituba is in the woods outside Salem. As she gathers herbs to work evil magic she says:

I know them (herbs), and the places where they hide
In field and meadow; and I know their secrets,
And gather them because they give me power
Over all men and women. Armed with these,
I, Tituba, an Indian and a slave,
Am stronger than the captain with his sword,
Am richer than the merchant with his money,
Am wiser than the scholar with his books,
Mightier than Ministers and Magistrates...

So it's pretty clear that Tituba is an Indian in this play, correct? Well, things get a little murkier in a later scene where Tituba asks Mary Walcott to look into a mirror as part of a magic spell:

TITUBA.
Look into this glass.
What see you?

MARY.
Nothing but a golden vapor.
Yes, something more. An island, with the sea
Breaking all round it, like a blooming hedge.
What land is this?

TITUBA.
It is San Salvador,
Where Tituba was born. What see you now?

MARY.
A man all black and fierce.

TITUBA.
That is my father.
He was an Obi man, and taught me magic,
Taught me the use of herbs and images...

An illustration of Tituba (dressed like an Indian) and Mary Walcott from Longfellow's play.

In Longellow's play Tituba's father is not only black, he taught her Obi (or Obeah), which is a system of African-derived magical and religious practices similar to Voudoun/Voodoo. There's no evidence that any of this is true. As far as historians know, Tituba's father was not of African descent and she didn't know Obeah or Voodoo. The only magical act she undertook - making a witch cake out of rye and urine - was done at the behest of Mary Sibley, an Englishwoman who lived near the Parrises. A witch cake is a form of English magic, not Voodoo.

Lonfellow was a popular writer, and Ray claims his play planted the idea that Tituba was at least partly black in the American imagination.

Although Ray doesn't discuss her, historian Marion Starkey probably helped perpetuate the image of Tituba as half-black and half-Arawak. Starkey describes her as "the ageless Tituba, said to be half Carib and half negro" in her popular 1949 book The Devil in Massachusetts. The text on the back cover of my copy describes it as "an authentic historical narrative," but Starkey's description of Tituba just isn't correct. Maybe she got it from Longfellow's play?

Starkey also incorrectly claimed Tituba taught the Salem girls Voodoo:

But there were presently occasions when, in the absence of the elder Parrises, Tituba yielded to the temptation to show the children tricks and spells, fragments of something like the voodoo remembered from the Barbados.

Starkey's books is still popular today.

Tituba teaching the children magic - something that never happened.

Ray claims that another playwright, the 20th century's Arthur Miller, completed Tituba's transformation from Arawk to black. Like Giles Corey, Miller's 1953 play The Crucible features Tituba as a main character. The stage directions describe her this way:

The door opens, and his Negro slave enters. Tituba is in her forties. Parris brought her with him from Barbados, where he spent some years as a merchant before entering the ministry. 

Tituba is not even half-Indian in Miller's play, but is entirely of African descent. That's a big difference between the two plays, but similar to Longfellow Miller also perpetuates the myth that Tituba knew some type of Caribbean magic. In The Crucible, she holds magic rituals in the woods with some of the Salem girls:

I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I came on you. Why was she doing that? And I heard a screeching and gibberish coming from her mouth...

The Crucible is one of the classics of American theater. It's still performed frequently even today and is assigned to high school students all across the country as required reading.

Longellow and Miller weren't historians - they wrote plays and poetry based on history. Writers certainly are allowed artistic license with historic characters, but the challenge is that The Crucible is the main way many Americans learn about Salem.

It's a little strange that so many people think the Salem witch trials were started by a black Voodoo priestess, when that really wasn't the case at all. Our understanding of American slavery might be one of the reasons this myth keeps lingering. When Americans think of slaves in North America, they tend to picture people of African descent. It's obviously true that most slaves were black, but a very tiny percentage of them (like Tituba) weren't.

I also suspect, but have no way of proving, that maybe a little lingering racism and sexism help this myth persist. We now know that the Salem witch craze wasn't caused by a black woman, but for some reason a lot of us still think it was.