I watched The Love Witch last night and in the first two minutes of the movie the main character explains in voice over, “According to the experts, Men are very fragile.  They can get crushed down if you assert yourself in any way”.  At that point I knew I was going to be in for quite a ride.  Look, I was predisposed to love this movie based on visuals alone.  Tonally and visually it is a throw back to the lush and vibrant horror movies of the 1960’s that I will always hold dear to my heart.  The fact that all of that was so perfectly duplicated here would have been enough for me most likely.  I mean, a modern movie with all the charm and feel of Hammer Horror?  That would probably be enough to get a thumbs up from me.  It also turns out to be the most pitch perfect bit of satire I have seen in some time.  This is a feminist film.  From conception to execution it is darkly humorous by taking the classic tropes of the old 60’s Gothic terror and pasting them on to modern society to say some pretty cutting things about gender dynamics, male fantasy, female sexuality, and love.  I loved it. Completely loved it.  This is a wonderful movie in every way and every part of it was pitch perfect including lead actress Samantha Robinson.  She carries off a role that could have been so hard and I almost feel like it must be under appreciated by a lot of viewers because unless you have watched a lot of old Hammer movies you might not realize how much of a balancing act is going on here.  Not only does she have o play a complex character while making biting satirical points (which could be heavy handed or too cute if not deftly done), she also has to mimic some of the stilted, stylized acting of the early 60’s that frequented these old movies, especially for women who largely were attractive damsels.  It’s amazing how well she pulls that off while also being able to be smart and calculating and acting like she naive and innocent and… there’s a lot going on here and it’s kind of interesting the layers here that are not her switching tones but layering one on top of the other so we can always see them all even if they other characters cannot.  I have to say, it was a really impressive performance and this really needs to lead to more roles for her.  On top of that she is strikingly beautiful, and again I am a sucker for this time period and look, so I was inclined to like it anyway but look at her, she’s just so strikingly beautiful (and there is a lot to unpack here about the meta nature of me posting her based on a fantasy and appearance when at the core her magic was related to the same).  I even included a non Love Witch picture so you can see. The rest are from the movie because it’s great and also because look at her. Today I want to fuck Samantha Robinson.