If you just looked at the above poster and did a double take, you're not alone. It's clearly a threadbare rip-off of the poster for 1994's The Craft, one of my personal faves from that decade and easily one of my favorite witchcraft-themed horror movies ever. When I ordered this film, I hadn't seen said cover, but I needn't have bothered- 2015's The Coven is nothing whatsoever like that film, making one wonder why they went there in the first place.
I can only guess that it had something to do with duping unsuspecting viewers into thinking it would be along the same lines as that classic flick. But, if anything, that's only going to piss them off more, because it's nothing like it, which I imagine is just going to make viewers that much more upset by what they do get when they pop this one in their DVD/Blu-Ray players.
The witches of The Craft are unamused
I mean, it's one thing to rip off a classic horror movie- plenty of movies have done that, and not just in the horror genre. And Lord knows, many a horror fan has gone to see, rented, bought and/or streamed a movie knowing good and well it was likely going to be a lesser version of something they did like- we just can't seem to help ourselves. But this one is so not what I was expecting that I wanted my money back even though I didn't spend any, lol - I checked it out of the local library.
Got woods?For starters, the very title is misleading- it's not even about a coven of witches. Rather, the title refers to a ring of trees in the woods where Wiccans were rumored to have met, and where seven of them apparently disappeared in the 60's after going there with leader Uri Clef (see what they did there?), who himself also disappeared. The film is somewhat inspired by the real-life witch Robert Cochrane, whose particular strain of Wicca, Cochranianism, was the one Clef's followers practiced, reportedly in the same area as the film itself was shot in, Queen's Wood in Highgate, London.
After hearing all this, five schoolgirls decide it would be a kick to camp out in the same area on Halloween- the same night the aforementioned Wiccans went missing. Bad move. Mind you, the girls don't have any intentions of doing anything witchy- they, once again, are not the "coven" of the title, they're just ordinary girls looking to drink booze, get high on weed and goof off and try and scare each other. Needless to say, this being a horror movie, it isn't long before someone else does it for them.
Actually, I take that back- it IS a long time before anything happens in the film. Before the last thirty minutes or so, all we get is the girls goofing off and being silly. The only suspense comes from an ominous biker (!) that remains unseen throughout the entirety of the film- all we see is his bike headlight and his front wheel. I presume he's meant to be Clef's ghost stalking the girls, and anyone else who has the misfortune to be in the woods that night, but it's never really spelled out as such, so who knows?
Sorry, there was only room for four girls on the poster- all the better to rip off The Craft!
What is spelled out is that Uri Clef, in case you didn't figure it out, is (spoiler, I guess) an anagram for Lucifer, and the girls concerned- and one unlucky boy who wanders into their midst- all have names that correspond to each of the letters in his name: Louie (Billy Red Mackie), Ulrika (Fiona Maeve O'Brien)- not a real name, lol- Cara (Cloe Mackie, The St. Trinian's films), Izzy (Madeleine Rose Witney), Fran (Maya Charlery), Eve (Rachel Summers, Calloused Hands) and Ruby (Holly Mackie, also of the St. Trinian's films, and Cloe and Billy's real-life sister).
There's also Eddy (Kazim Benson), who checks out early on when he climbs up a tree, is scared by a bat (!) and spends most of the film passed out. Lucky him. Anyway, because of this, he evades most of the "action" of the film, such as it is, as his friend Louie subsequently goes to get help and promptly gets lost, then caught up in the same drama as the girls.
Likewise, Eve isn't even part of the girls' group of friends, and only shows up when one of the girls sends her an ominous text that reads: "Help us!" Given that she wasn't even invited to the shindig in the first place, and was bullied by the girls earlier in the film- to say nothing of well-informed about what sort of nefarious stuff had gone on in said woods, thanks to her research- she should have just stayed home and left them to their own devices, but oh well- gotta get that "E" taken care of, I guess. Also, she defaced library property- a big no-no in my book- so she kind of deserved it.
Also cropping up is Dexter Fletcher, of Gothic, Jude, Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels, Band of Brothers, The Virgin Queen, Layer Cake, Doom, Kick-Ass and Terminal. If his name sounds familiar for other reasons, that's because he's also a director, best-known for Eddie the Eagle and the critically-acclaimed Elton John biopic Rocketman. He's also the director that stepped in and finished Bohemian Rhapsody when original director Bryan Singer was fired for being outed as a perv.
Fletcher plays teacher Mr. Sheers, who is the one that begins educating the class on Wicca before the mysterious babe Mrs. Belial (Magda Rodriguez, The Witches' Hammer- another mistitled film- it's actually about vampires!) steps in to tell him the Headmaster wishes to speak to him immediately. One problem- the Headmaster isn't even in his office at the time, and Sheers later discovers Belial- note the name- doesn't even work there.
She's there instead to plant the seed of camping in the woods to the girls by telling the aforementioned tale of Uri Clef. As we see later on, it turns out that Belial is Clef's former- perhaps current- apprentice and her job is to lure people to the titular coven, so that the biker can stalk them and, one presumes, sacrifice them to Satan. I say presumably because we never see what happens to any of the seven people I mentioned. Hell, we only see one of them physically grabbed by anyone- the rest simply disappear into thin air and drop out of the film altogether, never to be seen again.
So, yeah, those looking for anything resembling gore are out of luck, save one admittedly effective nightmare sequence involving the girls holding one of their own down and jamming a metal prong into one of her eyes. It's more implied than really shown, but it is nonetheless cringe-worthy. Alas, that's about it for anything remotely resembling violence in the film.
Not that, mind you, a horror film need have extreme violence to be effective, but this one barely even has any suspense. Basically, there's just several scenes of the motorcyclist chasing down several of the characters in the woods, and a few Blair Woods Project-esque bits of the girls being freaked out in the woods alone, but that's about it. Honestly, I was just bored senseless most of the time. And, no there's no nudity, either, in case you were wondering, so no cheap thrills to be had, either.
I did enjoy the historical bits, and I'll allow the creepy nursery rhyme was suitably spooky, especially as delivered by kids in unison, and that one nightmare sequence was good, but yeah, most of this is a snooze. And, as you probably gathered by now, the main girls are not at all witches, don't aspire to be witches and the closest they come to doing anything ritualistic is playing a dice-like game where the die have letters instead of numbers, which naturally spell out Lucifer over and over. (Technically, "Ucife," with the "L" and "R" filled in by a magazine cover- so, even that is pretty half-assed.)
Given that the film was filmed in a location frequented by actual witches over the years, there was a creepy film to be made here, as the location is suitably spooky. Maybe they didn't want to press their luck, or maybe they didn't have the courage of their convictions, but I'm afraid this isn't that film. It certainly isn't helped by the mostly terrible cast, either, save Fletcher and Rodriguez- but they only have bit parts, as the main focus of the film is obviously the girls.
Sorry, I didn't get me knickers off- my dad's the director and me mum wrote the script and their last name isn't Argento.
You might have noticed that three of said cast members share the same last name: Mackie. That's no coincidence- the director is John Mackie and the writer is Jayney Mackie. Guess who their kids are? For good measure, there's another Mackie, Rory, working in the Camera and Electrical Department. Nepotism is alive and well, and not just in Washington DC, folks. I wouldn't mind it so much if it were a good movie, but yeah- it isn't.
To be fair, some of the cinematography is pretty solid, with Franz Pagot doing the honors there. Pagot worked on the classic Full Metal Jacket, Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and the Bond flick Tomorrow Never Knows, but has mostly gone the independent film route since turning professional cinematographer. Nothing wrong with that, certainly, but I'd be lying if I said I'd heard of any of his subsequent films since that time, circa the early 2000's, though Shark Rampage sounds like something I'd watch on the Syfy channel, lol.
So, yeah, sorry to say, nothing much to see here. This is no The Craft, much less any given witch-themed movie you could name. Hell, it's not even Halloweentown-level good, lol. In fact, I'd rather watch that entire series than this film again, if I'm being honest. It's just plain bad, and shame on the marketing team for so blatantly misleading people. I know it's their job to get people to watch something, but there's enticing, and there's just lying, and the cover here is a flat-out lie. Clearly, the marketers chose to go the "trick" instead of "treat" route.
In America, there's a hidden cache of E.T. video-game cartridges buried in the desert- but in the UK, they buried all the unsold copies of The Coven on DVD in the woods.
Sorry to say, you should avoid this one at all costs. Hell, even the Halloween factor is minor, with only a lone jack-o-lantern and a very brief visit to a Halloween party the only real holiday elements at play here, and that only comprises minutes of the film at best. Otherwise, we only know it's Halloween because it's mentioned a few times. So, if you're looking for a Halloween film you haven't seen, keep looking, as it's barely a factor here. 😠
In short, don't say you weren't warned- this is one woods that you don't want to spend the night in. Much less your Halloween. Skip it. 😝
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