Love Magic: Fauxmance, Obsession and Death
By Becky Darke
“You have no idea what I’m going through.
I know it’s not love. It’s obsession. Selfish, banal obsession. ”
Love. One of the purest and most positive emotions, right? Not once unnatural magical forces get involved. The love spell in film and TV is more often a curse, with disastrous obsession that leaves both the caster and the subject despairing - or worse. Rather than romantic gestures and sweet nothings, love spells can lead to fury, sexual assault, suicide and murder.
As Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) warns us in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, the season 2 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), “Do you have any idea how serious this is? People under a love spell ... are deadly. They lose all capacity for reason.”
Warnings abound, with concerns and objections centring on the importance of free will. The Wicca Bible: The Definitive Guide To Magic And The Craft (Ann-Marie Gallagher, 2005) states, “Acts of love are performed in mutuality, with permission, and not to harm, control or disempower.”
I spoke to Arietta Bryant, Wiccan High Priestess and co-founder of the Moon River Wicca Tradition, who explained, “Because we put so much belief into the power of our own ‘will’, most Wiccans would likely avoid anything which affected the free will of another person. For most Wiccans, a ‘love spell’ would be more likely to be something which you cast upon yourself, to open yourself up to seeing a possible match or even just to put the thought out into the universe that you are ready to find love. Casting a spell in this way avoids the ethical issue of tampering with another person directly.”
However in film and on TV warnings go unheeded, and the love spell has become a recurring motif in the portraying of the dangers of witchcraft.
The spell itself often involves an invocation and a personal item or image of the subject. In Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Amy (Elizabeth Ann Allen) uses a photograph of Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) and her necklace - which, after being gifted by Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and then returned as a glaring signifier of his rejection, perhaps holds some extra potency. In Anna Biller’s retro pastiche The Love Witch (2016), Elaine (Samantha Robinson) must drop something of Richard’s (Robert Seeley) into the cauldron while invoking the spell to bring him to her. While millennial cult classic The Craft’s (1996) teen witch Sarah uses a photograph of problematic heart-throb Chris (Skeet Ulrich) to focus her power - and that of her coven - with the manifestation, “I drink of my sisters and I ask to love myself more, and allow myself to be loved more by others, especially Chris Hooker. I know... it’s pathetic.” Even at this point, Sarah knows the object of her desire may be less than desirable.
Here we come to the vital conditions of motive and energy. Arietta told me, “Intention is half the battle when it comes to spell casting; all the fancy tools, potions and poetry in the world won’t help you if you don’t have a clear intention.”
Amy tells Xander, “The intent has to be pure with love spells,” And he responds with signature glibness, “Right, I intend revenge, pure as the driven snow.” With that attitude, is it surprising the spell goes awry? Instead of harnessing Cordelia’s affections, Sunnydale’s entire female population becomes infected with an insatiable desire.
Sarah’s spell for Chris also stems from heartache and rejection in The Craft, but we assume she genuinely wants a healthy romantic bond. However, I’d argue Sarah’s intrinsic knowledge that he’s bad news throws things off, setting them down the path to tragedy..
Some witches have an inherent power over whoever’s in their sights. In classic rom-com Bell, Book and Candle (1958), Gillian Holroyd (Kim Novak) mesmerises Jimmy Stewart’s Shep Henderson, with some help from her familiar Pyewacket and some intense humming/purring respectively. Elaine in The Love Witch also has the ability to enthral men with apparently just a look and the pointed use of their name. In terms of intent, Gillian casts her spell out of boredom and spite for Shep’s fiancee, while Elaine admits, “You might say I’m addicted to love”. The witches’ selfish motives result in a loss of their own freedom: in Elaine’s case literally and in Gill’s case as she renounces witchcraft and loses her powers.
Elaine might be deadly, but murder isn’t only on the minds of the spellcasters. In Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) - already somewhat in love with Xander - brandishes an axe, crying, “You don’t know how hard this is for me. I’d rather see you dead than with that bitch.” Later, Joyce Summers (Christine Sutherland) tries the suicide pact approach to coupling, waving a kitchen knife and proclaiming, “It’s never going to work for us Xander; we have to end it!”
Suicide also features in The Love Witch when unfaithful husband Richard has become too “obsessive and morose” for Elaine, and she throws him aside. Heartbroken, he takes his own life. While another of her paramours, Wayne (Jeffrey Vincent Parise), doesn’t seem suicidal, he does literally appear to die from an overabundance of love; after declaring that he’s scared to be feeling things so strongly and that he can’t take it, Elaine finds him dead. The Craft’s Chris also perishes as a result of the love spell he’s under; Nancy (Fairuza Balk) uses his blind obsession with Sarah as fuel for a glamour, and her final attack sees him fall to his death, tumbling backwards out the window to land on concrete with a sickening thud.
The wickedly funny feminist parable The Witches of Eastwick (1987) sees Sukie (Michelle Pfeiffer), Alex (Cher) and Jane (Susan Sarandon) use both mesmerisation and more traditional spellcasting, initially manifesting their ideal man over martinis with an accidental love spell so potent they literally summon the Devil, and later ridding themselves of Daryl with a wax doll enriched with the ash from a burned photograph, his hair and a splash of his favourite liquor. Their intentions for a “tall dark prince” to save them from mundanity may be less malicious than some, but the consequences are no less destructive. Even the Devil isn’t immune to the chaotic obsession of a love spell, and after the coven reject him Daryl becomes bereft and beastly, turning his spite back upon the witches to punish their independence.
Intent colours the consequences, and intent is usually less than altruistic. It dips Cupid’s arrow in poison, and as it shoots through the four key stages of love spells gone wrong: confusion, obsession, anger and violence.
A subject’s confusion illustrates unnaturalness, so we hear uncertainty from the spell’s targets: “I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t know why, but I think I love you” (Chris in The Craft) and “I know it doesn’t make sense but I have an idea I must be in love with you” (Shep in Bell, Book and Candle).
Obsession is unbearably intense, again exemplifying the difference with natural love. It’s often expressed through the inability to maintain normality: “I’ve got it bad. I’ve let everything slide; piles of manuscripts, I can’t stay in my office for wanting to get to you” (Shep) and, “Please, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can't eat, I can't sleep” (Chris). It’s such a trope that Xander uses it to define his requirements, demanding from Amy: “a little can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t breathe anything but little old moi.”
Anger often shows itself when the subject learns of the love spell. Buffy - furious and threatening - exclaims, “So you’re saying this is all a game? You make me feel this way and then you reject me?” Bell, Book and Candle’s warlock Nicky understands this, “You know what it says on love potions: shake well but don’t tell.”
Finally all that confusion, obsession and anger turns to violence. Willow and her axe. Chris’ attempted rape of Sarah. Richard’s suicide. Daryl’s attacks, especially with the excruciating pain to which he subjects Suki.
The consequences for the subject of a love spell aside, what becomes of the witch? Gillian loses her powers but she ultimately makes her own decision to take her life in a particular direction. Amy has a brief infection with Xander affection, practices her transmogrification skills and moves on. Alex, Jane and Suki discover the power inherent in their collective and three cheeky little devils bring renewed meaning to their lives. Sarah loses friends and gains some guilt but the end of the film is far more hopeful for her than it is for Nancy. Elaine’s fate is unclear, but the suggestion is that whatever happens is more down to her murderous traits than her magical ones.
Arietta says, “I have seen first-hand the results of people ‘playing’ with magic. You open yourself up to the energies of the universe and if you’re not respectful and clear in your intentions then it can leave you vulnerable. I think when films and TV show love spells going wrong then it probably stems from a general belief that witchcraft is bad and however much we might like to watch magick, those writing are often coming from an angle of wanting to show how dangerous it is. Often it’s the Witch who cast the spell that ultimately realises the love they have created is not ‘real’ and this is shown in the obsessive, unhealthy behaviours of the spell’s subject.”
As Rochelle (Rachel True) says to Sarah in The Craft, “You made Chris love you. You own him.” But we shouldn’t own people, and if we ever learn anything from the screen (apart from don’t play with ouija boards!) perhaps it’s don’t mess with love.
Becky Darke a London-based podcaster and writer, with her sights on film, horror and 90s pop-culture. She co-hosts the podcasts Don’t Point That Horror At Me and Return to Eerie, Indiana and is a regular contributor to The Evolution of Horror and The Final Girls.
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