20 best film witches of all time
Asa Vajda (Black Sunday)
If you’d like your horror genres a bit mixed up, then you may want to investigated the 1960 horror film, Black Sunday. It ostensibly follows a resurrected witch, but also brings in elements of vampirism and legends of the undead. The movie could also easily be part of someone’s undergraduate thesis about the horror genre’s fixation on female beauty and the virgin/whore dichotomy. But perhaps that particular screed is best saved for another day.
Anyway, Black Sunday opens in the year 1630 in Moldavia, where the witch Asa Vajda and her lover Javuto are about to be burned at the stake. Making matters worse is the fact that Asa’s judge is her own brother. Shortly before her gruesome death, Asa promises that she will enact her revenge. She places a curse on her brother’s descendants and then finally succumbs.
Two centuries later, two doctors are traveling through the same region to a medical conference when their carriage wheel breaks. While their servant works to fix the wheel, the two doctors wander off and discover Asa’s tomb in a nearby crypt.
One of the doctors, Dr. Kruvajan, freaks out upon seeing a bat in the space and begins flailing about. In the process, Kruvajan manages to break a crucifix above Asa’s resting place and a glass panel just above her face. He takes this as an opportunity to remove Asa’s death mask, cut himself on the broken glass, and bleed all over her face. Good job, Kruvajan.
The doctors wander off again and come across a local girl, Katia Vajda. She is, to no audience member’s surprise, a descendant of Asa’s brother. Thereupon follows an obligatory love plot, which is thankfully enlivened by the risen Asa.
The resurrected witch proceeds to wreak havoc, in the best horror film tradition. She also plans to drain Katia of her blood and life force in order to gain immortality. Asa is defeated, naturally enough, but not before making her mark.