7. Practical Magic
Anyone reading this list might question why Practical Magic is on it. Practical Magic is definitely more heart-warming than spooky, surely? Why yes, my friend, but it encompasses a very particular strand of witchcraft depiction. Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock are sister witches, who suffer from a curse that means the men they love die early. Practical Magic feeds off the 1990s trend of witches trying to have a normal life outside of being a witch. You know, witch-dating, witch-child-rearing, witch-PTA-meeting-attending. Practical Magic is essentially Charmed in Hollywood form, and its spookiness is largely derived from the disparity between their desire for the mundane vs. the inevitable occult happenings that trail them. Practical Magic, for all of its undead magic (and a possessed Nicole Kidman writhing around on the floor, not unlike her seduction scene in Moulin Rouge), manages to render the more spooky traits of witchcraft and curses a domestic inconvenience to be solved by a PTA phone tree. It's quite profound in the fact that the scariest things that happen are based in the real world - the majority of the perils in this film come from a non-magical threat. That's not to say it's not enjoyable, though. The '90s depiction of occultism is sweetly idealistic, and Practical Magic manages to have some sugar-coated spook in what is a genuinely feel-good film that happens to be about witches.