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That Very Witch: Exploring American Feminisms Past Present and Future Through the Witch Archetype in Horror Cinema, with Film Critic Payton McCarty-Simas, Begins January 5
Six Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Mondays, January 5 - February 9, 2026
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$200 Paid Patreon Members / $225 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
No archetype in horror is more intimately connected to feminism than that of the witch. As Barbara Creed points out, this figure is the only predominantly female classic horror monster— and there’s good reason for that.
In this class, author, film critic, and programmer Payton McCarty-Simas will draw on research from their book That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film to guide students through the history of American politics, using the figure of the witch as a guide, bellwether, and harbinger of things to come. Beginning with the witch as a historical figure, each session will explore a different era’s often fraught and contradictory feminist (and anti-feminist) politics through the sociological lens of horror cinema—an art form often described as culture’s “collective nightmares.” Students will watch clips, read contemporaneous articles (from Playboy to The Sociological Quarterly and beyond), and energetically consider cinema—the most populist of art forms—as a living, fluid political object.
From the wildly ambivalent birth of Second Wave feminism in the late 1950s, through the acid-soaked counterculture that sprang up alongside it, to the paranoid retrenchments of the Reagan era and its Satanic Panic, and onward to the wrathful Third Wave feminism that both responded to and birthed its own witch cycle, each class will serve as a participatory space for discussion, speculation, and artistic exploration. Structured around lectures, group conversations, and film case studies, each week will feature one assigned film and a set of readings to spark student imaginations before new examples are brought into class.
Drawing on years of experience as a film critic, Payton will help students hone their ability to read films as cultural texts—works with themes and political resonances that reach beyond their surface narratives. Time each week will be set aside for written or artistic responses of all kinds, encouraging students to move beyond film criticism and experiment with drawing, fiction, poetry, collage, and other creative forms. This class is designed as a space for exploration, analysis, and play with cinema. By the end, students will have a deeper understanding of the relationship between pop cultural trends and the broader political landscape, and a sharper ability to recognize those shifts in realms beyond the witch film.
Payton McCarty-Simas is an author, programmer, film critic, and video artist with a focus on horror and genre film. Their writing has been featured in Little White Lies, Film Daze, and The Brooklyn Rail among others, as well as spotlighted in The New York Times, CNN, and RogerEbert.com. Her short films and screenplays have been featured in several film festivals as well as shown at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She is also the author of two books of nonfiction and film criticism, One Step Short of Crazy: National Treasure and the Landscape of American Conspiracy Culture (2024) and That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film (2025). Payton holds a Masters in Film and Media Studies from Columbia University and is a member of the Online Association of Female Film Critics and GALECA.
The Love Witch. Directed by Anna Biller. Oscilloscope Laboratories, 2016. Bell, Book and Candle. Directed by Richard Quine. Columbia Pictures, 1958. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. Directed by James Signorelli. New World Pictures, 1988.
Six Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Mondays, January 5 - February 9, 2026
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$200 Paid Patreon Members / $225 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
No archetype in horror is more intimately connected to feminism than that of the witch. As Barbara Creed points out, this figure is the only predominantly female classic horror monster— and there’s good reason for that.
In this class, author, film critic, and programmer Payton McCarty-Simas will draw on research from their book That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film to guide students through the history of American politics, using the figure of the witch as a guide, bellwether, and harbinger of things to come. Beginning with the witch as a historical figure, each session will explore a different era’s often fraught and contradictory feminist (and anti-feminist) politics through the sociological lens of horror cinema—an art form often described as culture’s “collective nightmares.” Students will watch clips, read contemporaneous articles (from Playboy to The Sociological Quarterly and beyond), and energetically consider cinema—the most populist of art forms—as a living, fluid political object.
From the wildly ambivalent birth of Second Wave feminism in the late 1950s, through the acid-soaked counterculture that sprang up alongside it, to the paranoid retrenchments of the Reagan era and its Satanic Panic, and onward to the wrathful Third Wave feminism that both responded to and birthed its own witch cycle, each class will serve as a participatory space for discussion, speculation, and artistic exploration. Structured around lectures, group conversations, and film case studies, each week will feature one assigned film and a set of readings to spark student imaginations before new examples are brought into class.
Drawing on years of experience as a film critic, Payton will help students hone their ability to read films as cultural texts—works with themes and political resonances that reach beyond their surface narratives. Time each week will be set aside for written or artistic responses of all kinds, encouraging students to move beyond film criticism and experiment with drawing, fiction, poetry, collage, and other creative forms. This class is designed as a space for exploration, analysis, and play with cinema. By the end, students will have a deeper understanding of the relationship between pop cultural trends and the broader political landscape, and a sharper ability to recognize those shifts in realms beyond the witch film.
Payton McCarty-Simas is an author, programmer, film critic, and video artist with a focus on horror and genre film. Their writing has been featured in Little White Lies, Film Daze, and The Brooklyn Rail among others, as well as spotlighted in The New York Times, CNN, and RogerEbert.com. Her short films and screenplays have been featured in several film festivals as well as shown at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She is also the author of two books of nonfiction and film criticism, One Step Short of Crazy: National Treasure and the Landscape of American Conspiracy Culture (2024) and That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film (2025). Payton holds a Masters in Film and Media Studies from Columbia University and is a member of the Online Association of Female Film Critics and GALECA.
The Love Witch. Directed by Anna Biller. Oscilloscope Laboratories, 2016. Bell, Book and Candle. Directed by Richard Quine. Columbia Pictures, 1958. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. Directed by James Signorelli. New World Pictures, 1988.