Witches of East End: Season 1 (2013) Review

xcvxcvAdapted from Melissa de la Cruz’s best-selling books Witches of East End is a brilliant TV series that combines horror, drama and romance in just the right measures to create a powerful televisual potion that will have you spell bound from the start.

Revolving around the Beauchamp’s the show follows magical matriarch Joanna (Julia Ormond), her two daughters Freya (Jenna Dewan-Tatum from American Horror Story: Asylum) and Ingrid (Rachel Boston) and Joanna’s sister Wendy (Twin Peaks Mädchen Amick) all of whom have supernatural powers.

The two young sisters however start the series unaware they are witches and live their lives in the quiet town of East End completely oblivious to their family secret with Ingrid working in the library and Freya who is engaged to a wealthy doctor tending bar.

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When Wendy receives a prophecy that Joanna and her daughters are in danger the truth must be revealed and once over the shock that they are witches they must learn to use and control the many powers they both possess whilst still keeping it under cover from all those around them.

As the two girls get used to this shocking secret while acting as if nothing has changed their mother and aunt try to uncover the identity of the evil malignant menace that is hunting them down and terrorizing their lives and try to stop it before it destroys the whole family.image002

Witches of East End may combine a lot of elements that audiences have seen before from Buffy to Bewitched however the four strong female leads make the series far more interesting than many other supernatural shows that have appeared on our screens of late.

Growing to except their powers we learn all about the intriguing and explosive past of the Beauchamp’s through Freya and Ingrid’s exploration discovering that although their mother is immortal she is cursed to see her daughters die only for them to be reborn and suffer the same fatal fate all over again.

This means that the sisters have lived a variety of past lives some of which they did good and others they were evil and the episodes expand on those giving us glimpses of the girls throughout history.

The other element to this is that although Freya is engaged to the gentle and kind doctor Dash Gardiner (Eric Winter) the appearance of his brother Killian (Daniel Di Tomasso) reveals that he and Freya are star crossed lovers doomed to be drawn together in a fatal romance across time.

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All four of the main actresses are amazing with Julia Ormond as Joanna centering the family as the strong and powerful mother figure determined not to lose her daughters this time around. She is counterpoised by Mädchen Amick playing her sexy and sassy sister Wendy more uninhibited and untamed than Joanna and with the power to transform into a cat along with 9 lives to go wild in.

In the same way Jenna Dewan-Tatum and Rachel Boston play their character very differently with Freya being a free spirit and Ingrid more reserved although they are united in the discoveries they make about what they can do and what is going on in the world around them.

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Balancing the romantic elements with a more action packed supernatural side the first series of Witches of East End moves along at a great pace building the bigger story up while developing all the characters creatively and interestingly and getting darker as it goes leading perfectly into Series 2 which has a much stronger horror tone altogether.

Witches are back in fashion big time and following on from the phenomenal American Horror Story: Coven Witches of East End is a sensational series that proves that there is much more to the magical mistresses than black cats and broomsticks.

Movie Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Trailer:

YouTube video

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Alex Humphrey

Alex studied film at the University of Kent and went on to work for Universal Pictures in their Post Room gaining an inside look at the movie industry from the very bottom. Constantly writing reviews in everything from local magazines to Hip Hop sites Alex honed his critical skills even spending a brief period as a restaurant critic. Read more

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