Cover reveal time for That Very Witch!
- Francesca T Barbini
- Apr 29
- 4 min read
It is with great pleasure that we are revealing the cover of Payton McCarty-Simas research, That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film. Out 22 July 2025! Thank you to Rue Morgue for hosting our cover review!
The cover art is by New York artist Stephanie Monohan.
Stephanie on the cover:
"As a self-identified cinephile and goth, I was so excited to design and illustrate the cover for Payton's book on witches in film! The very collaborative process began with Payton and I swapping visual inspiration that would help in conjuring a fun and feminine scene of occult psychedelia — from vintage movie posters and photography, to pulp book covers, and even anime (Belladonna of Sadness was a big inspiration on the color palette and watery texture of the cover). From there it was a ton of sketching, blending elements together, and figuring out how to represent the diverse imagery of witches over the past half-century. The end result is a coven that (hopefully!) is cool enough to seduce you into the pages of the book." Stephanie
About the book:
That Very Witch explores the cyclical rise and fall of the cinematic witch in American culture and her relationship to feminist movements over time. Through historical analysis and dozens of case studies, Payton McCarty-Simas demonstrates how the cinematic witch's evolution across decades reflects major shifts in how feminism is perceived politically and interpreted (counter-) culturally in America. From Mia Farrow to the Moral Majority, from the Satanic Panic to Riot Grrrl, from #MeToo to the 2024 election, the witch can be found at the heart of the zeitgeist. What can we learn from her presence?
Payton on the book:
"Growing up in the 2000s, horror movies were something almost unspeakably trashy to be watched on a dare at birthday parties or when there was nothing else playing at the Cinemark. The horror films of the 2010s, when I was in college, changed that perception significantly, opening up the genre to critical attention with “elevated horror” films like Get Out and Hereditary. Because of that, now there’s been a critical reappraisal of the horror I grew up on that understands its aesthetics as an interesting response to the politics of its time. This shift in the genre’s reputation got me interested not just in horror itself (I’ve always been a horror buff), but on a more meta, historiographic level, the way we process our political landscape through horror and how we frame our fears to ourselves. I wrote a thesis in 2021 that explored the sudden eruption of horror movies about witches over the last decade, relating this figure in the 2010s to feminist movements and other (counter)cultural trends across time (psychedelic drug use being a fun prime example), but there was still so much to talk about! Half a decade later, here I am, with That Very Witch!
There was one defining image that drew me to this subject initially, appearing over and over again in the 2010s in the final moments of now-iconic horror films like
The Witch: a young woman–– a witch–– free and laughing with abandon amid the carnage she's wrought. Since then, depictions of witches have to some degree returned to a more familiar territory (older women muttering spells in long black dresses only to
be defeated by the Forces of Good at the end) signaling a political shift with implications outside the movies. I'm excited to share my work digging into this topic both historically and socioculturally. From the vantage of the 2020s, we often take for granted the fact that the witch is a feminist symbol. I’ve tried to get into the weeds of why we feel that way, how we got here, and what that journey really means. I wanted to paint as nuanced a portrait as I possibly could of this indomitable feminine figure's role in the id of our cinematic cultural unconscious: the horror film."
About the Author:
Payton McCarty-Simas is an author and editor based in NYC whose work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Film Daze, Bright Lights Film Journal, and Horror Studies among others. They received their MA in cinema studies from Columbia University, focusing their research on horror film, psychedelic film, and conspiratorial thinking. All of Them Witches is their second book.
Praise for That Very Witch:
"Always holding true to its impassioned feminist mission and sharp sense of humor, That Very Witch is required reading for horror fans, feminists, witch connoisseurs, and really, all devotees of countercultural cinema and history."
Johanna Isaacson, Author of Stepford Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror
"A decadently comprehensive look at the witch's influence in cinema. Fascinating, engrossing and feminist as hell."
Meg Hafdahl, author of The Science of Witchcraft
You can pre-order today from the Luna Press sites, and more widely next month.
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