Ahhh, Teen Witch. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love you for your music numbers, from “I’m Gonna Be the Most Popular Girl” to the amazing impromptu rap number, “Top That.” I love you for your bleached denim jackets and your gaudy, magical amulet. I love you for your late ’80s vibe, hair, and dumb priorities (boys, being popular). I love you for Robyn Lively, Blake’s super cool older sister. I love you for the mysterious seer Madam Serena, played with perfectly mysterious charm by the late Zelda Rubinstein. But most of all, I love you for your place in the canon of the best movies about witches, along with The Craft, Practical Magic, and The Worst Witch.
And now, like a gift from the heavens–or streaming gods–Teen Witch, the 1989 cult classic, is coming to Netflix in February. For those of you poor, poor souls who are unfamiliar with the film, Teen Witch stars Robyn Lively as Louise Miller, a very sweet, very geeky young girl who discovers that she is actually a powerful, reincarnated witch. Along with a mystical amulet and the help of her mentor/friend from a past life, Madam Serena, Louise gains her powers on her sixteenth birthday and sets out to do what any uncool teenage girl in an 80s movie would do: make her dream boy fall in love with her, meet her idol, get revenge on the teachers/students who made her life hell, and basically… become the most popular girl.
As expected, Louise goes a little mad with power and loses her best friend in the process. Without spoiling the entire thing for you because it is seriously a must-watch, she ultimately learns that FRIENDSHIP is the real magic, or something like that. Basically, it’s one of the greatest films of all time, full stop, no hyperbole–and now you can all watch it again and again, as I intend to when it hits Netflix next month.
Cruel Intentions, Armageddon, Charlie’s Angels, the live-action Scooby Doo movies, Sin City, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and Better Call Saul season one are all hitting Netflix on February 1 as well, so we’re basically going to live the couch-and-veg dream next month.
What would you do with a magical amulet? What’s your favorite part of Teen Witch? (It’s her hair, right?) Let us know in the comments below!
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Rachel Heine is the Editor-in-Chief of The Nerdist and the resident Queen of Halloween. Chat with her about witchy stuff on Twitter @RachelHeine.
