Pop Culture Icons to Celebrate During Halloween

1 Tim Curry

I considered highlighting Dr. Frank-N-Furter specifically, or Wadsworth the Butler, or his gleeful acid trip of a turn in The Worst Witch, but all this power is coming straight from the source — Tim Curry IS Big Witch Energy, personified.

1 / 6

2 Mary Katherine Blackwood

Image Source: Everett Collection

The narrator of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the final novel published by Shirley Jackson — herself an absolute BWE queen — nails books to trees and buries silver to shield herself and her sister from the cruelties of the world. The world gets in anyway, but one has to wonder how much worse it would've been without Merricat's interventions. The film adaptation stars Taissa Farmiga as Merricat, which is oh so appropriate considering how many times she's played a witch on American Horror Story.

2 / 6

3 Edward Gorey

Edward Gorey, who died in 2000, was an illustrator, cat-lover, and drawer of circular-headed humans in myriad scenes of genteel and obscure peril and depravity. With a few delicate lines of ink, he created creeping, adorable dread, which are mandatory viewing come Halloween. See also: Charles Addams.

3 / 6

4 John Wick

Image Source: Everett Collection

They don't call him Baba Yaga for nothing. Marjorie Liu already wrote the definitive case for Keanu Reeves's boundary-busting appeal, but a list of BWE icons would be incomplete without his unwavering, unstoppable, and terminally professional puppy-avenging assassin.

4 / 6

5 Alice in Wonderland's Alice

Image Source: Everett Collection

Yes, that Alice! An absolute outsider who refuses to be gaslit, calls out the insanity of the world around her, and is ultimately tried and found guilty for simply naming the objective ("you're nothing but a pack of cards!") truth? I can think of nothing witchier.

5 / 6

6 Mary Poppins

Image Source: Everett Collection

Guys, she's a witch, and she always has been, hiding in plain sight behind the glorious glow of Julie Andrews and all the Disneyfied trappings of traditional feminine beauty and grace. But make no mistake: she's brimming with BWE, moving things with her mind, slipping between dimensions, and saving Mr. Banks from the patriarchal maw of capitalism.

Kate Racculia is the author of Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts: An Adventure, which is on bookshelves now.

6 / 6