<Spooky sounding theme music>
Intro, both hosts
This is Screen Scares, a special October series created by Screen Cares. I’m Sarah, and I’m Jennie and we welcome you to our place to connect beyond the screen and dish on what scenes and scares excite us most during the fall season. And explore ways we can watch and be scared better, together.
Jennie
Sarah, when you think of the word ‘witch,’ what comes to mind?
Sarah
I think of a terrifying eater of children <laugh>, which is why <laugh>, which is why after our fantastic conversation about Hocus Pocus last week, this feels like a really good foil or complement to that because there are so many depictions of witches in media. And while I think we really talked about how the witches in Hocus Pocus, the fear that came from them was really insidious and scary on a different level. The witch in The VVitch by Robert Eggers, the terror is there on a very actual level of, they will chop your children up into paste and use it as body lotion so they can fly type of a terror.
Jennie
<laughs>I, whenever you said, “eaters of children,” it immediately made me think of the most OG of witches, which was the Hansel and Gretel one, probably my first like introduction to witches that like literal eater of children. And that's a really interesting kind of crystallization of all the witch things. Usually whenever I think of witches, I think about like how they look, like the aesthetic and less about their actions. So that's like, that's a fascinating thing. And so you are bringing us this week, the movie, The VVitch, which is definitely a different look at witches than Hocus Pocus, which was a much, much more musical approach. I would definitely say <laugh>.
Sarah
That's a good description. I am, but I, I would like to know, what do you think of when you think of a witch? Is it that aesthetic that you're talking about, primarily?
Jennie
Yeah. If someone says ‘witch,’ I guess it, it depends on the context. So one, if you say ‘witch’ and the like it's October and I love witches, I think I can like smell herbs when I think about it. It’s much more the Practical Magic witch, the witch of Discovery of Witches. It's like, I wanna be friends with them. I want them to be my aunt kind of witch. But then if you say it, the more nefarious version of it, I'm thinking also of kind of what you're saying, like the child eater, the kind of sneaky cunning, the witch of, witches; I think more the Angelica Houston witch is more what I'm thinking and, and that, Roald Dahl version.
Sarah
Is she ever not fabulous? I am obsessed with her, I think because of that role, I think she was so darn good in that.
Jennie
She's perfect. She's absolutely perfect. So I think that there's a lot of different places we can come from with The VVitch. And I think I'm interested to hear what is the IMDB summary and what is your connection to this movie?
Sarah
The VVitch, which was written and directed by Robert Eggers came out in 2015 and is rated R and, according to IMDB again, you know, we just like to give you guys something that you can predict upon. So here is the one sentence, the stark one sentence description of this movie, and here it is: “A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic and possession.” The end.
Jennie
Hmm.
Sarah
So what do you think?
Jennie
I mean, they listed all the things
Sarah
<laugh> Right.
Jennie
<laugh> I think that it lacks a lot of ambience that I think that the movie excels at. I think that lacks that, but it does that is it, it is the 1630s. It is New England. There are witches. Yep. Check, check, check.
Sarah
So there's tons of characters in the family because it's a larger family in 1630s New England. They're a bunch of kids, they're two parents. But the main ones that we really see, I would say are Thomasin. She is the daughter of William and Catherine. Catherine, was played by, Kate Dickey. And the dad, is played by Ralph Ineson, and he's got the most fantastic voice. I just couldn't get over his voice. And then Thomasin is Anya Taylor-Joy who at the time, you know, seven years ago, was not sort of the recognizable face and name and talent that she is today. But I thought she did a fantastic job in her role.
Jennie
I agree completely. And I think, this movie came out in 2015 and I'm interested where, when you first watch this, cause when I first watched it was a, “It's movie night. The kids have gone to bed”. My kids certainly were not watching this with me at that point because they would've been like three and one and I'm not trying to scar them for life. <laugh> And so this was like an after bedtime at home movie for me and watching it with my husband. And it was just in New England by the way, which I think is worth noting.
It was definitely a different experience watching it then than it is me watching it again, now in Texas in the morning in the background <laugh> while I was like making cereal for people. So it was a different experience. What was your first experience watching The VVitch like?
Sarah
I wish that I had been in New England at the time, but I wasn't. I was still in Colorado when I saw this. My husband and I were still attempting to be cool people who go see movies in theaters despite having two kids at the time, also very young kids. I really like seeing independent movies in independent theaters. Like I really hate seeing independent movies in regular theaters because there is just a different level of appreciation for movies that you get when you're watching it with a bunch of other like film snobs at the, like your local independent movie theater.
And I didn't want this movie to be ruined by, some 16-year-old kids making out in the back row or people throwing popcorn or people just being normal, ridiculous theater goers, which is usually really fun when you're watching some Marvel movie or something else. Like I love it for that.
I cannot remember which independent movie we theater we saw it in in Colorado, but there are a couple really, really nice ones. I do remember that it was packed, which was rare, which was completely rare for any independent movie theater. That's just not a normal situation <laugh> and we were sitting there and what I loved the most about that experience was that everybody was silent.
I didn't hear anybody munching popcorn, or eating snacks or opening their candy. Everybody was so silent and it almost felt like kind of like this respect for the movie makers and the team that went into this. Or that just everybody was so filled with attention to this very terrifying tale of a family getting just one by one picked off basically by something <laugh> in, in New England.
Jennie
That's really interesting. Why do you think that the theater was full? Like what was the buzz about it and what got you there, you've mentioned more than once, Robert Eggers and that you've mentioned before that you think he's just really great. So why do you think so many people were there and do you think it has anything to do with, um, the director and writer of the film?
Sarah
I think a lot of it is sort of fandom for the director/ writer. He won best director at Sundance and there was just so much buzz about this movie. It was sort of, I remember it was, being advertised as sort of the next Shining, which is hilarious to me because this is a very different movie than The Shining, but they have some similar vibes.
It looked like nothing that anybody had seen before from the trailers and that I think is what was really captivating to a lot of people was, “Hey, we've got this really talented director who is a stickler for details, and it's going to be something new and fresh and not your normal horror movie where we just coat everybody in blood and they run around screaming the whole time.”
Jennie
Although there was plenty of blood
Sarah
There was, and there was running around screaming.
Jennie
But it was definitely more artfully done. And so what other movies had Robert Eggers made that you knew of? Did you know any other movies or did you just know that there had been like Sundance buzz?
Sarah
I don't know that I knew of him as a director. I knew of him as being like a supporting role on other movies. Before he made it big as a director, he had done lots of other things. He actually was a costume maker for a while, which to me is very fascinating because he was heavily involved with the costume designer of this movie. So that makes sense to me. And I did know that he was from New England and that has always been a place that held this mystique, that I don't even know why I envisioned New England as being the place of all places.
But the fact that he was from there, the fact that he was kind of like some of my other favorite sort of independent movie folks, you know, they start small, maybe they’re some sort of assistant and then maybe they're helping out with sound and oh, maybe they're then doing this. And then maybe they finally got a script written and then they get their first directorial debut. And it's amazing.
There's something that I really, really like about that. Because it tells me that maybe this movie director actually knows how to make a movie and is not just like that, you know, middle manager at some corporation who likes to boss everybody around, but doesn't actually know how to do your job. So I think it was all of those things, if that makes sense.
Jennie
That's really unique in the kind of, at least in my opinion, in the horror or like kind of scary movie genre, it feels like it's often very broad. And I think that level of detail and specificity definitely made it different. I remember with the time when I watched this, I was also really into the podcast Lore. It had a lot of very New England specific episodes about folklore folk tales, like kind of true stories, exaggerated stories of scary-eque things. And this definitely felt like it could be a true story that was being retold so much later.
And I agree with you about the New England being a place among places like totally, totally. I could definitely see that. And so I'm, I'm wondering, before we go too much further, first off, just warning listeners, we're going to have some spoilers here that we will be talking about the full breadth of the movie. It does have a rated R rating. As I mentioned, this is not a movie that I would be watching with my kids, but Sarah, I wonder which of our five Screen Shares Ratings would you give this a Buddy Screen, a Work Screen, Family Screen, Little Screen, (shudder, maybe?), Love Screen, Solo Screen. Which one do you think you would give The VVitch?
Sarah
Well, I know which one you wouldn't choose! <laugh> And I would be right there with you in not choosing Little Screen. Either Buddy Screen or Partner Screen/Love Screen are the way to go. I think always seeing scary movies, kind of like we talked about last week, with a bunch of friends, is so much fun, but it's also really fun to go see it with somebody you're in a relationship with, because you know, it's really nice when you're terrified and you're ready to jump out of your seat to be able to jump into the lap of somebody else. And that would be kind of weird to do with like a regular friend, I think. Love Screen, and Buddy Screen. What about you?
Jennie
I would give The VVitch a Love Screen, but I'm also going to give it a Solo Screen. Watching it alone gave me a totally different appreciation and it is a very isolating movie. It's a very quiet movie and it kind of gave me something to think about. I would almost want it to be, this is a made-up category and I know it's our favorite thing to do. <laugh> I would like for it to be a Solo Screen that you then talk to your buddy about. Like really soak it in by yourself and then make sure you have either a partner or a friend to talk about it, because I do think had I not had the opportunity to talk to you about it. I might be jumping out of my skin a little bit after watching it, if I couldn't talk to someone about it. Although there, there are some moments in it where, when I watched it with my husband, I looked at him with that kind of like, whoa, like, I didn't even need to say anything cause the energy, the like imagery was so intense.
Sarah
Are you talking about like child pate or like what are you talking about there?
Jennie
The scenes that I would say that I'm talking about would be like, the nursing a crow, like that was not great, like where the crow was like that or like the, you know, the kind of squishy sound blood witch in the woods kind of scene. A lot of those were very like, wow. And the soundtrack was actually very interesting too this time with me listening to it. I heard there was just a lot more kind of almost like bodily sounds, if that makes any sense, like the music had kind of like a, almost a, a slapping sound to it at times. Did you have any thoughts on the kind of mixing and the sound of this movie?
Sarah
Yeah, so Robert Eggers, I'm just super into him. I've seen literally all of his movies, and this was the first one, that I had seen, but he gets so involved on every level with things. I remember reading some sort of conversation or interview that he had talking about the composer. And he was very intentional about demanding that there be no discernible melody in the music. And part of me also thinks that that was brilliant because soundtracks do such a beautiful job of helping us to understand the emotion of the characters.
And I think the beauty of a movie like this is that there's a lot of ambiguity. We don't always know what the characters are thinking and feeling. Of course, in certain moments, we know they're scared, they're terrified. They're upset and sad and conflicted about leaving their community to go live on this farm all by themselves, out in the woods. But we don't really know for sure what else is going on in their heads. I like that we get to interpret that for ourselves, and that creepy isolating stark music, I agree, lets us do that.
Jennie
That makes a lot of sense. And I think it also reminds me that kind of, that kind of music and that silence reminds me of what people living in the 17th century would've been hearing on a day-to-day basis. Like they would not have been hearing melodic anything unless they themselves were singing. I know like when you go camping sometimes, or I think you and I have both been to Plimoth Plantation or Salem in New England, there is a very quiet feeling about it because you don't have like pool pumps and air conditioners in the background and you don't have a lot of, you know, podcasts playing in the background or extraneous noise. It is just nature and kind of the quiet rustlings of life. And I think that that's so smart that he was so intentional about giving that like audio space to also feel isolated.
Cause, I think you're so right. I hadn't thought about the, the silence creating that ambiguity, especially whenever Thomasin was like a lot of like closeups on her face where I'm just really trying to figure out what is she thinking and not knowing.
Would you mind kind of talking through what actually happens in the movie? Like what is the story for people who haven't actually watched it?
Sarah
Right. So the movie opens up and we see this family standing before some sort of, almost like a tribunal. And we're not exactly sure what's happening, but the family is given the choice. And of course, by family, I mean the male leader of the family because it's 1630s, New England, and women don't exist. But they're basically giving him the choice of either, you know, believing and doing whatever they say or they can go live somewhere else and they say, “thank you very much. I will go live somewhere else,” much to the unhappiness of the oldest child Thomasin. You can definitely tell that she's not super excited about leaving this community. They load up a wagon and all of their children and they go off on their own completely alone.
And again, I think that's something really important to sort of emphasize because again, alone doesn't mean just leaving your comfortable neighborhood or your comfortable cul-de-sac. There is nobody around, you have zero neighbors, you have nobody. They create their own homestead and they have a farm and are living there again just by themselves. We see all of the challenges that go into life during that time period, and also just for this family. Because again, they're sort of combating things that right now, in 2022, we don't have to think about, as much. They’re watching their crops fail. They're worried about illness; they're worried about kind of everything.
They’re very religious. This is a family that has very staunch beliefs. We see them praying a lot. We see that they really do have a very deep, deep love of scripture and of their faith. And we see that in a way that I actually thought was very nice, because, at least at the initial part of the movie, because I think a lot of times in movies, no matter what you actually think about Christianity, for instance, I think in a movie like this, it would be a very easy trope to just say like, “Oh, ha ha ha. How backwards. Look at these silly Christians who believe in God,” and, “How silly are they, they're going to die because they're not paying attention to more practical things.” And I like that this movie didn't necessarily do that. And it didn't, again, just like the ambiguity with the music. It didn't tell us what to think or feel about their religious beliefs. It just told us that they had them and they had them because 1630s New England,
Jennie
I thought that, that's a really good observation, the way that they kind of respectfully treated at, you know, at least kind of in the beginning, how they were choosing to worship and being very principled. It actually reminded me while we were watching it of Captain Fantastic with this like a large family heading out kind of into the wilderness to live their own principled lifestyle. I thought that that was interesting.
But it was definitely you're right there, there would show the way that religion in the same way in Captain Fantastic, like a much more philosophical approach to living, was the way that they shored up their life and, you know, would explain their hardships and kind of comfort them through everything mm-hmm <affirmative> so I thought that that was really interesting. Yeah. And so they've been banished, they move out into the country. They are truly, truly alone, like you said, and then the bad stuff starts happening. Absolutely. The first one being the most terrifying game of peekaboo that has ever happened.
Sarah
<laugh> Right. You see Thomasin is babysitting her infant sibling, her, her littlest brother, and she's playing peekaboo. And then all of a sudden in the midst of the game, the baby disappears, she runs around looking for him, the whole family searches and searches. The mother becomes understandably very distraught.
And that, that whole thing is what starts the demise of the family really, is this baby that we find out very soon after is kidnapped, made into, I guess I should say this in a more delicate way, but how do you say that a baby was chopped up in a delicate way? That's gross, that's terrifying, that's horrible.
The local witch in the woods came out and used poor Samuel to create some sort of way that she can fly and she can become more youthful, which is again, the same thing that we see all the time is this continual search for youth.
Then unfortunately we do see how this really tragic, scary, terrifying thing, ruins the family dynamic. We're not sure exactly how it was before, when they were in England before they came here to, to America. Thomasin's younger twin siblings accuse her and tease her. There's just a lot of mistrust in the family.
We see Thomasin being tempted at the very end of the movie with wonderful things. And I think these are probably some of the best lines in a movie ever where Black Phillip, who is one of the goats that the family has. And, he's a little bit spooky. He kind of turns into a very scary form. We think maybe he's representative of the devil. And he says to her, “Wouldst thou like the taste of butter, a pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”
And we see that she has either that choice or the choice to die. And so she takes that choice. And the next thing we see is that she has joined perhaps a coven of other witches in the forest and is laughing and looks free. We’re not exactly sure what has happened to her younger siblings. But we can make the assumption that they probably met the same fate as Samuel.
Jennie
I would absolutely love to be in a theater and see other people's reaction whenever Black Philip actually talked for the first time when I was watching it, I was just like, “what, oh, what he, oh,” because the whole time throughout the movie, the twins have been talking about, “Black Phillip talks to us,” and singing about Black Phillip and all this kind of “kids say the darndest things'' and kids imagine things and kids, see ghosts and that kind of things. We see a lot in movies and I was like, “okay, yeah, Black Philip, I'm sure the goat’s evil.”
I was more primed for the more modern thriller trope and psychological filler trope of like, actually they were all just crazy, you know, like it was all just in their heads, but then whenever the goat actually talks and I'm like <laugh> “it's oh, it's real. Okay. In this movie, this is all 100% real.” What was your reaction like in the theater? And did you have any of the same thoughts?
Sarah
I had the same thoughts about the expectation that the kids were just annoying, the twins that were constantly saying, “Oh Black Phillip tells us to do this and that. And none of it involves helping you out and doing my chores as well.” I found them very annoying throughout the whole movie so I just assumed that they were doing the kids be or being kids thing, or like you're saying that very modern trope of like, actually everybody's just nuts, the end.
I loved that it didn't do that because like everything in this movie that happens, everything that we see, felt very unexpected. I thought I knew where this was going. I had a feeling that she might decide to sort of leave the, the quote unquote comfort of her religious beliefs and upbringing and the safety of her farm and go frolic in the woods with all of the witches, but I didn't expect it to happen this way. And the audience though, nobody said anything, but you could feel like a palpable kind of gasp, even though that didn't happen in the theater. So, I felt like that was very interesting.
Jennie
I love that. I'm glad that there's such respectful audience members when we went to Chicago and watched a movie together for the first time. I think you learned that my, my movie style is that I can't fix my face. And so had I been watching that in theaters and seen that with you? I would've just been all sorts of like a, like kind of almost hamming to no one to be like, “Did you see that,” which is probably a lesser quality of myself.
My husband all the time is saying like, “I just want to watch the movie.” If we're watching something that's funny, especially, or I've seen before, I'll watch him when we're watching the movie. Cause I, I want to see his reaction win anything. But, yes, definitely not expected. And so the other thing I wanted to kind of circle back to and ask you about was the title of this movie. It's the, “the witch,” but spelled the V-V-I-T-C-H and the title of The VVitch, the title is The VVitch. And I didn't notice until the second viewing. It is The VVitch: A New England Folktale, which totally colored and changed the way I watched this movie.
Sarah
This is another fantastic example of Egger's brilliance and attention to detail because, I, to be honest, in preparation for our recording today was thinking, “okay, Sarah, don't be that person that says the movie wrong. Do I say it with a ‘v’ or do I say it with a ‘w’, what is the name of the movie that we're going to be talking about?” Cause it'd be very awkward to say the wrong thing and be that person.
So I looked it up and again, unsurprisingly, he was very intentional about it. He had seen a pamphlet about the same exact time period, and they spelled “witch” with two v’s and he talked a lot about consulting with actual experts and historians in this time period. And when there was printing, that would happen because of just the economy of making best with what you have and making things as efficient as possible.
A lot of times there wouldn't be the desire to change out that typeface. So they would literally use two “v’s” for a “w” many times. And so that's what he decided to do here. It is of course pronounced “the witch” because that's what the word is. But he really wanted to honor, that the witches were real to people in the 1600’s. And they were talked about, they were in print and this is how they were talked about in print. I loved that and you brought up such a good point about the whole folklore thing. I think what did that bring up to you when you saw that you said that, it sort of changed your perspective on the movie when you saw that.
Jennie
So a lot of my first viewing of it, that my kind of like, “huh,” about the first time I saw it was expecting it to kind of play by the rules of the 21st century and to say like, “well, that's not realistic. Like where are those ladies even sleeping at night? If they're all living out in the woods naked.” I don't know why I felt like I needed it to make sense. There are so many horror movies that make zero sense.
But whenever someone says it's a folk tale, I'm like, “Oh, this is something based in tradition. It is something that is teaching me something possibly, like there's kind of a fable quality to it.” And I was like, “okay, I can watch this from a different perspective. So this is a folk tale of New England.” And it totally changed my viewing of it because I then accepted the kind of cultural rules of 17th century, New England. And I accepted the fear of those people. And so that makes me wonder for you, do you think that this is as scary today as it would be for people back then?
Sarah
I think that it definitely was. Not that you can objectively say that something is terrifying, but I would almost beg to argue that this is one of the more terrifying movies of at least the last 20 years, for sure. And it is a movie that doesn't rely heavily on special effects. It doesn't rely heavily on the old bait and switch that a lot of horror movies do or those gotcha moments where something jumps out at you or, or even those very clever things like in one of my other favorite directors, like a Jordan Peele movie, there's a lot of like very ironic, witty, disturbing twists that will happen in his movies. And that wasn't here because this is a plain story. It's a planned story. It's one that felt like it existed for a purpose.
And I think that is exactly what folk tales do. Those cautionary tales existed for a reason. And I think that this movie is so terrifying because it feels like a very real, like, you know, the three parts of a cautionary tale: there's a thing that you're not supposed to do, right? You know, don't touch the sun and then there's the second part where we see that somebody okay, they do touch the sun and then something terrible happens to them at the end. And so we're supposed to learn like, okay, so if you do this thing, then this bad thing will happen to you. And I think it was very clear in this movie that witches are bad.
Children are in danger at all times. The moral is being alone and away from everybody else allows for so much room for almost sort of like a group think situation, but with your smaller group of your family without having the wisdom that can come from community. And that was interesting to me because we know that in history, in the Salem witch trials, that wisdom quote with air quotes, resulted in a lot of very innocent people getting murdered.
Jennie
That is 100%, right. The idea of being alone versus being part of the community. I kept thinking about this on the second watching. I could imagine those townpeople who banished them for being prideful, having like a town meeting where they basically show this movie and they're like, “see, this is what happens when you stray from the flock,” like, I could imagine this exact story being told. I could imagine Robert Eggers finding this in some letter or sermon that had been published, that when you stray from the flock and you go into the woods, as is so often the home of witches, you're going to be tempted and you're going to not have that social accountability and social safety that you talked about.
And I think that that's part of what makes it so scary, but I have to wonder, as you were talking about what this movie was and why it was scary, it really was drawing these parallels between Hocus Pocus in this movie. It is witches stealing children. It is them sucking their essence or literally eating them. And it is isolation from people like it is being taken away. The witches are in the woods in both situations, you know, they're kind of separated. And so other than the fact that Hocus Pocus is like a musical Disney movie. What makes this movie so much more terrifying and what makes it also similar to Hocus Pocus and this theme of witches that has persisted for hundreds of years as a fear?
Sarah
On some level, the similarities feel, I guess just a little surface because they're clearly both movies about witches. There are children who have to be protected at all costs, you know, children: these innocent, vulnerable members of our community. They’re the ones that are threatened and they're the ones that we care about and they're the ones that we'll fight for. And of course, yep, the element of being separated and alone. And then that sort of unspoken thing with the religious undertones of having sort of like eternal something happen to you. Like in Hocus Pocus, it wasn't really meant to be damnation, but it was sort of like, the witches are chasing after eternal life in a way that is glamorous and sexy and beautiful and young. So those are the similarities.
I think what's so drastically different is that in Hocus Pocus, I didn't really get the sense that I was encouraged to do a lot of thinking by the movie makers. I think that they really wanted us to feel so entertained and have a lot of fun and enjoy this sort of part of Halloween time that we all love. The cool clothes, the trick treating, the great snacks, the parties, all of those fun things, but I didn't get the sense that they were trying to teach me anything, or tell me anything important.
I felt like this was a story that was honestly trying to teach me about history at that time to actually let me see what it really must have looked and felt like to be living in a time where everybody was terrified of a witch and of damnation, because sometimes I think even when you go to Salem or study a lot about witchcraft about that time, I don't ever really get the sense that we really understand how terrifying that must have felt.
We understand that they were terrified, and that was why they were so quick to judge and accuse those who were sort of in that other category, but we don't really get the terror if that makes sense. And I think this movie really wanted us to get it. And I think it really did that so, so well with allowing us to see a world that looked to be a very accurate replication of 17th century New England. Not to keep fangirling about Robert Eggers, but the detail that he put into the costumes with the costume designer, into the actual architecture of the house and the fence and the way that the corn fields looked, all of these things gave us a world that we were part of, instead of just showing us what happened to different people.
Jennie
Was there, was there a scene in the movie that you can think of where you kind of, all those pieces come together where Robert Eggers is just super successful at, about putting you in that place? Because I think that the comparisons people made, I'd never heard that about it being compared to The Shining, but that's also a movie that I consider very ambient and very like, Ooh, like it's uncomfortable because I like feel in the hour and a half, two hours, I'm watching it. Like, I feel that anxiety, was there a specific and terror, it's the right word.
I thought that when I've gone to, um, when, when you think about the enormity of leaving England and coming to a place with truly nothing that is scary. Like leaving my, my planned community and trying to find acreage is scary enough, but there is a grocery store nearby. So it's definitely terrifying. But can you think of a moment or a few moments or a specific thing that really stood out to you that was a creative choice that Robert Eggers made that kind of put you in that place of terror?
Sarah
I think as somebody who loves music, the way that I do, I think the music was a strength because I don't remember anything about it <laugh>, but I remember the sounds that I was hearing made me immediately understand that this family was alone. And I think that was one of the most important parts of this movie was that they had no help. They had no nobody to ask like, “Hey, have you heard funny things in the woods? Have you seen any strangers walking around your farm lately?” or arranging a search party to go look for Samuel when he was kidnapped? There was just none of that. And I don't think that without that sense of isolation, that either The Shining, which has similar musical stuff going on, or The VVitch would've been as successful.
So, I think seeing like sort of unique details in the clothing and seeing unique details in their house made me again feel like these are real people. And again, they're alone and this is something that could have happened to anybody in their situation.
Jennie
That's really interesting the point about the very specific details. First, I completely agree with you about the sound on it. I completely agree with that. And the other piece, all of these details kind of being much more than the, kind of the sum of their parts, right? That the specificity that he has about the clothing and the, the rooms. I always appreciated that. Cause it looked exactly like the rooms when you would go visit Plimoth Plantation, New England, like where the kids are in the loft. And the parents have the bed downstairs. I was very like, “I've been there. I know what that looks like. Go me.” But it's very specific and it's interesting how those choices and those kind of directorial and writing choices and creative choices allow us to actually care. I feel like I actually understood the character of those people, despite the fact that they didn't talk that much.
You got the feeling that they were quiet, that you, like you said, they don't communicate with one another. And that it's both isolating for each and every one of them, they each have their own struggles that they are experiencing in complete isolation from each other. And then they're also isolated from society, which is just, yes, the layers of isolation. That's, that's the scary part, right? And then I think the next step is the witch. The fact that when you're isolated, you become easy prey.
Sarah
Right.
Jennie
And that's the piece, there's no one looking out for you when you're alone. And so, you know, nefarious goats can come have their way with your kids. Which, which was really scary. And that's a whole nother thing. I almost went down the path of like goats kind of terrify me a little bit. Um, their weird little tic-tac eyes.
Sarah
And what is up with those eyes, those are so gross. I find them so disgusting.
Jennie
Oh, I mean, they, you know, I, I like want to love all, all of God's creatures and just like, they're doing their thing and they're being goats and they can climb and we can do yoga together or whatever. They really do kind of creep you out. Right.
I did so much like researching and looking at other articles about wire goats, evil. And, but I think the reason that he probably used this, I don't know if you know about why he chose the goats or the rabbit or anything like that. But I am guessing based on the knowledge you're saying that he has at this period and the research, he probably researched, these are the real fears of the people of that time. That that's probably what they would've said. Would've been the chief imagery that would've been scaring them.
Sarah
Well, actually, interestingly, according to him, there were no references to goats in any sort of witch trials or any documentation about any experiences with witches at that time. Interestingly and sadly, this like broke my heart. I was like, I gotta tell Jennie this immediately. And you probably know this because you know, so much about, about all of this. But the two animals that were referenced in witch trial stuff were rabbits and dogs. And there were two dogs that were like shot to death because they were accused of being witches. And for some reason, I was just like, oh, as like a dog lover. And I know you are too, like, I just thought like, oh my gosh, that seems so wrong. Like, I know it was wrong what happened to the people? And I hate that it happened to the people, but why do you have to bring the puppies into it? <laugh>,
Jennie
You know, it gets back to what you were saying though, that the people are scared and they're kind of grasping at straws to figure out, like, why is this child sick? Why is our crop failing? And they're looking for answers and they're just doing the best they can to come up with it with limited scientific knowledge.
Sarah
Right.
Jennie
Um, and also whenever, you know, they, they were reading the scripture very literally it seemed like in this book. And so like, that's like an excellent source for them. And so I think I kept thinking about Monty Python and the Holy Grail, whenever they were talking about witches and like, what would prove witches and that scene in that movie where they use this logic that goes from like X to like pi, like not even like a reasonable thing where they end with and therefore a witch would weigh the same as a duck. <laugh> And it's not logical to us.
And a lot of it seems ridiculous to us, but I do think that you're so right. Robert Eggers and his details did an excellent job making me understand why they thought those things. And making it believable and having more empathy for them, like why they would feel that way. So that brings me my last question for, for you, which is like, why do you care about this movie? I care about it more now because it does give me kind of a historical appreciation for the terror of the people of that time. It really does. He was so effective at that. And so I'm wondering why, why do you care about The VVitch?
Sarah
This is going to sound not like my answers for other movies, because usually I care about a movie because I feel like I have a personal connection in some way, shape or form to something that's happening in the movie. And I don't necessarily have that for this. I mean, I've not, you know, <laugh> had any similarities that I can think of with any of the characters. <laugh> thank God. Luckily, thank God. Like knock on wood. I mean, I guess that would probably be like a pagan thing to knock on wood.
I really care about this movie because to me it's a great example of fantastic filmmaking. There was a period of time where I was just so sick of movies because the very obvious stupid things would happen in the movie that was just there to be cute, funny, dramatic, sexy, scary, whatever. And I find that just so pointless and stupid <laugh>.
And I love that we have in this movie, an example of a fantastic thoughtful movie that didn't take random liberties with history, for the purpose of entertainment. And I think that's so important because there are so many movies that are about important, painful times in, in our humanities history that change it up just to make it a little bit better, a little bit scary or a little more intense. And I think that really does a disservice to the people who live through this.
And I love that you brought up empathy because I really, my heart broke for the mom in this movie because clearly she was, I think, a little unhinged. And I think she was a little unhinged because she's cold, she's starving. Her child has been kidnapped and assumed to be murdered in a horrific way. Everything is going crazy. She feels like her, her family's falling apart and she has nobody and I couldn't help.
But think about the fact that in the witch trials, in actual history, all of the people who lived in those communities experienced a level of suffering and aloneness and terror that I think we’re really lucky not to experience and diminishing or exaggerating their experience is not right. It's not right of us to do that, just to have a, an hour and a half of entertainment.
I know this is sort of a roundabout Screen Scares this week, but it’s just really important that we can make great movies. We can watch great movies. We can choose to stream those great movies or buy those tickets for those that do a good job, not that are just flashy and, and fun.
Jennie
That that is an excellent reason to care for it. And I think that you're right, the quality of the filmmaking can often be enough. And I really, really agree with what you said about Robert Eggers not taking liberties. And the reality is he didn't need to, he was able to be completely authentic to what the people of the time thought and the way they lived and what the setting was like and what it sounded like. And it was still terrifying. It helps us not fall into something that I think in a lot of different spheres, of assuming that we are the smartest time that has ever been. It is the scariest time that has ever been that this having the superiority of time. And he gave us the opportunity to experience what Tara was for them without taking those liberties.
I appreciate you bringing this test this week, because I had really missed a lot of this on my first viewing because I was so entrenched in my own “scary movies are x” mm-hmm <affirmative> and I thought it was really cool. And I thought about it since then, but it gives me so much to think about, and I know you have some great screen sparks this week to help us think, and I'd love to share on our special Screen Scares month some good Screen Sparks. Would you mind sharing it with us?
Sarah
Sure. Do you like to rewatch movies that really scared you? And if you do, what do you think the benefit of rewatching, a movie that made you feel uncomfortable or scared or nervous is?
I hesitated to watch this movie again because I felt like my first experience with it was so great and I didn't want to not like it. If I saw something I didn't like the second time. And also it wasn't uncomfortable movie to watch. I don't like seeing children being hurt. I don't like seeing families fall apart. It was hard to rewatch it for me. So I'd love to know, what people think about that one.
Jennie
The second Screen Sparks you have is The VVitch, like many movies about witchcraft focus on a period of time in history. If we know how the story ends, why do we feel like seeing this play out time and time again in movies and that kind of circles back kind of, I think to Titanic too, there's other movies like that, where we seem to have an insatiable desire to see these tragedies unfold. I mean, I, how many, which movies and vampire movies and even things more based in reality, like Jack the Ripper type movies, how many of those do we really need to see?
I would love to know what people think about that. Like why, and are there other movies you can think of that, do this?
Sarah
Great, great. As we've been talking a lot about in this episode, The VVitch is just an obvious example of fine filmmaking and of a cautionary tale. What do you think the message or the moral of the story is? And do you think it's applicable to your life today in modern society?
Jennie
Wow. And these are just the content questions that I have to think about it, but also, I mean, as you've pointed out, all of the things that Robert Eggers does, this is also going to give me a lot to think about with how sound is made and the details and different films. So I think that it gives us kind of two different fronts of things to think about, like that whole theological piece, the whole historical piece, and then the whole like great film piece. And I appreciate you bringing him to my attention because I don't know if I've intentionally watched any other Robert Eggers movies. Before we end this week, do you have anything else that we need to watch by Robert Eggers?
Sarah
I would say, definitely go see The Northman. I saw that with Liam and maybe that was a good choice and maybe that wasn't and that was a very different type of movie for him. But again, there was that attention to detail about Norse culture and all of the things, that I found fascinating. The Lighthouse was another one that he did, that was creepy, super, super creepy and strange. That is also one to watch as well. But really anything that he makes I think would be worth it and would look interesting, like at least his movies, even if you're like what is happening, which I felt like a lot when I was watching The Lighthouse, it looked cool. <laugh> it looked beautiful and interesting. <laugh>
Jennie
Beautiful and interesting, I think is, is great. Like The Lighthouse has actually been on my, my list and I did not know that it was him. I hadn't like paid attention to that piece. So it has now moved up to the front of my list. And I, I think that this was such an amazing movie for Screen Scares because it really digs deep into something that I don't think I've thought about a lot, which is historically scary things. And, what it's like to be scared in a different time period for different reasons. And then also such a cool contrast to something as like fluffy as Hocus Pocus. And I have loved having this conversation with you this week. Sarah, thank you so much for bringing us the V-V-I-T-C-H, The VVitch.
Outro, both hosts
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Thanks for letting us share our screens and scares with you this week. We hope that you keep watching for the meaning behind the screen and enjoy our special spooky October Screen Scares episodes. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Then, if you’re like Jennie and I and love digging deeper into the things that fascinate or horrify you, drop by our social media pages, check out our show notes, or visit our website at www.screencares.com for more info.
Huge special thanks to Brooks Milgate for giving our Screen Cares theme song a spooky spin for Screen Cares month.
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