I watched The Witch so you don’t have to
This is probably one of those comics I’ll look back on it a few months after this very forgettable movie has faded from my memory and think “What the hell is this even about? Why did I think this was funny?” but for the time being I wanted to capture my memory of the most tonally discordant scene in this movie involving Puritan Settler Dad standing around topless and flexing his fairly well developed starving-new-England-Pilgrm abs for a bit before going off to chop some wood in a time capsule to remind myself that this was a movie I watched.
I won’t say that the movie was completely unnecessary because the director was clearly very excited to use period-accurate language and build period accurate sets and make period-accurate clothing with period-accurate technique while they discuss period-accurate misinformed superstition about witchcraft, but it left me with the impression of consuming a piece of work written by someone who just learned about Witchcraft for the first time and was so excited to use it in a story he forgot the story part of the story and mostly just made an itemized list of “things people used to believe about witches”. When the credits to a movie lead with a little blurb that essentially reads “No really guys please appreciate how super accurate everything was” it feels like the movie is trying to apologize for itself and explain to a disappointed audience why they were supposed to like it. If that kind of historical accuracy is what you’re there for, you’d probably have more fun visiting a pioneer village attraction. It’ll inevitably feel much more immersive and you can buy yourself a nice little hand-dipped candle to bring home and remember how much fun you had.
If you aren’t completely sick of the done-to-death narrative device that teen girls going through puberty are scary and mysterious you might not feel like this movie dragged as much as I did. It may be I’m such an old dog in the horror rodeo it’s hard to trot out a unique device or twist things a way I haven’t seen yet, but the whole “girl’s gettin’ tiddies, must be the devil” thing is about as cutting and edgy as a cheese single at this point.
So here’s Puritan AbsDad, the most unique and memorable part of the story as far as I was concerned.
(I will concede that the Will in this comic is much more assertive than the Will in the movie and his and Katherine’s attitudes are more or less reversed here. I’m pretty sure she was the one who requested his shirt be removed in the movie, while I’m at it)
I just think the idea of chopping wood topless as a means of escapism to ignore your family being consumed by witches is funny.
You nailed Ralph Ineson’s face
Wait a second…Wouldn’t that make him look like Pinhead from Hellraiser?
Also, congratulations Coelasquid, you made me buy Dragon Age Inquisition. I’m really enjoying it, specially after I finished the prologue and came to realize that my character is a Qunari version of the one I made for South Park the Stick of Truth
I love every aspect of this.
Glad you do
So Hollywood made a crap movie, that’s a huge surprise (with witches).
Especially since it’s (by my count) either the eighth or the tenth crap movie with witches since 2005 (depending on whether you count the two Snow White movies of 2012) — you’d almost think there was some sort of existential crisis in Hollywood regarding the twinned themes of Independent Womenfolk and Political Outsiders, making their obsessions and output even less coherent than usual…
It’s actually pretty good. Not the visually scariest, but it builds up a great mood that will leave you on edge in the theater at every slight thing.
Until reading the blurb, I assumed this was about some new RPG I hadn’t heard of where Coelasquid ignored the main plot in favor of grinding lumberjacking.
Someone needs to make a movie (or a game) about Grinding Lumberjacks :D
If I go and program that, will you buy it for $4.99?
I’m already on ‘proceed to Paypal’ in my other tab, just about to download your Grinding Lumberjack promised game.
The reviews were glowing.
The excitment in the reviews was palpable! And turgid.
“BBC Game Review – It’s about lumberjacks, and only OK. 7/10”
A perfect 7/10, eh?
Woops! I looked it up and what I was actually trying to reference was “a perfect 5/7”. I suggest looking it up. It’s funny!
IGN gives it 6.5/10, too many trees.
Good thing we have Will to take care of that.
Incredible grinding action! Grind elms, ceders, and Mrs Chalmers down the street’s head when she least expects it! Grinding Lumberjacks now on the ap store!
Well, there is “Jack Lumber,” on steam and mobile devices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lumber
At the beginning of the game, a cutscene shows the death of lumberjack protagonist Jack Lumber’s grandma when an evil tree falls on her.
when an evil tree falls on her
an evil tree falls on her
an evil tree
I did that.
Yeah, it Smacked of that feeling I get playing open world games. “Yes, there is an ancient evil planning to destroy us all, but I’m sure it can wait until I’ve forged a FEW more crossbow bolts.” “No, No, they won’t blow up the moon before I finish all the side quests. Trust me.”
It’s funny, the only moonsday (heh) plot in a game I can think of is Majora’s Mask. Where you actually have an in universe excuse for doing the side quests before the main quest, because you can time travel.
“Nah, Caesar’s Legion and the NCR wouldn’t start the fight while I’m off doing the DLC. That’d be rude.”
I was literally just playing this game before I read this. Which made it so much funnier. Also the first time I created mods… Because dammit, I want a dog! Right at the beginning! And he shall be named after a shotgun!
Now to go improve my mod by adding a dog whistle to call him.
Well there is Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves (http://tinyurl.com/o5fbbmc) about burly Canadian Lumberjacks fighting hordes of werewolves to survive.
I used to be a burly Canadian lumberjack, now I’m fat and live in Florida. Moving back if Trump wins.
Reminds me more of Banished
omg. Just saw this movie with my sister. It was weird. Not really scary… But the music was great at making me nervous.
Also, Black Phillip. Black Phillip needed more hand scenes cuz that was predictable but kinda neat.
Yeah, that would probably be my favorite scene as well.
If someone made a movie with evil Jews killing lots of people and being horrible greedy monsters it would be considered offensive as heck, while Wicca and witchcraft has been mocked, crapped on and villanized since the beginning of Hollywood and that’s considered quite alright. Well, they’re just witches, not like they were persecuted and killed in the thousands, right? It’s not like it’s a legitimate spiritual path and that in this century we really should be better than such.
So, so sick and tired of watching stuff that involves “evil witches”… As much as I am sick of seeing the pentagram, a protective symbol, used as a sign of the Christian devil.
Honestly, why these people do not understand how offensive it is, is beyond me.
I should make a movie about Jesus the serial killer, who terrorized a city with his 12 evil rapist followers. It could make quite the horror film. Guessing that’d be okay, I mean, it’s just fiction.
Sorry for ruining your funny with my serious stuff though, lol.
And now for something lighter and funner:
http://satwcomic.com/what-comes-around-goes-around
Heh. The ads on that page tried pitching The Witch to me.
LOL
If I remember correctly,it is the inverted pentagram that is considered a satanic symbol…also, it has an elongated point facing down, and not in a circle, but a pentagon connecting at each of the star’s points. Many people just mistakenly see the actual pentagram as the twisted version…much like the actual swastika has been permanently tainted by the one that is turned 45 degrees and used as a nazi symbol.
Course…I could be talking out my butt. Studied these things so long ago, forgotten so much of it.
The inverted (or upside down) cross is just as funny. Known as The Cross of Saint Peter, a Christian symbol, it’s also used to symbolize the anti-Christ. Google “inverted cross” and see for yourself.
That was a distinction that only came about with Alister Crowley in the 1920’s. And he didn’t use it for evil, in point of fact the Baphomet Pentagram looped in an ouroboros was a sign of knowledge. It wasn’t until Anton LaVey picked it up in the 1960’s-1970’s that suddenly it became Satanic. Which is also foolish because LaVeyan Satanists are symbolic atheists who simply enjoy expressing themselves through dramatized rituals. For thousands of years beforehand both pentagrams were used for invocation, evocation, protection, and a myriad of other things depending on the culture. But that didn’t stop the Satanic Panic of the 1970’s-1980’s from completely freaking out over everything, burning a whole bunch of books, driving people out of some communities, and just generally acting like idiots.
Modern Theistic Satanists do utilize the inverted pentagram now (depending on the person, it’s a varied belief system after-all). Historically, most invocations of various demons called for glyphs that were far more elaborate than a simple five line pentagram.
…I’ll stop now.
Well, you kinda are missing the point there.
Witchcraft, as persecuted, was 99% being a suspicious person few people liked and 1% evidence you had something to do with bad things happening to people.
If anything, I’d almost feel like it’s the practitioners who decided to call what they’re doing ‘witchcraft’ that are to blame for any feelings of persecution they feel due to the portrayal of witches throughout history. Wicca originated after the witch hunts. You don’t get to feel offended by the portrayal of a group you named yourselves after.
Yes. Witch hunts were more of a political and economical deal than actually religious at all. The outlandish reports of pagan rituals and occultism were more post hoc justification than the actual cause of persecution. It was system that generated easy money for easy work (finding witches required about zero actual investigation and the criteria were made on the spot) and was also a consequence free way of sending people you didn’t like to the gallows and loot their stuff, with absolutely no repercussions at all even if it was all a lie.
There were probably a lot more dissidents, outcasts and political enemies among the ranks of “witches” than actual occultists and mystical people.
And also there’s the detail that Wicca was developed in the 20th century. But sure, pitch your idea about evil Jesus, I’m sure you’d sell that to Adult Swim for a pretty penny.
Lol, nah, I don’t actually feel like sinking that deep. I don’t think anyone should. I don’t even find it all that entertaining, because it just be hurtful to somebody and I feel it’s better we all just try to make nice and friendly.
So I’ll leave Jesus alone, and just be the better man in that scenario.
Witchhunts grew out of heretic hunts — the anti-Cathar persecutions, initially, but equally the fear of Jews, even ones who had converted to Christianity. To say there was no religious aspect to them is to say there was no religious aspect to the Inquisition. OF COURSE they were also about taking the property of other people, about xenophobia, about sexual insecurity of the majority male leadership, about OH HEY LET’S BUILD A WALL TO KEEP THE RAPING FURRINERS OUT — there is a reason The Crucible was written and has never been off stage in the English-speaking world.
The Hammer of Witches, Malleum Maleficarum, was written by two German Catholic priests and became an international crossover hit for a reason, too. Do you think that there is any material difference between “OMG smart defiant women are stealing our cocks and putting them in boxes with their evil magics” and Gamergate?
Western modern witch hunts look like the Ecole Polytechnique shooting and all similar “aggrieved guys who aren’t getting any and think The Others are taking their jobs go shoot random women and foreigners” events — or like Savita Halappanavar, burning to death in a hospital bed from childbed fever because women should be pure (white) mothers or martyrs, not (Indian) dentists with scientific attitudes about maternal mortality…
Whoa.
Yeah, that basically seems accurate O.O
Funnily enough, the Malleus Maleficarum was condemned by the catholic church when it was first published, and was only used by local ‘witch hunters’ who wanted to find scape goats for local problems.
The guy who wrote the book was thrown out of several Catholic monasteries because he would just go on and on about how witches were out to steal your penis. And I believe the co author didn’t actually have anything to do with writing it besides going ‘Yeah, sounds about right.’ His name was included because he was much more respected than the main writer.
Even back in the day the catholic church was like ‘Yeah, this is horse shit.’ They knew that most accounts of witch craft was most likely exaggerated, and the catholic church has had a firm stance against condemning people as witches since at least the early middle ages.
Remember when Adult Swim was cool? Pepperidge Farms remembers, and has never forgiven them.
Actually, I am not a Wiccan :)
I was a long time ago, and still respect the spiritual path a lot.
I don’t think I am the only one missing a point, in that case, but I’m fine with your opinion.
However, your comment does reek of “blaming the victim”. Obviously only some of the women actually burned were people you could today call “witches” but that doesn’t change that these were the types of people who were also the target and the original target to boot. Herb women, spiritual women, etc.
I am not going to engage in an argument with you, because let’s be honest; neither of us will agree on the subject and witches being “evil” is mainstream approved by the media. If it was your religion or lack thereoff that was constantly the villain in some Hollywood production, you might have understood it a bit better.
And you don’t get to tell me what I get to feel.
I still have the freedom of declaring my own emotions, thank you very much.
“You don’t get to feel offended by the portrayal of a group you named yourselves after”
Fairly sure Wicca is older than most of these movies and TV shows. At least if we’re talking the modern version. So you’re saying that because these movies and TV shows reinvented Wicca, that’s what’s accurate? I believe Gardner’s coven was put together in 1939, and the Wiccan communities grew through the 1950s/-60s.
If we are talking the origins of Wicca, being the paganistic nature worship, that’s been ongoing for quite, quite a bit longer. Wiccan wasn’t based of your “witchcraft” movies, but old paganistic and druid traditions.
But it doesn’t matter. Coela won’t appreciate us arguing up her comic, so I’ll just shut up and leave.
Meant leave this discussion, not the page.
Note that my entire issue was not at all related to this comic, that I worship. It was about the movie and other Hollywood productions like it.
This comic isn’t part of that issue at all, lol.
Just in case someone misunderstands!
None of them were witches! Most of them were women (and men) who, for whatever reason, were in the way of someone else.
Um, witches were never killed by the thousands, because, y’know, there are no actual witches. And wiccans weren’t even around at the time of the witch hunts.
Gee, I wonder why no satanist ever claimed that all the movies potraying them/what they worship as evil is offensive.
You might enjoy The Last Witch Hunter then, which actually shows a surprising open mind about witches.
Well, in the TV show Supernatural, there are several protective pentagrams, including the devil’s trap and the marks that Sam and Dean get as tattoos. There’s even a flashback show where their mother is revealed to be a hunter by the protective pentagram on her charm bracelet. But that show does pretty well with its occult lore.
Went searching to find out what movie you’re talking about. Glad I did, because on the wiki page for The Witch I found these recommendations:
Author Stephen King offered significant praise for the film stating, “The Witch scared the hell out of me. And it’s a real movie, tense and thought-provoking as well as visceral.”
Author Brian Keene also praised the film on social media, stating “The Witch is a gorgeous, thoughtful, scary horror film that 90% of the people in the theater with you will be too stupid to understand.”
Saying The Witch is too smart for 90% of the people in the theatre to understand is not unlike those reviews for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that said it was cerebral thriller full of unexpected twists and turns when every big twist at the end was pretty easy to suss out in the first fifteen minutes and people who slept through about half of it still managed to follow along seamlessly with where the story went.
I mean, that second review reeks of the dude patting himself on the back for understanding ye olde Colonial English. Dense language aside it’s probably the most basic bare bones New England witch story possible, being more of a vanity project in pushing the limits of historical accuracy in a horror movie than any attempt to tell the audience a story they haven’t heard yet. It’s like the boxed cake mix of witchcraft stories, with a very meticulous decoration job. Nothing wrong with enjoying a good box cake, but box cake is box cake. A lot of love went into the sets and costumes but the narrative was, on the surface level, a bullet point form list of “Things Puritans Believed About Witches” and subtextually, “people think female sexuality is scary and evil”. And I mean, if we’re being honest here I’m personally pretty over the whole “I, adult male horror writer, am uncomfortable with teen girl problems” device in horror fiction.
The way I see it, too smart is code word for badly written. If the creator can’t get a message across without getting a PhD in some obscure field, that’s the writer’s fault. This seems like a classic case. Critics loves it, viewers hate it. Poor viewer RT score and a C- grade on the super accurate Cinemascore. No one who doesn’t write for the film section of their paper is going to tell their friends to see it.
If a book or film is so dense you have to study a field to get it, that piece of work is a failure. The first rule of communication is getting others to understand. A master can be clever and get millions to understand without special training.
Nah, nah. If there’s a work that you have to be OCD or have autistic tendencies, speaking as the latter, to really enjoy, like Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, that’s not a failure – that’s niche ;)
I mean I couldn’t really follow the story of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but that’s because I couldn’t keep all the white dudes straight, and I got bored.
I just googled the cast, and none of them even look similar. Like, different facial structure, hair of all colors and styles, etc. Only someone with literally no facial recognition at all could get them mixed up within the span of a movie. I know you’re probably going for that “OMG white males suck” thing, but next time you go for that, try for an angle that doesn’t make you look deficient.
No facial recognition at all, huh? You mean like how it is with white people trying to tell Asians, Latinos, or Africans apart?
The Asians are easy to tell apart, if they are wearing sailor suits they’re from Japan. The rest don’t matter.
Go read the movie spoiler for this film. It’s period-researched, but everything else sounds pretty blah.
When your horror movie’s “twist” is that there’s no twist, that’s boring.
Well SK is trash at horror, more news at eleven.
And Brian Keene proves why I feel someone involved in the creation process should never be taken as a reputable critic. No matter if they like it or hate it, they are far too close to the subject at hand. Especially calling the viewing public too stupid to appreciate it. That smacks of the reviewers defending F4ntastic Four’s casting by accusing racism on anyone that didn’t like the stunt casting. Yeah, maybe some people are racist/stupid in their views on F4ntastic Four and The Witch, but only a minority are. The problem is with your film, not the viewers.
Sorry, as a part time writer that really irritates me.
Witchcraft? As punished by drowning, beheading, stoning, pressing, burning and so on? Just an excuse for women, who had stuff that some rich bastard wanted to be murdered so that they could be looted. And they weren’t shy about targeting the alleged witch’s family either. And it was one of those ecumenical things that both main sides of the christian divide in Europe heartily approved of.
Not to mention, the Salem ‘Witch Trials’ was simply a way for the rich idiots living in the harbour area to claim the rich lucrative hill lands that had been giving to the poor before the rich idiots discovered how lucrative those lands really were
And GamerGate was simply about ethics in videogame journalism!
Well, it tried to be, but instead became a pointless screaming match between “MUH FEMINISIM” social justice wankers (read: not activists) and genuinely misogynistic shitposting professional trolls.
I would disagree, considering how many games journalism sites actually changed their ethics policies or finally just put one into place as a result. The fact that it’s now definitely lost most of its “ethical momentum” is largely because it has attained its goals (or a part of them), so those who were serious about the ethical part have stopped using it actively. That’s the thing with hashtags, nobody controls who uses them, so either a good hashtag can get highjacked wholesale or an old hashtag can be kept alive by “the wrong people” (not the best term i know, but it’s what I could come up with).
But what do you call it when a hashtag starts out as a (documented) harassment campaign, suckers in a few well-meaning dupes in its first couple months, then those dupes all gradually leave until a year later it’s back where it started?
Where it begins awful, ends awful, but during it’s ‘peak’ early-middle period had a few folk doing worthwhile things while accidentally waving it’s banner?
At that point, I reckon it’s safe to simplify the whole thing down to Generally Rotten without having to hem and haw about who was a “true representative” of the tag and who was a “third party troll”.
Of course, I’ve never identified myself with a hashtag before. So, y’know, I’m sure I don’t get it at all.
Well, it sorta depends on what you consider “documented” here. Yes there were asshats. However what is also quite well documented are the instances of collusion in games journalism, which is what the movement was opposing. The main issue with Gamergate is quite literally that the media has been utterly biased against it from the start (which makes sense given it’s a hashtag devoted to calling out a segment of the media for its rampant dishonesty).
If you wish to learn a little more I’d recommend you check out some of Christina Hoff Sommers’ comments and statements regarding the movement.
Totalbiscuit is another one who spoke “in favor” of Gamergate (even if I don’t think he ever used the hashtag – he was always pro-consumer and pushed for journalistic ethics). He has a few statements on that as well.
If you’re feeling up for a bit of controversy, you can also check out some of Sargon of Akkad’s videos on the subject.
I’m not really providing sources for anti-gg sources as these are more widely known. For these you can just check out Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and most (if not all) mainstream media coverage of the subject.
I think my position on it is a bit transparent (being in favor), and I don’t think it’s necessary to push it more than necessary (as the hashtag has served its purpose at this point), but I did feel like a lot of people received badly skewed information on it.
Yeah, a totally baseless harassment campaign against women indie developers and games commentators was just an unfortunate side effect of the oh-so-noble goal of making sure you never buy a shitty game because of a biased review. Seriously, do you see why no one outside buys this whole “ethics in gaming journalism” line? Because even it’s true, its priorities are all backward. Not even the most egregious “collusion” between a gaming site and game publishers justifies people being chased from their homes in fear for their lives. Of course so many websites put in place “ethics policies”, they hoped it would either make GGers go away or at least expose them for the misogynist idiots so many of them were. Appeasing a raging mob is not a victory for ethics by any stretch of the imagination.
I so badly don’t want a GamerGate Pro/con fight on my site, please, I really don’t want to be subject to the harassment that seems to eventually land on any party stuck between two people trying to discuss it. I have spent months actively ignoring and blocking mentions of it on all of my social media accounts to do whatever possible to stay out of it.
Apologies, I did not know that.
Sorry Squid!
I’m mostly amazed people haven’t gotten bored with it by now. Gamers are all about the shiny thing and forget about everything but hardware disputes in about three weeks.
Where were the Gamergaters when GameSpot fired a reviewer because a publisher objected to his review of Kane & Lynch? Or Eurogamer fired a journalist for criticising other journalists incestuous relationship with the publishers? Eating their Doritos and drinking their Mountain Dew.
You’re pretty much 100% wrong with the Gamespot firing of Jeff Gerstman. With the Jeff Gerstman thing, while the hashtag wasn’t there yet, those gamers came down on Gamespot like the fist of an angry God. (Alex Navarro also left Gamespot at the time.) Gamespot took a pretty serious beating on that one from the fanbase on all levels including subscription cancellations, advertiser pull-outs, etc.
I don’t know about the Eurogamer thing but the infamous Gamespot Kane & Lynch review is not an example of Dorito/Mountain Dew consumption.
There is no disentangling the sexual and religious and political and xenophobic aspects of witch hunting, anywhere, ever. If it was just a property grab, why not accuse them of being traitors in league with the French or the Pequod? Not harlots in league with the Devil, something that many at the time — this was the Baroque era, not Viking times — believed was impossible and absurd. And yet that cocktail – witches’s brew! — of insecurities was the most potent, and still is. Thus, Trump.
Because you can investigate claims of treason and espionage, and even with the methods and practices of the time, you might discover that the accused are innocent.
“Witchcraft” and “worshiping the devil” are not things you can really find any evidence for; and the investigation would just be hearsay interspersed with torture. It was extremely difficult to get your reputation cleared from an accusation as open to interpretation, and therefore difficult to fight, as practicing witchcraft.
You know, that’s why I liked Solomon Kane, for whatever faults it had. There was the whole tone of witch hunting, but with the threats being real. No statements on feminism or outliers, no deeply flawed criticism or a time long since past. Just a dude running around truly hunting actual witches and demons. The only hint of paganism was that hedge witch healer that told him her ways are what kept him alive and he dropped the whole thing and treated her with respect from that point.
That I rather enjoyed. Fighting monsters in a classic damsel in distress story considering how among people that want to spread a “message” would remove the fun bits and just throw message after message into our faces.
I prefer Solomon Grundy
Wait, that’s not Wilhelm Defoe in the first panel? o_O
Wilhelm Defoe is busy doing disturbing commercials wearing Marylin Monroe dresses and granny pants.
Why don’t they just eat the wood? (Unintended innuendo)
I mean, children in Africa eat wood to survive
Sister Claire eats wood all the time
I am pretty sure that if Jack Rakan or one of the Pillar Men flexed their Abs at the problem it would be solved XD
What is this movie even? They Tried to make a movie but just gave a show of what living back then was like and what kind beliefs they had without any Real plot going on?
“Tra-lalala! Tra-lalala! Chop the wood to light the fire!”
…..I just got an Undertale flashback moment. The ferryman.
The film is obviously open to multiple interpretations, but I’m not sure how you read the film as a condemnation of Thomasin, her physical/emotional development, or even the witches themselves. While the film does opt to present a world in which actual witches terrorize a Puritan family, it doesn’t become a traditional morality tale wherein noble Christians fight off the forces of Satan. Much of the conflict in the film is driven by the vices, paranoia, and misplaced blame of the family’s members. At worst, the witches are used in a similar vein as that of the undead in zombie films: they serve as the backdrop for an exploration of human failings.
Ultimately, I saw the film as about a family driven into exile by a father’s failure/pride (the exact cause of their exile is never made quite, but it seems to be strongly suggested that the father committed some crime or insisted on some set of heretical beliefs that he refused to recant for even his family’s sake) that eventually turns on itself in the face of hardship (even without a supernatural threat, the family seemed to be facing near-insurmountable odds: the father sold the mother’s silver cup for traps long before the baby’s disappearance). The lies, accusations, and betrayal that follows aren’t the fault of the witches (with the exception of the twins, who may have been directly misled and encouraged to turn against their sister), and they certainly aren’t attributed to Thomasin. As you point out, the father refuses to relinquish his pride to save his family, takes to chopping wood as a way of denying his impotence, and ultimately leaps at the opportunity to blame his children for his troubles when provided the opportunity. Thomasin, more than any other character, bears the brunt of her family’s collapse: her mother and father’s blame, the responsibility and hardship of caring for the youngest siblings, being objectified by her brother, etc. This ultimately culminates in the family’s decision to essentially sell her into servitude to support itself. While her final decision in the film may not be conventionally moral, all of her actions throughout the film are in self-defense. It may have cost her a soul, but she takes the only path to agency available to her at the end of the film.
Yeah, I got all that, it’s just all pretty Basic Witch Story For Beginners box cake mix.
And I mean, takes some of the impact out of the whole “the witches didn’t do this to them the family destroyed themselves” thing it seemed like they were half-heartedly going for when they kick off the movie by abducting and murdering a baby.
The theme, I thought, was “we make our own monsters.” While there are definitely evil witches out there, as well as Black Phillip, their goal appeared to be to recruit Thomasin. Her family’s pride and suspicious were what allowed Black Phillip to succeed in not just killing off the family but also getting him a name in his book because they were able to expose the ugliness in Thomasin’s family specifically so as to drive her away from everything that would keep her from signing the book
I think it, like so much cinema today, can be boiled down into a simplistic commentary on the war on terror: terrorists are real, but attempts to catch them that serve only to accuse anyone who looks vaguely mid eastern is only going to create the disenfranchisement that terrorist recruiters thrive upon.
While I think that’s a reasonable parallel to draw, I’m not convinced that the film is actually trying to depict the witches in a light that’s as negative as that which even American liberals apply to “terrorists.” In the same vein, I think we’re meant to see Thomasin’s final decision more as liberation than radicalization.
I don’t want to claim the film is pro-infanticide, but I think it’s interesting that all of the actual targets of the witches’ violence in the film are male. The family’s reaction to the male infant’s disappearance is telling, both because of the disproportionate value assigned to him (and later Caleb) compared to Thomasin and because of the tacit blame assigned to Thomasin for the loss (which we can assume would have been the case even if the infant had actually been lost to a wolf). As is typical of both Puritan society and our own, a–male–infant is more valued than a young woman (further highlighted by their subsequent willingness to get rid of her first via servitude and then via witch trial). Only Caleb seems to value her, and we’re led to believe that is at least partially due to her value to him as a sexual object. Only the witches offer a society in which women are allowed agency and valued for more than what they can contribute to a family or to men.
I’m admittedly ambivalent about the filmmaker’s decision to present real witches rather than an imagined threat. As was discussed in the comments above, it presents a problematically revisionist history of a real group of victims. That said, the wrongful accusations and persecution presented in the film aren’t made any less serious by the fact that there actually are witches in the world (just as, as the previous comment notes, the persecution of American Muslims isn’t justified by the existence of real terrorists). What’s more, I think the decision subverts the expectations of most audiences, who have come to–rightfully–view New England witch hunts as paranoid/exploitative. By immediately revealing witches as real and threatening, the stakes/terror of the family’s situation is made much more clear to us (compare this to a superficially similar film like The Village, which builds tension only by keeping the audience in the dark, only to reveal that it was all a trick to begin with). Moreover, the family’s dissolution is made all the more frustrating, as we know they should be dealing with the real threat rather than turning against one another. And ultimately, while the witches are a real threat, I don’t think we’re meant to see them as the real villains.
“I just think the idea of chopping wood topless as a means of escapism to ignore your family being consumed by witches is funny.”
Huh, can’t say I’ve heard anyone do that in a movie since Bill Murray in Moonrise Kingdom.
if there are problems that bare-chested woodcutting cannot solve he does not know nor want to know of them.
he has no time for such frivolities, the problems at hand WILL be solved with bare-chested woodcutting or By Bod they’ll not be solved at all!
Could they be solved by…naked woodcutting?
And pose downs!
There’s a bit of condemnation for the whole “witches as bad guys… again”, but heck, Drag Me To Hell had a freakin’ ‘old gypsy woman’ as its evil antagonist. Though that’s an awesome and considerably more light hearted film.
If you want supernatural ‘period’ stuff – check out ‘A Field in England’ – that film IS actually very clever and what is well researched soars above most viewer’s heads.
I actually really liked The Witch. I mean good acting all around, visually great, and the music built enough atmosphere that the audience were on the edge and scared of practically everything.
The way the movie was set up was almost like The Shining. Show something big near the beginning, then set enough mood through visuals and music that the movie is really scary without having something going on every single moment. I’m not saying The Witch is AS GOOD as The Shining, but I’d still say go see it if you’re a horror fan.
I feel like this is the sort of concept that would’ve worked better as a game, where all the period-accurate stuff could be explored as a matter of course instead of pressed directly into your face.
What? But it is a singular story. There’s not much to it physically. What would you do the whole game? “mash the spacebar for more wood” “choose which lie to tell your lil sister to scare her” “do QTE to say prayers properly”
Maybe it would be better as a book/journal that’s just a study of the historical period of witch hunts.
Wow, this line of discussion really does not credit its value as a film.
Jesus Christ this comment section has gotten heavy.
Or I guess we could point out that if the guy wants to make something for his kids out of wood then splitting the logs is not the right call.
Just give them uncut logs!
Hey kids, start jumping up and down like idiots! Because here’s Log! (from Blammo!)
(having a Ren and Stimpy moment)
Next comic: The settlers resort to hiring a Witcher. Geralt and Puritan Settler Dad both stand around with their shirts off for uncertain reasons.
Question not their methods, halfling!
At this point some sort of reversal would be more fun. A puritanical obsession with purging the sin out of boys as puberty sets in, but not even caring about girls or the fact the adults themselves went through the same thing.
First thing I was reminded of when seeing this comic is Sang-Froid, a Canadian videogame about a lumberjack back at the turn of the century (1900-ish era), who has to deal with werewolves.
The father only chops wood shirtless once, and the scene is about 10 seconds long. Having read your comic I expected to see this scene multiple times. Also, his shirt is removed by his daughter because he falls on some goat shit and it’s all over his shirt. Finally, when he is chopping wood shirtless, the family has no idea that a witch is terrorizing the family. The baby has disappeared, but everyone thinks it was a wolf. So he isn’t chopping wood topless in order to escape protecting his family from a witch.
It’s almost like it’s supposed to be a silly cartoon about something I thought was a funny moment of imagery compared to the rest of the film and not a serious literal comic adaptation of the movie or something.
There’s at least one more scene of him chopping wood after he’s locked the children in the shed. Also Thomasin calls him out on how his only skill seems to be chopping wood. So it’s not exactly like chopping wood is incidental to his character.
As a former teenage girl who has indeed gone through puberty, I found the comment that teenage girls going through puberty are “Scary and mysterious” singularly hilarious. Thanks for a good laugh.
Never really saw women as scary, even during the puberty phase. Then again, I tend to treat everyone the same, with no regards to redonk hormone levels going on during that time in EVERYONE’S life.
Hey Coelasquid, saw this news article and thought of your raptors
http://www.wcvb.com/news/mail-carrier-calls-for-help-after-wild-turkeys-surround-truck/38033716
I remember thinking it was silly when he kept chopping fire wood. When the whole “is that the only thing you know how to do?” question came up, I realized it was a pretty standard horror flick in Olde English.
I still kinda liked it though…
First panel very accurately captures the look on her face throughout the entire movie, lest some final moments.
Dat waife be hella ugleh yo!
Except that that never happened… Tired trope though it might be, it didn’t happen in this film. At no point was a link made between the girl’s puberty and the presumed witchcraft. I went into it expecting that to be a narrative device exclusively because I read this analysis, but the credits are rolling right now and it never, ever happened.
Girl’s hitting puberty, her brother’s making weird incesty eyes at her, her mother believes the word of two toddlers who talk to a goat they named after the devil over hers and wants to get her out and locked down in a marriage as fast as possible, said brother gets abducted/tortured by a sexy vampy lady out in the forest using her sexy vampy sexiness to prey on little boys. Family in shambles, she goes off to dance naked in the forest with the other
empowered free womenwitches who literally murder babies and seduce little boys.I dig it because I see it as a film less about how female sexuality is the devil and more that acting like it is why we can’t have nice things. Also, for me the good acting just carries. I actually give a shit about these people, and that’s a good 70% of the battle.
And I’ve been craving a horror flick about folkloric witches, so this is basically a junkie saying that this batch is particularly good. Probably true, but a biased source.
PS: I’m going backwards through the archives and I’d send beams of healing light at you if I did that kind of thing. Stay strong and wear that Kurgan scar with pride.
So, been a few months. You remember this one?
Too busy with things that matter to waste more time on it.
This is so freaking brilliant. xD
I have an alternate theory: the whole movie is the family falling into delirium from sickness or possibly they have ingested some ergot.
I like to think that they did actually have secret “witch” neighbors, specifically a cunning woman and her family. Which was a really good thing, because the entire movie is the families increasing delirium as they get more and more ill.
The cunning woman’s family *has* been taking the kids starting from smallest to biggest in order to treat them before they die of sickness. Next step was getting the parents but depending how much of that ending was the daughter’s fever they might have been too later??
Note: as to why they would be hidden cunning wo/men are a pre-christain tradition of folk medicine, so the puritans found them far too pagan-y. Also one of the largest groups burned besides women, were medical practitioners.
And the dad seems kind of unstable at the best of times, so that’s a hard pass.