Horror Roundtable: The VVitch

you could give us anytime. So, Noel, when you got up for a minute and left the room, it was just the three of us left to talk about you, and we posed the question, when was the last time you had on hard pants? Not so, I'm sorry? Hard pants? Is that a thing? Did you like wooden pants like wicker Man style? You know? Yeah, you know? I gosh, you're making me, really putting me on the spot here. I mean, look, these are comfy, uh kind of puma type shorts, you know. I wear them when I'm around

the house. I've I've occasionally dawned a pant. I've been known to donn a pant. But why who cares? Why bother unless you're going you know, out or something, and most of us aren't doing too much of that. But I've I've I've well, I've been out and I wore a pant, but you know what, I've also been out

and worn these shorts. So to roll the dice, folks get well, We're here to kick off our official Halloween season on the Friday at ish with the two film The Witch Uh Colon, a New England folk tale, and that is from the great at the time new writer and director Robert Eggers, who was quickly established himself as

one of the new masters. I think we can all loogree, right absolutely, And let's just go around with our our history here of seeing this movie and how many times and when the first time was Lauren and I saw it together for the first time. If I'm not mistaken, I believe so, yeah, at Midtown Arts Cinema. I think it was one of huh yeah, we um. It's one

of the movies that we like stumbled out of. And I don't know what day or a month or year or time of day it was at the time, seems like so long ago, but but yeah, we stumbled out and we were like, okay, we need a whiskey about this, and so like just stumbled directly to the Highlander, the Little bar next door and proceeded to drink about it. Just go like, what just happened? What happened to our faces? That's amazing, Annie, what about you? I also saw it

in theaters at Midtown Arts. I think I saw it a couple of times. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I've since seen it enough. I know. We jokingly said when we chose this movie in our email chain that the three of us Lauren Nolan I could just quote it um, which is probably true. But I watched it again nonetheless, because I'm always going to be prepared and I will always take an excuse to rewatch it and over on stuff I've never told you. The other podcast I do, we did a whole episode on it, um, so I'm

quite familiar. Well, that's perfect. I saw it in New York City when it came out, muting my computer. And uh, there is a story in there that I've said before on the show to both Nolan the movie crushers. But when we get to that part, I will retell it for your benefit. But I saw in New York and then that was the only time I had seen it until again last night. And are you ready to live deliciously? Everyone? The line that spawned a thousand cross stitches. Have you

seen me? There's a bunch of them with like little goati's with like live deliciously. Maybe it's not a thousand, but definitely a few of the I'd say a thousand. Yeah, I've I've got a T shirt that says that, and it's got a cute little goat on it. Absolutely. Yeah. The newest season of what we do in the Shadows, there's a black Philip. It's clearly black Philip. Right, He's like an all was washed out goat. I wish I had a photo to show you. I have goats that

live across the street. I was raised with goats. I had goats as pets a couple of different times when I was a kid. And then I have goats across the street from my house here and that. There have been up to ten at various times. Now they're down to two. But one of the two, uh is it? You know? He looks like a black Philip. He's a big boy. Um. He has a habit of been pregnating all the lady goats. So there's been little babies here

and there. There's a lady over there there's pregnant, right, now, but he has the horns that curl out to the side. Oh yeah, very creepy. Look yeah, it's sort of different than Black Philip. But I call him black Philip, but everyone else in our house calls him Billy of course. Yeah, chuck. When you when you just set up to ten goats, in my mind immediately the phrase up to ten goats agree, satan is cool? He's nine out of tints. Well, yeah, there's no outl or they all agree to as many

as ten. Okay, okay, by the way, for in town Atlanta, you can have you can only have ten goats, So that's is that true? That is true? Ten farm animals? Now in your experience, because I've never really hung out with goats, Um are are they chill? Is this like? Did you have a good experience with these pets as a child. Yeah, oh yeah, they're great. And they were raised in the outdoor pin with my dogs, so they

were very doglike and very playful. And uh the one my one goat, Nestor had he was de horned before we got him, but he didn't know that, so he still played Billy goat games with me. So I would put my head up against his head and we would push back and forth and kind of a reverse tug of war, and he would get up on his hind legs like Philip does and like butt down at me and stuff. It was a lot of fun. They're great.

That is so darling, I've heard. I've heard that in contrast, the the Goat actor who played Black Philip was an actual unholy terror on set, just the worst co star. Um that the rabbit was super chill. Black Philip not so much, right, Chuck. You think you buried the lead real quick. Nestor is that of the biblical Nestor? Is that? Like? I don't know. I'm not sure who in my family named him Nestor, but we had Nestor and Ramesses and then later on I think another goat. But nest there

was really my love. He was the best. Nestre is an interesting name. I don't think I've ever met anyone or met a pet named Nester. So yeah, well there you have it. Nester's long gone. One of the kind. Apparently, when Heracles invaded the country of Nilius, he slew his son's Nestor alone was spared. I'm just gonna start calling you Nolopedia. Yeah, that's yeah, that was actually not that was from Bible history dot com. Just egg on my face,

goat smolk on my face. Uh. So this is, like I said, subtitled a New England folk tale and I kind of forgot that part until that title screen came up. And it really is a folk tale and all the best, most rich ways and in that sort of folk tale tradition. Uh. And one of my favorite things that I jumped onto last night was how quickly and this movie was an hour and a half and it could have been a

two hour film. There could have been a whole first act that really detailed their life before they left, but it just jumps right into that premise of them being basically expelled from whatever colony they're in. Yeah. The first time I saw it with the witch shows up immediately because I thought like maybe there isn't a witch and you're like, oh my god, they're yeah, yeah, yeah, they waste no time. It's like twenty seconds after that baby

first disappears, they're like, Noah, which took it. That's what's going on, let's see, And then they drop that line for like forty five minutes and you're like, did I hallucinate it, Am I hallucinating what's going on here? Which line, the line about the witch, the the entire just storyline of like it's just normal family drama for forty five minutes, and I'm like, cool, thank you. Yeah, I was surprised.

You know, it's a different approach to play it, uh that way and not play it out longer and build that suspense. Yet it is totally suspenseful, sill because I guess you do sort of wonder whether or not there really is a witch, even though it shows that which, you know, crushing up that baby and rubbing it all over her body and one of the more disturbing parts

of a very disturbing movie. But I also feel like there was some restraints involved in the movie just in general, Like it only showed the which a couple of times.

That sequence is obviously incredible, and then you see her taking flights, you know, against the moon or whatever, and all of that and all of this, you know, the folk tale part of it is interesting because it is based in you know, folklore, the idea of which is creating this like ointment that they can use to coat themselves and their brooms that give them the power of flight, which in you know, uh, folklore and history is also like the thought to be hallucinogenic. And there's definitely some

hallucinogenic elements in this movie. And it even implies at times maybe that there was a rot on their crops that was that or got poisoning situation that was involved in the Salem witch trials. Potentially that has like an LSD type uh component to it. Interesting, I didn't pick up on that, so uh yeah. So so one of the lines of thought is that is that there is no witch and that this family suffering suffering from like mass hallucination maybe but but but but but yet there

it's not like you're seeing everything through their perspective. All the witch stuff is just you're there with the witch. So the implication to me would be that that which is damn real. Um, but they also might have their madness might have been furthered by this hallucinogenic contamination or something like that. I don't know a lot of fun ways to look at it, for sure, I love it. Um. Let's talk about the cast. It's it's a very cheap

way to make make a movie. I think they spent about four million bucks against a forty to fifty million dollar take, which is a very big hit in those terms. But the cast is so perfect. Um. I think that's the first time that we had all seen Anya Taylor Joy, wasn't it before the Night Channelain movie she was in. Yeah, he was awesome. That face, those big she just looks

so perfect. Yeah. That that beautiful first shot that you really get of her when she's at prayer in the beginning of the movie and she's like, bless me father, for I have sin, I've done all of this terrible stuff. And you're looking at this beautiful, perfect darling face in in this time and place where like, clearly this this tiny child has done nothing, but it's so fearful. Um, and it just really kicks on and she's great. She's

great in it, like like what a little shit kicker. Gosh, I love how fired up she gets by the end of the film. And then we have Ralph Innison. Um, fans of the original BBC Office you know know him. Well, it's so great. He was the asshole character, right, he was like sort of yeah, he was always playing pranks and being a misogynist, a douche bag. He's so good, and there's there's just uh, there's I mean, they they they're great actors, but there's something about casting certain looks

for time periods. And all of them boys, especially that mom, I mean look like they just stepped right off the colony, you know. Oh yeah yeah, And Kate Dickie is so strong, like I I just can't well, Hey, I feel a little bit bad because I'm at this point. I'm like, you're getting typecast is like weird breastfeeding mama and this is this is right because you do something else Game of Thrones. Yeah. Yeah, she played um oh gosh, the lady of the Eerie who continues breastfeeding her son until

he's like thirteen. So yeah, okay, I'm not gonna judge. Her name is like Lisa or something like that. There you go. That's I didn't watch Game of Thrones. I know that makes me weird, not at all. It's not. It's not for everybody, but quite enjoyed it until you know,

I didn't anymore. Uh. We got Harvey Scrimshaw as Caleb, who, boy, I read a big I read an article I think it was maybe Film School Rejects, just about that one scene and Edgar's was talking about how nervous he was, because it's eleven pages in a in a not super long script, very big chunk of the script, and that possession I guess scene for lack of a better description, and it is just so fucking great. Man. I I don't know how that boy brought that. And and they

were in such a tight space. He was talking about shooting it with all those cast members in there, and those two little ship head twins you kind of want to die or disappear. And I say that as a loving bother, but they're all packed in this space. And he was like, I knew that we just had to um, we had to block around them because it's all about them bringing the performance. And he really did. Yeah. Yeah. Every time I watched that, I'm like, wow, did they

what did they tell him to do? And they talked about soccer, they did. They said, you know some of the stuff that felt sort of overtly sexual. He's he was getting him kind of fired up about soccer and stuff like that. That's the thing too about like a director, like you know, to be able to direct like blocking and all of the period accurate stuff, and then also to be able to direct like kid like that and just you know, such a tight cast with the weird

period dialogue. Like that's what really sets this dude a part, in my opinion, is like his ability to just be the full package, you know, and what a scene and then he pukes up the apple and all of that stuff. Iconic moment. Really, honestly, this movie I think we can already call a classic and say his iconic. So many

things about it. Yeah, you mentioned that script. Let's talk about that because as we all know that he he did I think several months worth of research before he even started putting his little fingers on the keyboard, and it really shows. And it was for a first movie too.

It's a very brave, bold move, I think. Yeah, I feel like the first time that I watched it, it took me about the length of that opening kind of like court sequence where the family is being banished um to to to really get into um into the linguistics of that dialogue, and then I kind of forgot about it for the rest of the film the first time I was watching it. But now every time I go back, it's just so it's just really beautiful and in the way that the actors managed to wrangle it and especially

the kids, what are they doing? I'm like, how dare they be so good? How dare the yeah? And the uh? Have you have you all watched it with subtitles or not? I have in a subsequent viewing with with a friend. Yes, it's you know, I mean, if you've if you've seen it a few times, I would recommend it because it's there's a lot of stuff in there that I have missed before, and a lot of little subtleties. But um,

it definitely helped, but it is distracting, of course. I would definitely say, like, at this point you can take your eye away from the screen enough to read those Oh sure, yeah it was Ellie Granger and who's that other little kid that's one of the twins, When Lucas Dawson is Jonas. They're disturbing and unsettling. Everything adds an air of unsettledness. Yeah, And I do love a kids are Creepy troupe because I mean kids are creepy so uh that you don't know what's going on in their heads.

They're they're they're people, but not yet I don't know, like what's going on with that? Yeah, the first time I saw it, I never ever thought Black Philip was real, and so when the Twins came on, I thought they were just being annoying, Like I really was, like jeez. But then in the end it turns out, yeah, it is the implication that the devil Goat was whispering to the chill dren and getting them to do things, and yeah, okay, yeah, I mean the whole family kind of turns at the

end of that. That's the scariest part to me is I've never ever so we all grew up hearing about like the Salem witch trials, but this is the first time I watched something. I was like, oh my god, you could not prove that you weren't a witch, and how terrifying that is. And like, the whole family turns against thomasin and she's just so isolated. And that's what Black Philip wanted is just see, see the society has failed you. Now come this way, have some butter, the

taste of butter. He never promises her butter, but I'm out, I'm out a little dipping in a butter turn. Uh. Yeah, there's there's something about a One of my favorite kinds of movies is small cast, isolated setting and everyone slowly losing their minds one by one. It's such an effective set up, and we've seen it time and time again, but it works so well here because, like you were saying, any all, all someone has to do is, especially after they start kind of spiraling out of control mentally, is

you know, she's our sisters a witch? And she squirted blood from that goat, which happened I guess rightly? Was she a witch? I mean, I know she became one, but I mean, you know that the goat could have just had blood in its milk. Um, that could have been just a normal natural medical thing. Um. She also found that chicken egg, the that that broken egg that was an unborn chicken. But you know it's it's it

could have been just black Philip fucking with them, right. Yeah, Squirting blood is a good classic creepy thing to do. You know, if I were Lucifer in the Sevres, blood coming out of he says, where non blood thing should be coming out, like yeah, like in it, crying blood or like in it when she turns on the faucet and blood comes out or whatever, or it even actually makes use of a creepy chicken embryo situation that comes

out of the fortune cookie in the Chinese restaurant. So the implication is that like a bedeviling force is wreaking havoc on on on everything you know, and causing things to be unnatural and yeah, you know, you know evil in some way. Well, what was your take, Annie, the first time you saw it? Do you remember if you were weighing whether or not she was an actual witch, because that's kind of what they're playing out, you know through a lot of this movie. I don't. I never

thought she was a witch. Um, I did think that. I never ever suspected Black Philip. I just assumed like this witch was waiting for them to kill themselves or something like take each other out. Um. But like even in the scene where she's threatening Mercy and she's like, I am the Witch of the id, be the witch of the woods, and I'll eat you in what ever, I was just like, you know, this is a frustrated young girl who doesn't have much avenue for power or

agency in any other way, and she's tasting this power. Um. And that's what always gives me about horror movies. As I get there's this line of being empowered to these female characters. But even if you taste that power, if you accept that, people are so afraid of you, they're so afraid of which is, they'll kill you for it. Like then you can't prove that you're not. So why not accept it? Why not take the label? But then

they'll kill you for it either way, I guess. So, how how do you think the Witch figured into all of this? Because the Which is clearly not the focus.

It's the devil. I mean, it's sort of like a bait and switch, right, So the Which exists on the periphery, but isn't necessarily Like how what where's the connection to from the Witch to black fill up to the relationship with thomasin I think the Witch was there, you know, his sort of agents of evil, and she was the first step in, uh start like driving this wedge and

what's going to destroy this family? And also you get a baby that's not baptized out of it, which I hear satan bonus, But yeah, that that's how you get to this, to this impressionable young girl as you drive her family apart through just just a just an innocent babe stealing, simple direct to the point, right, yeah, get through the scariest game of peekaboo in movie history. I mean, as a filmmaker, there's there's something so effective about these little,

simple shots. Whether it's that baby is gone and that look on her face you see it on her face first, or a very slow camera push into the forest with that droning score, or the ability to make a fucking rabbit look scary just just looking at your face. You know that rabbit looks scary. I've never been so upset by a rabbit in my life. I mean, I get the goat because those sideways, sideways pupils, that's what does it.

That's what it really gets people. And then that first shot of Philip is so great when it uh someone's got a steadicam and he's just like kind of bucking and jumping around through the yard, like right away that he that's just like, this goat is not right, everybody,

this is a bad goat. Um yeah, yeah, yeah. And and the I was thinking as I was just rewatching it, about about that camera movement and about that score, because because the score is so barren um, it's really only in these big dramatic moments that it comes in so huge um. But but the rest of the time, it's just silence. It's just watching these actors chew their lines

in the best possible way. And the camera movement is is sort of similar, like like a lot of the time the camera is very still, just just really letting these scenes play out, um intill Yeah, like until I don't know, like like almost like um, you know, using the movement to to to to show what's going on in someone's head, almost as though he's a filmmaker. Strange, unusual. But it also doesn't have any like crazy editing tricks.

It's all really matter of fact, and even like the thomasin Perspective shot or whatever, is super straightforward and and and and to me, it's a lot of it really has to do with the lighting from of the indoor stuff. It all looks like a Caravaggio paintings, you know, uses this kind of curescirl lighting to give it this sort of holy quality. But then of course that's all turned on its head by making it, you know, unholy. Um. But it's really it was literally candled it at times.

I mean they may have had some supplemental lighting, but some of those shots it looks like practical candles, which I know something Kuberc has done before. UM know that that dinner scene, UM where her mother accuses Thomasin of stealing the cup. UM. Edgar's talks in the in the director's commentary about he's so dear. If you have not listened to the director's commentary, he seems like the sweetest,

nerdiest human person on the planet. It's so darling because he's just like, he just goes on this rant for that entire scene. He's like, you know, it really would have been more historically accurate to do a single braided candlewick. But I just wasn't getting I wasn't getting enough light out of it. I really needed more lights. So we we triple braided the wicks. I'm so sorry. We just we just had to use and I was just like,

what are you doing? I love you if every time I watched that scene, I think how dark it is? Look at this? Yeah, yeah, and that's it also accomplishes that thing where it's beautiful and UM looks great, but the things in the shadows that could be there that are never there really in this movie. But you add that drone e score and audience up to to expect whatever is coming your way. Yeah, the film takes up a lot of space like um, like the in in a lot of horror um. Some of the fear comes

from like a confinement and a closing in. But but I feel I feel like the scariest moments for me are just these shots of the woods that are so vast and you just feel so lonely, um and and separated and just I don't know, like the idea of living out there like that, like hoof, hoof, I would start accusing my sisters a being, which is too I

don't know. Like that's another thing that this movie made me really appreciate about history that I've learned but have never really thought of, Like how frightening it would be if you did come to these new colonies you don't know what to expect, and it's harsh and how are

you literally going to survive? And in that scene, like in that dinner scene, it's so dark and I kept thinking, you know, those candles go out and it's just darkness and emptiness and that's it, and how like ominous and foreboding and over that there's hanging like we don't have food and we don't know, if we're gonna get food and we don't know why there's not food and how to fix it, Like all of this stuff that's just had to have been like the actual life people lived

when they first came here, and like the one thing kind of holding them together is the power of belief, you know, and God, and that's the thing that's tested through all these ordeals they're going through and ultimately taken from them, I mean, Thomas, and you know, like you said, the first scene you see with her is more her presenting that fear mongering aspect of religion, and that continues to be a thread, you know, But for the father and the mother, I think it's more of a comforting

aspect perhaps, but that's obviously taken from them, and it's sort of bastardized that that their belief and it's turned on them. It's you weaponized against them, you know. Yeah.

He kind of admits at the end too, and that one great scene where he's just sort of has that monologue, I guess that's probably that's right before Philip takes care of business, right where he sort of admits it was his pride and not like some divine calling to bring his family out there and uh, you know when they first get there too, that great shot of them just like thanks, so thankful that they came to this place. Yeah, the sun shall not shine here, no, not once. Yeah,

and his i mean, his pride. This whole movie they spend blaming Thomason, but really he's the one that got them kicked out because he was arrogant. He thought he knew more about religion than anybody else and refused to hear anything else. He's the one that got them out there. And then he's just constantly proving that he's failing and it's unwilling to see it or admit it, and let's Thomason be blamed for it over and over. So finally

it's like he was such a religious pious man. He finally like confesses, oh, it's my pride, and then black Philips like, yep, now I'm gonna kill you. Pride cometh

before the fall into a stack of fucking logs. The only thing he did shopping that was pretty great, Like that was his undoing in the end, the huge wall of logs just dumbling us and you know, the the goat holes in his stomach, right, yeah, go gourd so so the colony that they came from, I'm sorry that whatever the town in England, they would have been Reform Christians. And then he was a Puritan. Is that sort of the deal? Or I think they're Puritans, right, Yeah, they're Puritans,

but he's like way intense period. Yeah, they're they're like whoa, Like the other Puritans are like woe dude. So they were Puritans too. He was just like an extremist, escensional Okay,

so it wasn't a Calvinish yeah, uh yeah. I mean it's interesting because he I think he thinks he's a good dad and a good provider because he's very I think he's very conflicted because is at times he is a good father and he is destroyed when his uh baby son and when Caleb is gone, and when he when he finally has that moment where he meets up with thomasin in the woods, like you really get a sense of how genuine it it is that he's found her, but he has he also sold her down the river

about that goddamn cup. Yeah, and admitted it. But it's like like an he said, like he's he makes all the wrong moves, that's right. Yeah, pride. Yeah, I don't know. And it's so like like some of some of the some of the things that he says, um are just so dire, like like even about even about uh uh, this god in this religion that that he is so steeped in. Like there's there's one line where he's like his son maybe in the woods. Oh, I mean all

of it, all of it. Like I mean the two that the two that super stood out to me and I wrote them down. Um. One of them was a quick little throw away line. He's like, oh, yeah, of course everyone else is still asleep on a gray day. The devil holds fast your eyelids. I was like, what, Like, holy, that is the direst fucking way of thinking about sleeping in. I know, then why is it so gloomy? Because that

makes me want to sleep in. I didn't want to research on the religion, like when I did this episode for Sminty on the religious what would be going on? And at the time, it was like a moral good. Drudgery was a moral good. So you wanted, like to be miserable essentially proved that you were a good person. Well, he said, the rain doesn't he said, the rain doesn't bother me, you know, when he was going to go

in the middle of the night, Dude, it is fucking pouring. Yeah, and thomasin when she's like, like you said, Lauren, and she's confessing all those things that sound like she's just basically confessing to I'm not miserable all the time and I'm a kid and feeling bad for it. And she's really the only one in this soup a religious family that has that sort of confession moment um. She's also other than going off on Mercy that one time, I'd

be the witch of the woods. Um. Other than that, though she does that was a brady child and she deserved it. Um Mercy started it. But but but now, other than that is like the only bad thing that Thomason does the entire film. Literally everything else is just a reaction to what's being thrown at. She's trying so hard to be good and devoted and like and like her little brother is lusting after her, and her dad is is a dick, and her mom is mean to her,

and I think like covetous of her youth. And what was your other line, Lauren that you had picked out again at that dinner scene when when the father is doing that prayer. One of the things that he says, and I don't know if this is like a traditional thing to say or not, but it really struck me. He says, um, let us finish soon our days of sin and be like released up into the Lord's what's

you're the only one sin? And Lauren. A minute ago I mentioned the scene about when he and his son go hunt or whatever, and there's a really similar line to that that actually answers that question. Um. He this is a little back and forth. Or he says to his son, art thou then born a sinner? And Caleb says, I, I was conceived in sin and born in iniquity, And William says uh, and what is thy birth sin? And Caleb says, Adam, sin imputed to me, and a corrupt

nature dwelling within me. And then William says, well, remembered Caleb very well. And then he goes and canst thou tell me what thy corrupt nature is? And then Caleb says, this is the kicker. My corrupt nature is empty of grace, bent unto sin, only unto sin, And that continually, and I was like a wrote lesson like that was something that he was clearly heating from memory. Yeah, yeah, it's uh, I mean I grew up Southern Baptist and it's obviously

nothing like this. But um, so much and you know on my religious soapbox, but so much damage has done to kids at a young age. Um, whether it's stuffing really heavy like this back in the six hundreds or a kid growing up in the eighties being taught that, uh, you know, nudity is ugly and dirty and sex is wrong and dirty, and you know that stuff is still being bandied about and two two children, Um, and and

it's funny. And you mentioned earlier something I wanted to talk about that really really hit me last night was that for all the horror and the witchiness and the double goats, this movie is such a family drama. And Egger's I think was so wise to include so much of that stuff because it really made it accessible to

an audience like that. The scene that really got me is when they were overhearing them downstairs fighting, and like I think we we can all probably point to at some point in our childhood that feeling of insecurity you have as a kid hearing your parents go at it in the other room. Um, and like that's something we can all identify with, whether it's sixteen hundreds New England

or or like modern times. Yeah. Absolutely, Like it's strange, it feels so removed in some ways because they are speaking so differently than us and clearly like the technologies are there, and but there are things like that that you can just relate to. I have been there. I remember this terror and like this feeling of powerlessness. What am I going to do? And in this case, they're talking about giving her like giving her away another family. Really, yeah,

serve another families. I think it's what they said. Yeah, it's like or you could just be parents. No, and it specifically because they think she's like gone astray, right or like is in way whether you know a witch. Not yet they're not really quite thinking that yet. There's more thinking that she's sort of a bad egg. I think they just need to make money and they're just like, well, what else have we got that's worth something? Our kid? Yeah, we can just made We'll give her away as a

maid or yeah. Yeah, and no, you can't say bad egg in this movie because we've already talked about the bad egg. Very true about bad bad seed the literal bad egg. Well the bad seed was the corn keep going bad apple? We got one of those two. Holy shit, I think we just picked up on something does well. The whole movie is really about corruption, though, you know,

it's about being corrupted and being susceptible to corruption. And you do see that in like the crops that are withering and causing them to like you know, not have their livelihood or their ability to survive, and then that

slowly causing them to go mad. Just the fear and then the isolation and then the ability to be corrupted spiritually and this fear of the devil being ever awhere and being susceptible to that corruption and fighting against it, when ultimately you're creating this problem that maybe doesn't even exist, only in this case it did exist, which is interesting. Um. Yeah,

I don't know, it's a lot. Yeah, you know, I think and I think all of the corruption comes back to this like toxic masculinity of of the father and also of the religion that the father subscribes to Um and just everything that he's trying to do. That there's a there's a couple of scenes that that scene where um thomasin winds up yelling at him, um um is that true? Like like like what about that, dad? All you're good for is cutting wood? Dad? And it's about

to shake her head off her neck right now. Now. That was a very powerful scene and I think we all needed that scene. Yeah. I do want to say that this movie when it came out, it partnered with um the is it the Satanic Temple? Uh? Yes? And they called it like a story about feminine independence and how I mean, so many which movies are seen as like a feminist tale, but a lot of times the which does end up as a victim. And they were saying, like in this case, another author called it a feminist

kick in the balls. And because she is, she's like, she's so like you said, Lauren, she's trying to be a good daughter. She's trying to fit in the system. It's continuously being blamed, continuously had fear like cast upon her, and no one's even concerned that maybe she has like fears of her own. They don't care, Like she's the witch. It's the easy way out. Let's blame this young girl

who's transitioning into womanhood and how threatening that is. And then in the end, when she's sort of out of options, she becomes this thing I'm afraid of the whole time. It looks happy and empowered for the first time in the movie. Oh, in that in that horrifying final shot where she's just in this like terrible ecstasy. Oh gosh, I just got him. I just got him. Literally just you even invoking that moment. Yeah, I mean one of the bad one of the most badass final shots and

sequences in movie history. I remember sitting in the theater in New York and like once that happened, and then the movie was over, kind of like this silence where everyone was just like a collective what the fuck falling over the theater, like what did we just see? It was such a great payoff. He had to he had

to do it that way. You can't tease it out anymore, like show those witches man and And I think the implication there is that they're all flying in a big way because they mashed up those twins, right, Oh, I didn't think about that. Maybe that's what I took from it was they're all the twins disappeared too, right, that's right. Yeah, they're all super flighty at the end. Because I think they're wearing uh Jonas and Mercy didn't even super powerful

twin June. That's a two for one deal, right, double the flight power. That is the first time she didn't kill them. Thomason didn't like. I don't know. I mean those goats were dead too, those that goat carcass. Yeah, there was a goat carcass, but I don't if they if there was an implied Twins carcasses, I don't remember it. I think they just think they were just gone. They they were announced to have kind of been vanished. I

believe at some point they disappeared or whatever. So because some I think some people think it's a loose end and I do not interesting twin Juice yea. The production design, it's just amazing. It's feels so authentic in this and the Lighthouse, which I'm sure we've all seen. Uh, there's a um the extra work that you put in as

a director to make it so real really pays off. Uh. And it's just such a fun world to set a movie in with those rickety carts and that was so overstuffed, and and the Witch's hovel in the woods was just like you want to run away from from it, but you also want to like poke your head in to see what's in there. Yeah, and it's just dark enough that there's like this urge of I want it to be lighter, but do I do? I really want to

see more? Man, it looks so good and all the like texture of of the of the clothing, and there's so much rough wood in that film. It's really beautiful. And I remember when I was reading about how it's made because it's so like neutral. A lot of it's kind of dark and neutral. And some days they would just wait for clouds, like they wouldn't film on sunny days, and it caused like this huge hold up or like

where's the bad weather? Where these clouds? I know you had, I mean I read I read that too that he had to kind of stay in that gray palette. Yeah, and you can do some stuff to fake it, but if it's a sunny day, you can't. It's really hard to fake that believable way. He said, the crew was not very happy on this on this shoot. Imagine the same for the light. Oh gosh, I imagine the same for the lighthouse. It's like making his crew pretty miserable. Yeah,

suffering for the art. Yeah it works, Oh it does. Yeah, because just all of those neutrals and the only pop of color that you ever get is the reds the like five times that it's like it's like blood or um or or little dream baby Sam's wrappings when he comes back, and the Witches, except it's not a dream because our boob is bleeding. Oh my heck. Anyway, young young sexy witch, young sex. Yeah, yeah, Apple and the Apple. Let's let's talk about the the breastfeeding scene because that

is where my New York story comes in. Uh. And like I said, I've told this story before to null in the audience, but for you too, seeing movies in New York is the best. I don't know if you've ever done it, because you never know what you're gonna get because New York. But um, that movie had built up so much tension up to that point, and it was a pretty crowded theater and I was by myself, and that showed the shot of the crow pecking away at her breast and this woman like tin rose in

front of me. All you hear is and really loudly, that is so fucked up, And everybody broke out in laughter. The whole theater. I think we all wanted to like hug that lady because it's like we needed that so much, and it broke the ice and everyone just started laughing, and it was just one of those great sort of movie moments where talking back to the screen really kind of helped out. Oh yeah, I adore that kind of thing.

That that's what I truly miss about seeing um and especially horror films with a live audience, because when when you get that break intension, it's so beautiful and such a like like human collect to experience. No, I miss it so much. It's a there's a different you know, sitting around watching movies at home is fun and all, but that whether it's comedy or horror, those seemed to be the kind of two that really lends itself to

the collective experience. Yeah, we're all sad. So he has that one great scene where you know, she tells him off and everything, and he's going to take her in to be tried as a witch, like that's the plan, right, and and locks him in there with Black Philip. Little does he know that was a big fat mistake, like literally locking them in a room with the devil. Uh, and and when it's revealed, I don't think you ever see his face, do you? Or does it show his

face briefly? Oh the like human form of black? Yeah, No, you don't see his face. But I don't know if this is maybe it's just really good at suggesting what he looks like. But I feel like, I knowbody looks it's super handsome. I think, yeah, yeah, dark hair, dark guys grows. Yeah, because you see his boot and you

see his glove and that's it. And then you just f no and you get that beautiful voice and whatever whatever audio effects that they were doing where it's just kind of coming from everywhere and inside you at the same time. Yeah, it was pretty surrupy. I will guide the hand Man. The first time I watched this, I remember at this part, I was like, what the fuck? So there w black Philip was satan Wow. Well, and

again it's about this payoff. This movie has such great payoffs, uh, because you're sort of wondering the whole time, and then yeah, when that reveal happens, it's just it's like a gift to the audience, you know, like, I'm not going to

leave you guesting anymore. Here here, you are, Well, that's what's so clever about introducing the witch early on and kind of leaving it be, because then I just assumed, well, it's all the bitch must be the witch, there's nothing else beyond that, and then at the end it's like, no, actually there's a lot of witches and they're satan. So yeah, the way mom gets it too is so brutal, yet somehow satisfying because I get the feeling that one of them was going to walk out of their dead, you know,

in that confrontation. Oh yeah, um it killed. That seem kills me every time because when when her mom first pushes her down Thomas and is like it is like no, I love you, I love you, I love you, like fight like fighting her off, and I'm just like that

was brutal. Who uh yeah, I mean she's fighting for her literal life and also trying to like I mean, you think it's hard dealing with parents like when we were growing up, Like imagine this like calvinist puritanical ship to where you you can't even have a real conversation and yeah, yeah, I mean it's so sad because she is just kind of pleading with her mom. Don't you love I love you, I love you, don't you love me?

And that kind of throughout comes up of how her mom is so ready to throw her under the bus and under the car here, right, I should be period accurate in my idioms that I use um and she has this insecurity of does her mother actually love her? Can she find favor in her eyes? Yeah, it's such a I mean again with this in the Lighthouse, I think we're seeing the beginnings of a career. That's just you know, we're all going to be seeing his movies on like the first weekend that they come out. I

think he's making like a Viking movie next. And I heard that and I was like, of course he is perfect. Sure he will never make a contemporary peace and why should he when like, you see something like this and you just think, why is in every horror movie a period a movie? This is so funny because it's not. But recently I just did a research on a period

supernatural horror which it's actually about menstruation. But every time I say it, people think I'm talking about this, and I always have to explain no, so that that that the period, not the period that Yeah, yeah, it's like that period. It's like that joke, have you seen there will be blood? And they're like, yeah, it's a period piece. A great way to wrap this one up. Does anyone else have anything on their list? I mean, I think

we kind of covered it. No, Just that it is so interesting that this guy is really sticking in this lane. Obviously with the historical accuracy stuff is obviously a much more challenging thing to do for film, but he's also managed to keep it pretty tightly laser focused, even with like the Lighthouse. I wonder if became as the Lighthouse was also such a success, if maybe this Viking movie is going to broaden that world a little bit and go massive with it. Um, I'm sure you can do

that too. But really interesting economy of filmmaking and in terms of the way he uses locations, and I mean, lighthouse wasn't cheap, you know, they had to build that lighthouse and do all that stuff and make sure they get the cameras in places, and but he seems to know where to spend his money, you know. Uh. And I think he's ambitious for sure. Yeah, I mean, just one of the new geniuses. He's Uh. I can't wait to see what he does. I mean, I know, all

I know is Vikings. I'm sure it'll be a lighthearted romp. Actually have two quotes, Can I share? One of those? My favorite of all time about Okay, so one Diane Cohen when she was writing about this, she said, the real horror and Robert Egger's new film Levich a new income folktell isn't satanic goats, baby abduction or even the fariest witches in the woods is all limited and punishing road to womanhood. Yeah, now here's my favorite quote. This is from the Malleus Malfacarum. Do you all know what

that is? It's like a tomb, It's like a grimoire, right kind of Yes, it was a bestseller witch hunting book from It was written by Catholic inquisitors, and there was this fear at the time, and this is legit that women were cutting off men's penises for their own personal use. So it's like bookmarks or what. No, here's the quote. Okay, how as it were, which is deprived

man of his virile member? And what then is to be thought of those which is who in this way sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as twenty or thirty members together and put them in a bird's nest or shut them up in a box where they move themselves like living members and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many and as a matter of common report. Wow, Yeah, they thought they were a penises like pets and feeding them because it was a

matter of common report. Wow. And you know, it's it's funny because you can say, oh, back then then they were so crazy with how they did things, but you can draw direct lines to modern society and ways that the same things are happening that don't seem quite as crazy on the surface, but are still still have the same means to the same end. You know. Yeah, they were so afraid that women could have sexual pleasure by themselves.

But I mean, I laugh at this, But a hundred thousand people did die in these two centuries because they were suspected of being which is of them were women? Wow? So there were there were male witches? Oh yeah, they could be pretty rare though. I wonder if some of those men were gay men. Very likely not, I wonder.

I'm sure probably feminate in whatever way was considered yeah, equally evil or someone with a disability or learning disability or anything that is just not quite right by their eye, right. I mean, that's what the Witch stands for so many times, is someone who doesn't fit into societal norms. Is it's somehow trespassing that, whether it's a single woman, god forbid, what is she doing, just anyone who isn't quite what society says you should be right and it's still going on. Well,

this is hard, it really is. And I'm sure Edgar's was not, you know, blind to that. You know, it seems to be one of the messages. And I think it was nice and subtle too. Yeah, it was great because he said he never meant to make a feminist movie and he was kind of surprised by it afterwards. That's what it is, and that's what it is, all right,

Thank good for him. That's great. Yeah, because I feel like The Lighthouse is also equally about toxic masculinity anyway, Okay, that's a that's a topic for a. I'd love to know his family background. That's the interesting thing about Horror to me is there's always this question after I watch a hormone for like, I wonder, I wonder, what's up

with them? Yeah. I mean the lighthouse is so clearly a father son bone to pick and this is a father daughter a little bit of father son, but maybe it's just parents child dynamic is simpler said, you know, I wonder if he has kids. These questions are easily answered or coats google this stuff. All right, Well, I'm gonna go across the street and play with my black Philip and bring him some salary. And uh, thank you Lauren, thank you Annie, and thank you Noel. This is a

great way to kick off the official Friday holiday season. Yes, thank you so much. Trying to call it a holiday like it's Christmas or something, but it kind of is for us about all right. Well, thanks you guys, and you'll probably be in one of these other ones. So look forward to hearing from you again soon. Thank you, bye everybody, Bye bye bye. Smothe Crash. It's produced and written by Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, and scored by Noel Brown here

in our home studio at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.