The Rule of Scary
The Rule of Scary
4 The VVitch, Well Andrew Liked It
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Andrew and Jason discuss The VVitch (2015). Some kind of jelly.
Hello, and welcome to the rule of scary Podcast. I am brother Jay. And I'm brother Andrew.
Unknown Speaker :To get started with today what we're going to do I have a few notes from the Phantasm podcast because I said something that was incorrect. Having watched all five of the movies during the week of the of the podcast, I got a couple of things incorrect. Number one, actually really just one and that thing is I said that there was a scene where Mike was traveling in the car with his parents after the revelation of Jodi's Death Valley. is incorrect that actually does not happen until the third movie. Thank you very much to Ernie see longtime listener for pointing out the fact that that that actually did not happen in the first movie you got to keep a square guys because the truth of the matter is we really don't know what the hell we're doing ever so I feel
Unknown Speaker :I feel like this is more about you concerned that your horror fan license might be revoked if Yeah, something wrong
Unknown Speaker :right there's always that concern you know, I mean, like where are they remove my horror card? And then what what then Then what am I left with?
Unknown Speaker :I got nothing.
Unknown Speaker :I've got nothing I've got so moving along. Thank you very much for the the fact check on that already. See, because again, we've got to we got to keep this thing true. Got to keep it true. Because what do we have? It's not that Oh, don't get me started. That's exactly right. Andrew,
Unknown Speaker :what are you drinking today? All right. This is fantastic. started Googling around. For colonial era drinks and was surprised to learn that our colonial forefathers and mothers basically swam in a sea of booze from breakfast to bedtime. didn't know that. Oh, you know, there wasn't much drinking any drink in this film but colonial period they drank an impressive amount of alcohol basically the equivalent of several shots every day, which I didn't know, early Americans came up with a baffling variety of these cocktails with pre cocktail. There's no such thing at the time from they're just little arsenal of shit they had, right so rum, cider Ale, cream, sugar, molasses, eggs, spices in citrus. You kind of all the drinks from this era are like, what of these five things can we just put together? So I settled on something called stone fence because it didn't include eggs, or cream, which No, I'll keep this easy for you listening at home. It's essentially a hard cider with a shot or two of dark room. Could also substitute the rum with bourbon or rye whiskey meant for garnish or a lemon for garnish, I put some Angostura bitters in mine rules are pretty loose.
Unknown Speaker :How's it taste?
Unknown Speaker :I think it's called stone fence for a reason. tastes great. I don't drink a lot of cider, but I might run into the stone fence. Over on a story about this drink legend has it the Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys with just basically this little militia. They had got liquored up on these at the Remi din Tavern before deciding to take over Fort Ticonderoga from the British early in one morning, in 1775. It was basically the first offensive victory for the new American forces in the Revolutionary War.
Unknown Speaker :So we're talking about a patriotic drink here. Yeah, I'm doing that. Um, I guess that's who I am. Now. What are we if not patriots,
Unknown Speaker :so yeah, it's like, drink a bunch of these and put your helmet on. I want to try something.
Unknown Speaker :That's perfect. Well enjoy because the color of that drink just terrifies me. To be honest with you. Very good. Well, let me ask you this. Are you ready to just dive? Yeah, dive right in. How do you
Unknown Speaker :how do you want to unpack this thing? You want to just kind of run through it a little bit? I think some areas deserve a little more attention than others. I tried to separate a lot of this out by the gross scenes. Right. Right. Sort of, you know, at the end of all this, I think maybe it was mistake that it was touted as a horror film. I think there's just a lot more to it than that. But I think it's, you know, you have these sort of vignettes of gross, scary things that happen some more disturbing than others, obviously.
Unknown Speaker :So of course, the film we're referring to is the film that we reviewed for this week, and that film is the witch, the witch, the witch, just which I'm going to kill you with a hammer
Unknown Speaker :and Vova bit
Unknown Speaker :Let's now let's make you want to get down to it.
Unknown Speaker :Let's make sure that we get this this fucking shit right? Because it also has a subtitle
Unknown Speaker :yeah I'll tell you what it is a New England folk tale.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. That now IMDb says the the village
Unknown Speaker :yeah the village and you know that was a decision he made about the double v you know he chose the spelling of the film's title as oh you're right the bitch there you go shit using two V's instead of a W in his title sequence then on posters. He found all the spelling on a Jacoby and era pamphlet on witchcraft along with other period texts. So there's a lot of historical research that went into making this movie I read that it like took four to five years to make just because even just getting the language right the Sussex language and dialect and everything which I had to turn on subtitles in this movie, like right away because I didn't understand. It was a muddle like they weren't speaking clearly but also they weren't speaking language that I understood everything was whilst about the and like conjugation of things just like flip sometimes and it just kind of messed with my brain so I got the subtitles on then we were flying
Unknown Speaker :right No, I had to do the same thing and and honestly again this is a movie I've seen a bunch of times but every fucking time I have to turn on the subtitles because there are there are times especially when they're speaking fast and they do which is God bless them that's a that's a hell of a lot of dialogue to kind of cram together and man to be able to just like kind of spit that out as quickly as they are sometimes I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's, that's that's brilliant, but it really helps to have that subtitle
Unknown Speaker :on you could you could tack this on to the conversation we were having earlier about how do I know I'm fat because I found a packet of mayonnaise in my desk drawer, but also like how do you know I'm drinking too much as I bring a cooler to a one hour recording of a podcast. How do you know you're getting older you have to fucking turn subtitles on for everything. So maybe this is More of a statement on me than the film. Maybe we'll just move on.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, we're you know what, we're just we're not gonna broach that topic at all. We'll just, let's, let's head into this are we gonna do this? We're gonna do this, you know, once into the next
Unknown Speaker :Yep. chronologically young, a New England folk tale Protestants, right. But they're hanging out there in a room. Protestants are always scary. This is immediately a period piece for me. I love a good period piece. Downton Abbey, the witch don't care, love all of that kind of stuff. Right? So automatically I'm in like, I'm, I'm subscribing to you know what's in front of me. So William the father is in a courtroom. There's whispering he's being judged. There's mentioned a prideful conceit is he banished? I don't know. He's having a back and forth with some pilgrims Puritan same thing. They are banishment is really more like you can't banish me, I quit. They leave closing of the gates shot of the Native Americans in these colonial soldiers and you know, it's just not a period I've been exposed to A lot of really love it. Um, so right right then out of the gates or shall I say closing of the gates? I was like, Where? Where do we go from here? I like everything that's happening so far.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I also I love the I love the dialogue and the court scene. I love it a lot at all. But again, that's kind of the first time you're introduced to that, you know, Sussex style English. That That really is. It's brilliant. It's so rich. I love the line. I would be glad of it so great. I mean, like, that just sums the whole scene up for me.
Unknown Speaker :You go on then he's like, I'm leaving like, then it's best to leave is like I'll be glad of it. Like what happened here? I don't know. I think he was there was a problem he wasn't agreeing with maybe some of the politics maybe around the church or the religion at the time but um, there's zealots this family. Let's just get that out of the way. You're right. It probably wasn't religious enough. So
Unknown Speaker :Right, right. Yeah. Well, it's in the in the line because they say something like, you're not the judge. We are The judge of you and he says I cannot be judged by false Christians. And again, that kind of sets the tone. And I think something that kind of comes into play very first of the scene is a matter of pride. Add that
Unknown Speaker :to my list of complaints about this dead guy. He's a hypocrite. And I want to get into this later, like, the hypocrisy in this whole thing. It's just, you know, we'll talk about it. Yeah, they're in a wagon, the whole family's in a wagon, they leave the encampment or the village or the town, the farm or whatever, their wagon, they go off into the woods, they find some land at the edge of the woods. They're singing sort of in the trees, and now we're settled outside of the Village. The next thing we see is the family sort of settled there's a lot of confessing going on in the room and mention of sin. Whilst right I'm gonna say whilst Whilst this is what we're doing in this film, whilst breastfeeding young Samuel, so yeah, that was all kind of happening in one room, which is pretty heavy. Someone says, I believe at this point. I deserve more shame and misery in this life. Just say that sitting around the room sometimes I guess.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I mean like I guess this is kind of just held Puritan life work they think they were just like I need this in my life I just need this manufactured Christian stress you know this is the only way that I know that I'm living this kind of pious life is if God hates me
Unknown Speaker :it seems as he does you know immediately I was like oh shit Original Sin I remember this from like grade school you know, talking about you know, born basically with one foot in hell already. But this family is pervaded by the fear of God throughout. There are occasional references to His mercy, you know, say capital H on his but only it's something to beg for not really ever something you can trust in a Yeah,
Unknown Speaker :it's a it's it's interesting. And I think that this is kind of where the folktale piece of it comes because we know that Puritans were real that was a real thing. And that their fear in this kind of in the witch in the evil in the greater evil. The devil, all of that was very real to them every single minute of every day these things were as real to them as that as their neighbors were, it's really interesting to me because, you know, they're born of sin and that that you never can kind of overcome that sin even though at this point in time in Christian belief was that, you know, Christ died for the sins of all mankind. And you get into this point with with Puritans where they think that they aren't worthy of that. And so when they pray to God, they say things like for the sake of your son, who died on our behalf, again, you're into the folk tale part of that. Now whether or not that was real real life, or if that's just kind of a building of that folk tale like this is the way that people spoke. It's kind of like watching films from the 1930s you know, where they're like, Well, yeah, pocketful of firecrackers people didn't really speak that way. They did that for the movies because yeah, yeah, you know that that made it interesting to watch it. Maybe It's fun to watch normal Americans and speak that way. But Hollywood told them they did. And so you have a whole generation of people during that time who kind of emulated that. And that's really where that came from was that the fantasy became fact. It's kind of probably a little bit like that with not just with this movie, but with the entire folk tale that this movie is based around. Amen, amen.
Unknown Speaker :We're at the first scare scene I have the separated by scares scenes basically. Let's talk about who our characters are real fast because Robert Eggers is the director, obviously, William is the dad played by Ralph irons and Catherine his mom, are the oldest sibling or child is Thomas and that's the girl and she's kind of the main protagonists, although it's really unclear kind of who the protagonist is throughout this until later. I think a pivotal moment later. Caleb is her younger brother, the second oldest played by Harvey scrimshaw. Then there are these two asshole twins Jonas's Mercy,
Unknown Speaker :Jonas and mercy,
Unknown Speaker :this first gear scene, peekaboo or aka goodbye Samuel. Oh, I forgot about Samuel. Samuel is the infant.
Unknown Speaker :Very short lived character.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, not a lot, a lot of screen time there. But you know it'll be a big role. She's doing peekaboo is
Unknown Speaker :she's doing piccaboo Samuel, two or three times into that she goes up boo and she takes her hands away from her eyes and Samuel is no longer in the blanket upon which he was laying while slaying. Yeah, so this is a weird scene you hear kind of baby crying but then you do see this character and a red kind of dress or cloak scurrying through the woods. I hated this next scene, you see Samuel sort of by candlelight, this whole thing was shot with natural light or daylight or candlelight. So you have this very dramatic sort of fire in the background. You see the big kind of hanging out naked. There's a hand a really gross old hand which is assumed to be the witch right? I mean, it says witch in the title. It's must be the witch and she introduces a knife and then it cuts to black. And then the next scene is really upsetting. not disturbing, maybe disturbing, but at this point, I was just like, fuck this thing was really upsetting, disturbing. really super fucking didn't like it. I call it the naked churning. The next thing you see is an old the backside of an old woman and a corner and she is going to town churning, literally churning away like butter, and the sort of slashing slashing sounds and you fucking know what it is. It's really it's, I don't want to say what I call it in my notes because it's upsetting. What do I do here, Jay?
Unknown Speaker :I'll fucking say it. It's baby jelly. It's baby jelly. She's made baby jelly. There's no way to get around the horror of this moment. You've gotta just face it straight on the dimension of, you know, kind of defiling a child in such a way is going to be upsetting. And it's part of the reason that it is in this movie. And again, we're back to the folklore. Because this is the kind of shit that Puritan parents would tell Puritan children is that, oh, they'll grind you and they'll make a jelly out of you. You know, those are the kind of things that feel the nightmares, that kept people on the righteous path. So, we're back into the folklore here, and there's really not a pretty way to say it, you're gonna put this you're gonna put this out there on film.
Unknown Speaker :I mean, they show it they don't cut away. In fact, the next thing you see is she is taking the things out of the churn. I'm calling it the things and she's smearing it on her body and she's like, sort of playing in the dark in the moonlight a little bit and then that's the end of that scene, but by Samuel basically,
Unknown Speaker :baby jelly let's get back to that. So as she slathering this on, you also noticed that she is putting it onto her broom. Then from that scene, she rises off the ground and she flies on her broom. So the idea is that the baby jelly is what makes a which fly
Unknown Speaker :I forgotten that's Yeah, baby jelly will make the broom fly. That's that's like gas for basically witch's brew.
Unknown Speaker :Right which is why we as modern people don't fly on fucking brooms is because just fucking gross.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, not enough fossil fuels in the world to keep those things going really? Right. Right, right. Probably just really inefficient considering like what it takes to make a baby and then you know the gestation and then just a fire round. Ah, good lord. You're already at this point, but how I'm dealing with this commerce. Right now is exactly how I'm dealing with this movie while I'm watching it. Like, it was a frustrating part for me. And like I typically do, I'm like, this is too much. This is too much, right? my opinions of this movie have changed over the last week. I know you text me and you're like, Was it scary? And I said, No. And then he didn't text me back and I sort of felt like you were disappointed. Because Was it scary? I've had time I was basically processing absolutely scary. Here's something that might surprise you, brother. Jay. I fucking love this movie. I think it's fantastic. Is it are there scary parts you know, like with the blood from flora, the goat or lamb or whatever the goat I'm thinking. You know, absolutely. But even without those, there's just there are layers of this that I find really intriguing and influences which you know, I actually have, you know, these scenes of like the the forest in the woods. They're very reminiscent of Andrew white paintings. You know, there's I have a friend of an Andrew Wyatt sitting over The wall like behind me right now. So like, when I started to think about like the artistry of this and I think he felt like he had to make a scary movie or something in order to be mainstream because I think Eggers was putting out these weird fucking independent films before they weren't getting any traction. And so he was trying to make something that would just appeal on a broader scale. I want to get into some influences later, we need to move on from the baby guts the pacing of this thing.
Unknown Speaker :Okay.
Unknown Speaker :Mom, at this point, mom is just now, the few in this future state of mom Catherine. She is basically a constantly crying, praying wailing mess. The parents leave downstairs, the kids are all upstairs they can obviously hear everything so mom while grieving the kids are exposed to this. Caleb awakes, the younger brother Thomaston takes a peek at Thompson's chest area which I think is a nod to what's taking In life we're at for both of these characters are sort of a puberty story here as well. Right? Someone says the devil holds faster eyelids. I think dad says we will conquer this wilderness. This was the point I had to turn on subtitles.
Unknown Speaker :Right. I like I'd like to say this. Yeah, I'd like to say this at this point in time. I think this is the first time we're introduced to Thomas's budding sexuality. Yeah. And I think that really, this is kind of an underlying theme is because the thing that made it scary to to particularly the Puritans was that it was empowerment of women. When you know you have a male dominated society. I think that that is kind of part of why these these folk tales these fairy tales ever took hold, was because this was again a cautionary tale of what wild women do. The the idea of her Kind of betting sexuality and everybody being uncomfortable with that throughout the entire movie is like this is this is the first scene where we really see that and that is in the exchange between Caleb and Thomason.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, he gazes a little too long her at our breast and at that point is like, I hope this doesn't become like the last thing I saw, which was disturbing. Was the baby jelly open. Next thing I see. That's disturbing is not some incestual bullshit, right? But like it wasn't, but this idea of lust obviously comes up later in the film, not the only time that he gets kind of caught gazing and Thomas and later, her mom refers through as a horror and responsible for some of the things that have taken shape. There's another scare scene there's one egg and the coop is Thomaston or Thomason. I'm going to call her Tom I mean, I don't know farm. There's one egg in the coop. There's a broken egg with a dead bird in it. Which was gross. Dan and Caleb have gone off to the woods to hunt in the woods. They're setting a trap. We learn basically they have to go to the woods to hunt animals because their crops are rotting. That is basically a failing farmer. He can't hunt for shit. In fact, in the scene, you know, he almost shoots his own eye out, you know, like trying to shoot at this rabbit which is also a reoccurring figure in the film. We learned a few things here. You know, the reoccurring rabbit obviously, but this guy can't farm or hunt which Thompson points out later. They have this dialogue about I had to trade your mom your mom's silver cup, which was actually our dad's silver cup. So this heirloom that's been in the family for a while. In order to get these traps. We had to trade for some things and make these sacrifices. They come home mom is really pissed off about them being in the woods. Caleb lies and tells her in order to sort of keep peace in the family that they were looking for apples he thought he spotted an apple tree and they were going to surprise her dad wanted to surprise her with an apple even though that's not true and dad watches Caleb lie at that point like, for a family that seems really like honed in on like lies and you know, staying on the righteous path and not setting he's watching him lie and he lets him do it and he doesn't correct them. So that was just one instance, the first instance I think of when you start to sort of peel back some of the hypocrisy.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I like I really liked this scene because it does kind of set the groundwork for the kind of impurity or the imperfection that is in the family without having the intervention of the of the witch of the character of the big bad. You know, these are kind of you know, since that already exist inside of the family unit, and it kind of points out the imperfection. So, I like to seen it again, I think it's one of the one of the more pivotal scenes because you kind of get to see the true character of each one of these characters because at the same time, you've got, you know, mercy and Jonas that are just being total assholes, you know, and they won't listen to anyone. You know, the idea of obeying Mother Father right out the you know, right out the window. And then you've got Thomason who is kind of just trying to do what it is that she was told to do, which is she's going about her chores, and she's trying to take care of these two asshole children. Then you've got grief struck mother who's coming out and saying, Where have you been in don't leave the farm and children, children, children. And then you know, at the end of it, you've got Caleb, who really is probably the kindest heart, if that makes sense in the entire movie, because really all he wants is for his family not to be fucked up. You know, I mean, like, he just wants good things like he's very, very much probably the kindest person in the movie. He really is man in
Unknown Speaker :the acting on this kid. This kid is so good. You know, you mentioned Thomaston and her chores. thomasin. Sorry, I used to live in a place called Thomaston. So I'm going to get that jacked up. Thomason always has more chores to do. Right and I think at one point she says to please mother, basically Thomas and absorbs the entire brunt of her family's anxieties throughout this entire film. Her younger siblings are looking to her for comfort, but she like balks at all this added pressure, especially after her mother makes her do more chores. And really then the rest of her family members like she's constantly just constantly touring. I feel bad for her in a way,
Unknown Speaker :right? I gotcha. And again, no places this a bigger thing than in this scene because she is hitter. She's like she's cleaning out the barn. You know, I mean, like she's cleaning up after the goats. But something else happens in this scene that I think is really, really interesting. We have our first introduction to black Philip. We also have our first introduction to the black Philip song, which has memorized and I stay all the time. I called my mom the other day and just saying the whole thing and then just hung up. She texted me Not long after that, and, and said she disowned me. So whatever you No I enjoyed it I know deep down she enjoyed it too first introduction to black Philip there now you have kind of the introduction of like, here's a weird element like here's this weird thing these kids are obviously fixated on black fill up this black go right right
Unknown Speaker :around they have songs about him. This obviously on unravels itself later. I mean, it's called the witch the poster for the movie is black fell up so spoiler alert, I guess right away. I think I was surprised about how we got to where we do sort of at the end, the next scene Caleb and Thomas interact the creek the twins come in their nightmare. She tells the twins I be the witch of the woods, which in hindsight was a horrible idea. She tells mercy one of the twins that she is a witch Why? I don't know just to get them to leave her alone. So she's told the twins that she is the witch and she hooked you know Samuel for whatever in the woods traded him I'm in the woods, right and it's her. And that was a really bad idea because this really comes back to bite her. It didn't really take a lot to convince someone that someone might be a witch at the time. There's really no vetting process. You could just point a finger at someone and be like, you're a witch, and then you got to deal with that. Basically,
Unknown Speaker :the next scene before we jump into the next scene, I thought the same thing. What a fucking terrible idea. You are a Puritan. You know how Puritans work. You don't just say shit, like, I'm a witch.
Unknown Speaker :But I'm a witch. Don't tell mom.
Unknown Speaker :Right. You know, I mean, like, but here's what I'll say about that that happened at the goading of mercy started the I'm the witch of the woods dialogue. She started that she was hidden in the brush. Caleb calls and says, Come out whoever you are. And the little voice says, I am the witch of the wood. I'm here to be a witch you and so Thomasson thinking that that would that would be an interesting turn of events said Oh no, you're not the witch of the wood. The witch of the woods again, all of this was said in jest at the time, but you're 100% correct. And I thought exactly the same thing. Like, what a fucking terrible idea. Like even it's just not a great idea. They're a little bit serious about that a little bit.
Unknown Speaker :This comes back to bite or what happens next? They're having dinner. It's just bread. They're passing around unleavened bread. That's dinner. nightmare. Maybe that should be a scary scene for me. Mom calls out at the dinner table her missing silver cup. She says what's what is a miss in this farm? she suspects Thomas and did something with it or misplaced it. You hear a sheep bleeding. There's more rustling there's a shot to the rabbit. There's a rabbit that keeps reappearing. The rabbit is back at hanging out by the sheep. Or the goats. Do they have sheep? It's just goats. Right? Just goats. Yeah. All right. Yeah, there's black Philip and there's flora. So the white coat has a name. Her name is flora. This is where in this movie it becomes very clear to me what one thing I like about this movie is it's only an hour and a half and you can kind of do anything for an hour and a half in this movie all thoughts turned to God long diatribes by mom especially she says things he has cursed this family, our son is in hell. There is a lot of this right? For me, my patience with zealots is pretty thin already in the real world. So I'm not really sympathizing with mom here. It really just wants to go back to England. But um, there are a lot of these scenes. I don't want to be a little like sort of what's happened to her. She's, she's not in the right place, or children are disappearing. She thinks her family is cursed. But man, she goes on and she will go into length about how they're all in hell multiple times throughout.
Unknown Speaker :I agree with that. You know, and again, it's interesting because coming from like a Puritan standpoint, that's kind of you know, the idea I think behind their kind of everyday existence. I did not grow up, you know, from a Puritan standpoint. So it is a little bit difficult for me to kind To identify and it isn't until a little bit later in the movie where I do start to identify when she starts coming across as a person, as opposed to you know, again this kind of zealot it's all for God and because of God and by God's design, and I get I mean like don't get me wrong i do i get the ideology behind that I just don't get it on a personal level. So it makes it a little bit more more difficult I think for for people to kind of identify with her and, you know, like, where it's very black and white. Everything that she sees is, you know, like, my silver cup is missing. So it must be thomasin Yeah, when we know already because we've been in the woods at this point in time when we were in the woods with Caleb and, and, and Father, we we come to understand that he's traded the silver cup for traps, which is also bearing him no fruit, Jason.
Unknown Speaker :This is a little bit like reading the Bible, right? Like we as readers know more than the characters do. Forgive me here. If I go a little bit too far on the deep end, one I want to talk about like every time this happens happens a lot in movies and it's like, well, there's a wailing woman She must be crazy. It's so old like it just it's constant and honestly, calling women witches like still exist like you can get into this Beyonce Illuminati like conspiracy theories, you know, or anybody else like none of this has really changed back to the thing about like, being a reader versus like what this family knows. And we talked a little bit about this already. And the book of Job God hurts job in order to test his faith. Now we know that God exists idealistically. Anyway Right, right. Hey, God in this context exists, and has a divine reason for trying to but until Job's bodies like plagued by God, he doesn't question that there's a reason for his torment. The same is basically true William and his family until all these events like lead this family to unraveling and sort of scratching at each other's throats, you know, that is really just chopping wood is his ship crop farmer, you know, and he's trading away the family jewels. We know more than the family.
Unknown Speaker :We know. And we kind of are already starting to draw our own kind of conclusions to each and every character in the movie so we know who we're rallying For we know who we really want to see redeemed and we know who we don't the idea of kind of the faithful accepting you know what they accept because it is God's design. I think that's a huge theme in here now, you know, take it for right or for wrong that is the reason the motivation at this point in time that most of the characters in the movie have for continuing to do anything
Unknown Speaker :you know, this movie is it can be difficult to talk about because of like the incredible historical aspect of it and you know, the religion I'm not an expert on religious you know, you can get a degree in this religious sciences and stuff and that person would probably be way more entertaining on this episode of rule scary than I am right now. Like, all I have is sort of like my sort of meandering like textbook things and things I found on the internet and stuff, but we're going to try and keep it honest here. Just kind of stick to the format of like, this is what I saw Caleb and Thomason, they over here. The parents Talking about they're going to Hawk off Thomas and she needs to go to another family in order to serve them. It's like it's her time to do that again probably another her stage in life. Caleb and Thomaston Thomas and go off on an adventure with the dog and the horse. Caleb has a plan, so Thomason won't have to live with another family. I'm not sure what the plan is. I don't know if he's going to get the cut back. I don't know. They find the trap. There is a rabbit and the trap the dog is barking. The dog's name is Fowler. The sequence here is a little blurry for me but it's important thomasin falls off the horse. There's a shot of a mutilated Fowler the dog also Fuck that. Thomason wakes up she's running around Caleb is running around separately. Caleb is lost and thick brush. I think he's chasing this rabbit. He's chasing the rabbit. Alright, so in this other scare scene, Tom farm makes it home. Caleb finds a house in the woods. He is confronted by a sexy which then she is. She's really attractive. We already know that. You know, Caleb is exploring, you know his sexuality a little bit or he's curious and this is a very pretty witch and she's sort of summon him to the house and he walks closer does not look like the old witch certainly not the witch that was making baby jelly earlier you know, sort of voluptuous sort of draws him towards the house. They kiss, but then you see this sort of decrepit old hand grabbed the back of his head boom. Right? So then it like cuts again Caleb's in trouble. We know that Thomas and makes it back to the house at this point. As viewers, you know, I'm thinking shit, they've already lost one son Caleb is now gone. Caleb has the gun. We already saw the dog mutilated and the horse is gone. So this family that had nothing now like super has nothing, not to mention like the more grief that's about to happen for them down the road. I think mom says we have broken God's code lost another child. She goes manic again, she ends up striking dead in the face. And then the next scene is they're standing around sort of by the candlelight, the campfire. And in order to keep the peace Thomason says, I'll go do the chores to please mother basically. And this is what we're talking about absorbing the brunt of her family's anxieties, you know, throughout. That's that scene kind of Caleb's gone.
Unknown Speaker :There's one other thing that comes up in that scene. This is where father confesses that he sold the cup. Did he? Yeah, that's and that's kind of pre emptive to the strike in the face. Because then she says you're false. And they go outside, she gives him the smackeroos. And everybody in the house is like, who because that doesn't happen in the period of faith that just doesn't happen. Like the father is the religious center of the of the home and kind of iconic closest to God family member. And so the idea she would lash out in such a way is a very unpure at an idea. So it's kind of showing a little bit of character breakdown in In the movie, so
Unknown Speaker :they're having a bit of a laugh about it after it happened. You know, it was sort of like a little bit relieved, like, well, that kind of needed to happen. Also, can I just say I love that you said smack through and you not remove it from the podcast?
Unknown Speaker :Oh, no, we're gonna fucking leave it in there.
Unknown Speaker :Caleb is back. Caleb shows up. While Thompson is doing some more touring. He's kind of like flung on this sort of fence post. He's naked. It's raining. He's hanging out. He's really messed up. They bring him inside. They do a little sort of knife thing on the side of his head and this blood comes out, which I think is bloodletting. Yep, that's correct. At the same time, I think Thompson is getting blood from a goat flora. I have that wrong. We're getting there. Mom is caring for Caleb. She starting to think that this is witchcraft. The field is rotten. She wants to go back to England. She has that dialogue. Why did they leave England personally. occasion, you know, that was always sort of the ironing for like, bringing this shit here and having this faith right like you were trying to flee religious persecution in order to just make it crazier. The next version of what you brought here is crazier than the thing you were probably fleeing. So that's just a personal thing. But mom has another scene where she is, you know, we're all going we're all in hell not we're going to hell. We need to talk about this pivotal, pivotal, dynamic shift in the movie at this point. You ready?
Unknown Speaker :I'm ready, baby.
Unknown Speaker :Mercy. One of the twins is singing a song about black Philip whilst shucking corn. There is a screen we enter the upstairs area where Caleb is in Fitz saying, Get the narrow axe to cut off her head. Get the broad axe he'll cut off her head. He gasps and screams she's upon me sin, sin sin. Mom says what does this to the so she's confused about what's happening. Turns out Kay Caleb's mouth is sealed that gets a knife and prise it open and out pops a kind of rotten gooey red apple with a bite taken out. Mom says William he is witched Twins quickly say tishie pointing at Thomason really wish she probably hadn't said that thing down by the creek earlier.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, in hindsight, she's like, Ah
Unknown Speaker :really backfired. Thompson quickly says no. Obviously regrets a little trick she played at the creek. But oh Thompson is now which right in the eyes of this family as they're sort of trying to come to grips with what is happening while Caleb is like, possessed. Being a witch at this point really requires no vetting process. You could just be pointed out and call it a witch and then you have to navigate a series of trials which from what I understand usually ends neither you burning or drowning to death, right? This is where she's at Her life. Having played this trick that makes Thomaston say she's not a witch makes her sort of kneel and say some prayer she basically says I'm not then they all agree to pray for the brother. So this is all being processed by the family Thomas and maybe being a witch Calla being possessed mean whilst trying to pray over Kayla, but hold on. This was a super creepy moment for me. The twins gentleness and mercy, while sort of bent over with their hands class trying to pray all they can say is it cannot remember the prayers. So they can't actually physically get the words out to pray. Right. Right, right.
Unknown Speaker :And that can be taken one of two ways again, we already know that they have said that they've spoken with black Philip and black Philip tells them things right. So at this point in time is this to use the parlance of the of the movie is this ingest. Is this something that black Philip said? It would be a funny joke the next time your family prays to say I can't remember my prayers. It is she, you know, so is this kind of part of a longer con?
