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Sunday, October 31, 2021

Reading/Watching Log #70

This is the spooky season, so obviously we’re dealing with witches. It was an easy enough theme to pick for the month, and it provided me with a wealth of material to choose from: modern witches, old school witches, monstrous witches, superhero witches – but mostly nineties witches.

It was actually fascinating to watch the progression of how witchcraft has been perceived by humankind across the decades, from the servants of a male devil, to enigmatic (though not unwelcome) seductresses, to glamourous evil-fighters with an empowerment angle. The subject also brought into stark relief the way in which women and power are portrayed across the media landscape, and it’s been fascinating to see how it changes across the years – or in many cases, doesn’t change.

I won’t delve too deeply into it now, though there’s enough content here for me to write a whole other post about the topic and how it’s been received by increasingly feminist-leaning audiences, for good or bad. Stay tuned.

Harrow County: Volumes 1 – 8 by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook

A graphic novel series made up of eight volumes, this taps straight into the “old timey American folk horror” aesthetic and doesn’t let up for one single panel. Think Over The Garden Wall, but more bloody and violent. As in, there’s a main character who literally has no skin.

Emmy is a young farmgirl living with her father on a remote tract of land, who seems to be coming into some form of innate power. A sickly calf heals beneath her touch, and she’s growing increasingly aware of the presence of “haints” in the woodlands (a word I’d never heard of before, but is apparently an ancient word for ghosts or spirits).

Her father seems deeply troubled by these developments, especially since Emmy is drawn to a crooked old tree on the borderline of their property. It’s not giving too much away (since the first volume actually opens with this backstory) to say that this was where the witch Hester was hanged and burned alive a generation ago, in an attempt to break her god-like hold over the town.

Why Emmy is haunted by this tree, and her connection to Hester, forms the backbone of the entire series. It’s not quite as straightforward as it all seems (you’re already assuming that Hester is Emmy’s mother, but you’re wrong) and there are some fascinating characters and dynamics that are set up and explored over the course of the eight volumes.

The series as a whole is pretty good, though it’s with the stop-start pacing that indicates it was being made up as it went along, and with a climatic end that’s deeply anti-climactic (as usual, the big battle against the forces of evil comes down to who can call up the most power to blast the other one with).

But the real drawcard of the project is the stunning artwork and its vivid sense of place and time. This is rural America in the 1930s, with woodlands that teem with ghouls and goblins, witches and spirits, and a black minotaur-like demon with golden goat eyes that is completely unforgettable. From the southern dialects to the eldritch designs, Harrow County creates an incredibly rich setting for the stories it tells.

Apparently a television series has been in development since 2015, but I couldn’t find much more about that – it would translate extremely well to the screen though.

The Palace Tiger by Barbara Cleverly

The fourth book in Barbarba Cleverly’s Joe Sandilands detective series (and the last one to be set in India) sees our protagonist in the province of Ranipur. The aging Maharaja has sent for his old friend, big-game hunter Edgar Troop, to organize a hunt for a badly injured and therefore extremely dangerous tiger, one that has already killed several children from the villages.

The tiger is very real, but also a metaphor. As Joe is told as soon as he sets foot in the opulent, ancient palace: “there are man-eaters about in Ranipur, certainly one with stripes and four legs, but quite possibly another prowling the corridors on two legs.” Almost immediately upon arrival he’s investigating the seemingly-accidental deaths of the Maharaja’s two eldest sons: the first killed by a panther and the second in an airplane accident.

With the Maharaja swiftly succumbing to cancer, it seems that the line of inheritance now falls to his bright and confident (and illegitimate son) Bahadur... which seems like motivation enough for two murders.

As ever, the sights and sounds of 1920s India are seen through the eyes of an Englishman, which means that as careful and as accurate Cleverly is with her details, you really can’t get rid of a veneer of exoticism. In many ways that’s the point – Sandilands knows that he’s dealing with a culture profoundly different from his own, and the way the mystery is structured means that it could only ever be solved by an outsider, but... let’s just say that at times it hints at Kipling’s White Man’s Burden mentality. At the end of the day, you can’t avoid the fact that Joe works for the British Empire.

As a mystery it throws up plenty of intriguing suspects and red herrings: the Maharajah’s three wives vying for power, British officials trying to manipulate things in favour of the Empire, and two people in very grave danger: the new twelve-year old heir to the throne, and the last prince’s widowed wife: a young American woman who is now stranded in a hostile environment.

Everyone has their own secrets and agendas, and though I don’t think Cleverly ever again reached the heights of The Last Kashmiri Rose, her debut novel, this one is definitely a step-up from Ragtime in Simla and The Damascened Blade. Sandilands doesn’t have a trusted sidekick this time around, which makes him feel much more vulnerable than in past instalments, and behind every smile and polite word seems to be a cunning mind, all bent on their own ambition.

But as ever, she nails the setting. The sights and smells and heat of India is always brought to vivid life in her novels.

The Ghost in the Third RowThe Ghost Wore Grey and The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed by Bruce Coville

It’s funny the things you remember, but I vividly recall being ten years old and my best frenemy lending me these books to read – only according to her, they were true stories. I pointed out that one of them was clearly marked “fiction”, and though she insisted that this meant it was for real, a third party quickly put an end to her insistence by looking it up in the dictionary.

But the other was marked “novel” and that meant that one was the true story. By this point I was too tired of having such a stupid argument with her, and conceded that yes – the children’s storybook about a ghost in the big brass bed was clearly real. Man, that girl was a pain in the ass.

For many years afterwards, these books stayed with me. I probably only recalled them due to the argument we had about them, but they had an ambience about them that was really appealing as a young reader: spooky without being too traumatizing, with supernatural mysteries that played by the rules. As a young lover of the Scooby Doo cartoons, these were right up my alley.

Years later, I managed to attain my own copies through internet shopping, and even though there was a little bit of a visitation from the Suck Fairy, they still held up reasonably well as stories. The weakest book is also the first one: in The Ghost in the First Row our protagonists Nina and Chris meet while auditioning for a play to keep them busy over the summer. The other actors are (unsurprisingly) a bunch of prima donnas and the theatre is rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of a beautiful young actress who died in mysterious circumstances.

It’s fine, but not particularly clever. Things pick up with The Ghost Wore Grey (great title!) when Nina and Chris accompany the former’s father to an old inn that’s hired him to redecorate the place. It’s said to be the hiding place of a treasure that was hidden during the Civil War, and it’s not long before the girls have seen the ghost of a Confederate soldier wandering about the place. Coville delves into the history of the place a little, and despite being dead for over one hundred years, the soldier manages to get some decent character development.

Finally, The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed sees the girls offering to help out at an antiques shop, which gets them invited to an elderly woman’s house, who is in possession of several priceless paintings. Her father was a famous artist, and it’s said that he was working on his masterpiece just before his death – though it’s never been found. Naturally, the little ghost girl that they spot weeping in the big brass bed in the tower room might hold the answer...

It’s a cute little trilogy with two spunky pre-teen protagonists, and look – I remembered them a good fifteen years after first reading them, so clearly they left an impression.

Witch World by Christopher Pike

It’s always hard to explain what exactly any given Christopher Pike book is actually about. Unlike other authors of the eighties pulp horror YA crowd, he went to some weird places, often involving time-travel, alien life-forms, dystopian bad futures, or lizard people – sometimes all of these things at once.

With Witch World (one of his more recent offerings, relatively speaking – it was published in 2012) he goes the route of interdimensional parallel planes, magical witch genes, and immortal warriors living down through the centuries. I’ll admit, I was skim-reading by the end.

How to even sum up? Jessie Ralle is graduating high school, and so takes a road trip with her friends and ex-boyfriend to Las Vegas. That’s when shit gets weird. There are inventions that count your genomes. There are casinos that play strange card games. There’s a kidnapping, another kidnapping, a near-death experience in a freezer, and an autopsy that goes wrong. Context is eventually provided, but it’s a lot of work getting there, and once the main premise is finally laid out (the witch world of the title is a parallel dimension that exists one day behind the “real” world, where counterparts of witches – that is, people with extra magical genes – live their lives with various superpowers) it isn’t really explored to the full extent of its mind-blowing scope.

Beyond the bizarre plot, the biggest problem is that Jessie isn’t very likeable. It’s not a crime for a female protagonist to be unlikeable – in fact most of the time you’ll find that I encourage it – but it’s the way in which he’s unlikeable that’s the problem: in an uninteresting and often rather bewildering way. Scarlett O’Hara is unlikeable, but she’s also compelling and understandable. Jessie, not so much.

For starters, she neither sounds nor acts like a seventeen-year-old – more like a jaded ex-wife in her forties. Granted, there are some contextual reasons that could justify this, but her thought-process is bonkers, her decision-making insane, and her supposed love for ex-boyfriend Jimmy about as deep as a paddling pool. At no point was I convinced that she was meant to be a human being possessed of rational thought.

And after getting all the way to the end, I learn that it’s part one of who knows how many instalments. I’m afraid you’re going to have to count me out... though credit where it’s due, the cover art is incredibly clever on a number of levels. Whoever came up with that should get a bigger cut.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

I went into this knowing more about the show than the book upon which said show was based, though honestly, I didn’t know much about that either. I had some vague inkling that this was a fantasy-sendup of the Harry Potter books (a magical school was involved) but in actuality, it has more to do with skewering the plot and themes of The Chronicles of Narnia – namely the absurdity that a bunch of young people from another world can enter fantasyland, defeat an evil being, and crown themselves kings and queens.

It’s also a lot more complicated than that. Quentin Coldwater is forever reaching for the next thing that will make him happy. As soon as he gets it, the goalposts move and he reaches out further. You know the type. But after a chance encounter sees him tested and enrolled in Brakebills College, he finally feels like he’s discovered his calling. Brakebills is a place where he’ll be trained as a magician, and having been raised on the magical adventures of the Fillory books (basically Lev Grossman’s take on the Narnia series) he’s all-in.

A pretty standard coming-of-age narrative commences: Quentin studies, forms a group of friends, falls in love, has magical adventures... but over the course of the plot, you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Clearly something is happening just out of Quentin’s cognizance, but the clues are there... if you can piece them together. When the culmination comes, it’s devastating.

I don’t want to give too much away, so if you want to go in completely clean, skip this next sentence, but: it’s ultimately the story of a guy who thinks he’s the hero finding out that he’s little more than a walk-on extra. That’s a fascinating concept to play around with, and definitely gives the book a re-readable quality just to pick up on all the context you missed the first time around.

I had a glance over some of the Amazon.com reviews, and a lot of readers were pissed. Many of them claim that Grossman cribbed off other fantasy books (he did, and they clearly didn’t read enough to realize he was setting it all up for a subversion), that Quentin is a miserable, whiny protagonist (again, pretty much the point) or that it’s ultimately too existential to be enjoyable (matter of taste).

There’s a lot to unpack in this story, and it’s clearly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. If you’re tired of cynicism and subversion in your fantasy escapism, then this is definitely not for you. Shit gets dark, and some of the middle chapters drag on a bit (the field trip to Antarctica – oof). But to me, the penny-drop at the end, in which everything coalesces and becomes clear, was worth the journey. I haven’t been that surprised by a plot-twist in a long time.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Another novel I’ve been meaning to get too for a while – and what better time than October (even though it’s spring down in this part of the world, and I read most of it in the sunshine).

I’d already seen both of the films, the terrible nineties version (not that I had the context to know it was terrible at the time) and the more well-regarded 1963 version (it pulled off the hand-holding scene better than the book) so it was a relief to finally get to the original text.

You already know the setup: Doctor John Montague is trying to pull together a morally dubious experiment with the edifice known as Hill House: a ninety year old construct with a sad history of death and tragedy. His plan is to fill the place with as many psychically gifted people as possible, and see what happens. Of all the letters he sends out to those he thinks might fill his requirements, only two respond: the vivacious and bohemian Theodora, and our protagonist, Eleanor Lance.

The story is as much about Eleanor’s psychosis as it is about the house, and those used to more straightforward ghost stories (which operate as mysteries to be solved) will be frustrated that nothing is explained – inexplicable things just happen. The point is the effect it all has on Eleanor; one of literature’s most famous Unreliable Narrators, in a book that is itself completely unreliable.

We cannot interpret the paranormal activity as a figment of Eleanor’s fractured imagination, as her companions in the house experience them too – sometimes when she’s not present. We cannot form any sort of explanatory narrative from the pieces of Hill House’s history, as nothing we learn about it neatly lines up with the strange phenomena that the guests are experiencing. Even the most likely option, that Eleanor’s heightened state of mind is having an effect on the house’s otherworldly inhabitants (and crucially visa versa) doesn’t necessarily add up.

I went in expecting a psychological horror, so I was surprised the whole thing had such a fairy tale ambience. Eleanor very much casts herself in the role of a lost princess or a storybook heroine, and the drive to Hill House is described as serene and magical. Yet Hill House is the squatting toad in the middle of the book, locked in on either side by that unforgettable passage:

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

It’s chilling and unforgettable, precisely because it refuses to answer the readers’ questions. Like Picnic at Hanging Rock, this is a dangerous game for an author to play (we like answers, dammit!) but the very best can make it seem wiser not to enquire too deeply into the supernatural forces at work.

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Reading this for the second time, it’s impossible not to have one psychic eye fixed on the upcoming second season of the Netflix adaptation. Every chapter I found myself pondering how certain sequences would be staged, how new characters would be introduced, what scenes or arcs would be expanded upon, and how on earth the Crows are going to be integrated this time around.

Having rejected the Darkling’s predictable offer of the power of the Dark Side and a seat beside him as one-half of a power couple that Tumblr can make moody gif-sets of, Alina takes off with childhood sweetheart Mal for the other side of the world, hoping to run as far away from her evil mentor/quasi-love interest as possible. This lasts exactly one chapter.

On the way back to Ravka, with Mal and Alina each positioned as the other’s hostage, the Darkling announces they’re going after the second of Morozova’s amplifiers: the scales of the legendary sea serpent Rusalye (reminder: these things increase a Grisha’s power, but at a considerable cost). Thrown into the mix is a roguish privateer called Sturmhond, who is taking a particular interest in the power-struggle playing out on his deck, and obviously more than what he seems.

The bulk of the story takes place back at the Little Palace, where Alina is now put in charge of the Second Army, and tries to assume a leadership role while awaiting the Darkling’s inevitable return.

Again Bardugo creates an intriguing political landscape that never gets delved into particularly deeply: pilgrims are massing around the palace, the Apparat is preaching Alina’s sainthood, the king and queen are struggling to hold onto their kingdom, and the Grisha are divided: half remain loyal to the Darkling, the others swear fealty to Alina (though not necessarily with great enthusiasm).

It adds up to a three-act structure that will be easy enough for Netflix to play around with, though they’ll struggle to find material for Ben Barnes (the Darkling only appears at the very beginning and end, and in brief scenes that may or may not be Alina’s hallucinations) and I fear that both Alina and Mal will have their sharp edges sanded down. Neither one behaves very well in this book, and as the adaptation of season one proved, they’re particularly terrified of Mal being anything less than perfect.

Casting my mind back to my initial reading of this book, I tried to recall how I felt about Mal. Fandom drew the conclusion that he was whiny and selfish and only loved Alina on his terms, which – unsurprisingly – is a gross exaggeration of what’s going on, yet an inevitability when the other corner of the love triangle he’s been shoved into is a black-clad mass-murderer who whispers sexily about power and control and how no one understands Alina except him.

But it’s easy to read the subtext of what’s going on with Mal: that he’s struggling through a full-blown identity crisis in which the girl with whom he shares a co-dependent relationship is freezing him out, after having given up his life as a tracker in the army (a career he loved and that he was good at) for her sake. I’m not saying he couldn’t handle all this much better, but it’s pretty obvious why he acts the way he does – which in truth, isn’t nearly as badly as fandom insists.

That’s the problem with YA at the moment – it’s the genre that’s the MOST preoccupied with how its audience reacts, and the irony is that I suspect Bardugo originally meant for Mal’s possessiveness and overbearing surliness to be appealing in and of itself, like Jacob’s violent tendencies offsetting Edward’s stalking back in Twilight. They’re just too in love with the heroine to behave like rational people!

So the most frustrating thing about this trilogy, with its beautiful descriptive prose, fascinating political landscape and immersive world-building, is just how YA it really is. Alina is torn between the two halves of herself: the side that is hungry for power but uncomfortable in asserting it, and the side that wants to be normal while being vaguely self-aware that she’s in a YA novel and that rejecting super-specialdom means she’ll never become an inspirational girlboss – but of course, these warring parts of herself are personified in what boy she’s going to end up with, as opposed to any true introspective about who she is and what she wants to be.

Heck, Bardugo even throws in a third option: the rakish, witty privateer who’s also the second heir to the throne.

This was only Bardugo’s second novel, and it’s an improvement on the first, just as later offerings are an improvement on this one. There’s plenty of material here for showrunner Eric Heisserer to play around with, and it’ll be interesting to see if the Crows will be integrated into Alina’s plot, or whether they’ll be off doing their own thing. It’s the adaptive process that is of most interest to me, and I found the transition from page to screen in the first season pretty fascinating. There are good bones here, and room for improvement.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Earlier this year I read a book on the making of the film, and it piqued my interest in the original text. That I read years ago, and my impressions of it are a little vague. Because it’s made such an impact on the cultural zeitgeist, I think I had absorbed most of its plot-points long before ever picking up the book, and to my mind it works more as a character study of an anti-heroine than as historical fiction (though naturally, Scarlett is deeply shaped and defined by said history).

The big accusation levelled at the book today is that it romanticizes both the South and the concept of the Lost Cause. Which... yeah? Obviously? I think that’s more a crime of the film than the book, as the book is so clearly told through the perspective of its deeply biased characters that it’s easy to read their fanaticism as delusion and stupidity (as Scarlett does).

But as an adult woman with critical reading skills, I’m capable of finding the four key characters (Scarlett, Rhett, Melanie and Ashley) and the world they inhabit as interesting as they are abhorrent.

Even the moral or “good” ones are living off the backs of slave labour, and at no point are we allowed to forget it. Only a few pages in and we’re treated to Scarlett having a conversation with her father that ends with him crying (having just bought the wife of one of his slaves): “never again will I let a darkie on this place marry off it. It’s too expensive.” Later, we hear of Scarlett’s mother Ellen in rather rapturous tones, with this passage: “Scarlett could not imagine her mother... unaccompanied by the small negro girl whose sole function in life was to remove basting threads and carry the rosewood sewing-box from room to room, as Ellen moved about the house.”

Other delightful observations include Ashley defend slavery by saying he never treated his badly, saintly Melanie complain that she doesn’t want her son to attend school with “piccaninnies” and Rhett cheerfully state that he murdered a Black man for being “uppity to a white woman.”

It’s monstrous. How can we possibly like these vile people? It’s with nothing but vindictive glee that I read about their crimes finally catching up to them in the wave of blood and violence that the Civil War wrought upon them, leaving them destitute and dumbstruck. That they suffer only a fraction of the pain and anguish they inflicted upon generations of slaves is still more than they deserve, but I’ll take what I can get.

And yes, I know that there are plenty of commentators out there that believe Black people were perfectly happy to be slaves that were treated well by their masters, but I found Mitchell herself to be a completely dispassionate author, who lays out her story without any personal voice in the matter. Even the authorial monologues feel more like she’s conveying the mentality of the people at the time rather than her own opinions.

That’s not to belie the fact that she might well HAVE shared these opinions. Maybe she DID believe all this racist garbage about how freed slaves soon become lazy, that they want to return to their masters, or that they're immediately trying to rape white women – but my point is that it doesn’t actually matter, because her narrative voice is (at least to my eyes/ears) surprisingly neutral. Her personality is not in the text, she makes no judgment calls and casts no aspersions. The prose is so matter-of-fact that the reader has infinite room to pass their own judgements (and surely that’s the point with a protagonist like Scarlett, who is layer upon layer of complexity). Whatever she intended is not actually relevant.

You could read this material completely straight, or you could see it as a dark satire, or as a searing social commentary.

One could argue that she deliberately creates this grotesque backdrop to Scarlett’s life, a stark contrast to a character who is largely worried about her own heartaches and comforts, with a self-absorption that’s truly breath-taking at times. That Mitchell is capable of sardonic undertones is undeniable, as when it comes to matters of gender: “The man owned the property and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him.”

Why not extend this cutting irony to the Black characters; the slaves whose labour is what raised the walls of Tara and who are subsequent witnesses to the trials and tribulations of a spoiled plantation owner’s daughter?

All things considered, I concede that’s probably not the subtext she was going for. But in the year 2021 it’s offensive to the point of laughable that anyone could believe in the nostalgic bullshit that Mitchell constructs about the American South. A happy golden era in which slaves were well cared for and perfectly content to do backbreaking labour for the sakes of their owners obviously never existed (there’s a bewildering passage in which Scarlett and her sisters are forced to work out in the fields, bemoaning the agony and suffering that they’re going through with no self-awareness whatsoever... oh, so this IS in fact, arduous and spirit-crushing work?) and reading this through a modern lens in which so much of what it’s seemingly trying to sell has been so thoroughly rejected by history means that at times you have to apply a sardonic tone to the content.

If it sounds like I’m trying to defend my right to enjoy this book, or to make its content more palatable, I’m not. Gone With the Wind has vexed us for eighty-five years and will continue to vex us for eighty-five more. Some readers can overlook the hideous parts to enjoy the character work, and others can’t. For me, Mitchell’s invisibility as a narrator makes applying Death of the Author remarkably easy, in which I can enjoy these characters as the appalling people, deserving of all their misfortune, that they are – though obviously not everyone will feel that way.

And in the midst of all their hypocrisy and cruelty, Scarlett is cast into another light. Is she awful? Sure, but I can respect her honesty and ruthlessness. At least no one is asking me to think she’s a good person by any definition of the term, which I’m sure is part of the reason why she’s such an iconic, unforgettable character – and is ironically, the only character who isn’t caught up in the foolish patriotism of the South and its war.

As the book says: “What was past was past. Those who were dead were dead. The lazy luxury of the old days was gone, never to return.” And good riddance to it.

Nosferatu (1922)

The background to this film is almost as interesting as the film itself: a silent German horror that’s based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the story alters the names and settings to avoid breaking copyright laws (not that this stopped the Stoker estate from suing and trying to have all copies of the film destroyed) but which hilariously copies the plot pretty much outright.

Jonathan Harker (now called Thomas Hutter) is sent to Transylvania by his employer to visit a new client called Count Orlok, who wishes to buy real estate opposite Hutter in the small German town of Wisborg. On arrival he’s surprised to find that the villagers are terrified of Orlok, and the man himself to be a deeply unsettling figure.

I mean, you know the drill. Everyone knows the story of Dracula. That said, there are some minor variations here and there, such as the fact that Orlok’s presence in Wisborg creates an unspecified plague among the townsfolk (talk about timely!) or that Hutter’s wife Ellen ultimately has to sacrifice herself to destroy Orlok, by presenting herself as such a tempting snack that he’s distracted enough to forget the rising sun. She’s essentially Lucy, if Lucy had been Harker’s wife instead of Mina.

It was fascinating to watch this in its entirety, knowing it's such an intrinsic part of the horror genre – or in fact, cinematic history in its entirety. I was surprised to find that it's not strictly in black and white; the frames are tinted – usually in yellow or turquoise – and the iconic scenes, which have been parodied to hell and back, still pack a punch in their purest form. Orlok’s shadow on the wall as he creeps up the staircase, Orlok rising up from his tomb in one singular motion... they’re chilling.

Bell Book and Candle (1958)

This film had been lingering on the edges of my awareness for a while now, and October certainly gave me an excuse to track it down. Based on a play by John Van Druten, it deals with the lives of three New York witches: Gillian Holroyd, her aunt Queenie, and her brother Nicky.

Gillian owns a rare African art store and is itching for something new and interesting to come along... and for some reason she decides it’s her neighbour Shep Henderson. I guess there’s something around the lazy drawl and greying hair of James Stewart that witches find irresistible.

Casting a love spell over him – partly due to her own attraction and partly due to the fact his fiancée was Gillian’s rival back in college – Shep is soon completely besotted. Hijinks ensue, partly brought on by the fact that if a witch is to truly fall in love, she’ll end up losing all her power.

I mean, it's very difficult to watch this in 2021 and root for a love story that culminates in a woman losing her innate magical abilities. And for a guy like Shep Henderson? The final scene is downright painful: Gillian trades in her slinky outfits for a yellow sundress, and transforms her African art store to a place that sells seashells. Oh honey, what are you doing?

In fact, this entire month has brought up a lot of thoughts about the nature of women and power – which is inevitable given October’s subject matter. Witches are always going to throw up such questions, and in poking about the internet, finding reviews and essays on things like Practical Magic and The Witch, there is a definite theme of women being asked to either embrace or give up power in exchange for normality (or more accurately, banality). Heck, even Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy plays around with this.

I feel a much lengthier post in the making, but for now: Bell Book and Candle is stylish and witty. It’s easy to see how it inspired the Bewitched sitcom, and the film is nearly stolen by Pyewacket the Siamese cat – seriously, I was astonished by what they managed to get this cat to do. It’s engaging while it lasts, but the idea of James Stewart being enough for a woman to give up her power and Bohemian lifestyle just does not compute. I’m glad I saw it once, but I doubt I ever will again.

The Witches (1990)

Damn, I can’t believe we let children watch this. I can’t believe I was allowed to watch this as a child. As it happens, this adaptation is rather notorious in my family, as my second cousin was taken to see it and ended up so traumatized that she would have panic attacks every time she saw an old lady (a witch, in her eyes) and had to be taken to a therapist. So yeah... maybe wait until your child is in double-digits before sharing this with them.

As it happens, Roald Dahl felt about this movie the same way Michael Ende felt about the filmic adaptation of his children’s novel, The Neverending Story. In both cases, they hated it. And in both cases, I think they could have lightened up a little. This is a perfectly serviceable take on the material, one that certainly doesn’t stint on the frightening elements and which cast Angelica Houston as one of the iconic villains of our collective childhoods.

That said, the real secret weapon of the film is Mai Zetterling as Luke’s grandmother. With her compelling storytelling voice and quirky kindness, she’s the backbone of the film and a grandma that any kid would love to have. The little hints that she and the Grand High Witch have an adversarial history together is beautifully hinted at – nothing spelt out entirely, but between her missing finger and the loaded stares they give each other, you can easily imagine a prequel in which Grandma as a young woman wandered the globe in search of her nemesis.

As Luke, Jasen Fisher is oddly a better actor once he becomes a mouse, and the rest of the adult cast know the assignment: to be either comically stupid or monstrously horrifying, from Rowan Atkinson playing the stuffy hotel manager, Bill Paterson as blustering Mr Jenkins, to all those ladies who sink their teeth into the conference of witches. Hats off particularly to the squealing housemaid, desperately trying to carry on a romantic liaison with her boss.

There’s some genuinely horrifying stuff here. The opening prologue that recounts the sad and mysterious tale of Erica who ends up trapped inside a painting. Erica... ERICA! The very idea that over the years she would grow up and grow old, before slowly disappearing from sight – excuse me while I go scream into a pillow.

Then there’s the grotesquery of watching Bruno turn painfully into a mouse, Luke’s parents going out for dinner and never coming back, the witches peeling off their hair and faces, the Grand High Witch pushing a baby’s pram toward the edge of a cliff, Luke being pinned down and forced to down the potion, the scenes in which he has to avoid the claws of a witch’s cat... the nightmare never ends! As a kid, the worst part for me was the witch that gets electrified to death just for muttering a passing comment – call me a weirdo, but I always felt a bit sorry for her, even though she’d certainly murdered a few children in her time.

In light of all this, I honestly don’t mind that Luke is turned back into a human by the end of the story. Seriously Roald Dahl: your ending, in which Luke and Grandma take solace in the fact that Luke will live longer than a normal mouse and hopefully die at the same time she does is not the heart-warming, bittersweet conclusion you thought it was. To deny a child the chance to grow up and finish high school and learn to drive a car and get married and all those other things that adults do, is actually quite horrendous.

To change him back into a human requires the subplot of the Grand High Witch having a long-suffering secretary, who ironically survives the mouse massacre due to her boss forbidding her from attending the luncheon. She gets a muttered line: “I never wanted to be one of them anyway”, and turns up at the very end to return Luke to his human form (and for good measure, bring back his glasses and pet mice as well).

I found it surprisingly touching: that someone could perform their own self-directed redemption after getting sick and tired of their mistreatment at others’ hands, though the whole thing needed a bit more meat to it. As I vaguely recall I wasn’t even aware of this character when I watched it as a child, and a bit more understanding as to why she flips sides could have worked wonders – just a brief scene perhaps, where Luke or Grandmother could have shown her a little bit of kindness, to give her a taste of what she was missing out on.

And of course, watching with adult eyes, there are all sorts of character actors I never noticed as a child. Brenda Blethyn as Mrs Jenkins is probably the most famous, but... is that Carson from Downton Abbey as the cook?! This time around I even got a brief glimpse of a witch who was clearly a man in drag in the audience, then I go online and find out it was Michael Palin!

The Jim Henson puppetry that brings the mice to life is on-point, the editing between said puppets and the real-life “stunt mice” is nearly seamless, and I found it was just as suspenseful now as it was when I was a kid. So it must have done something right.

Practical Magic (1998)

The funny thing about Practical Magic is that everyone likes it, despite it being a pretty bad movie. Holy tonal whiplash, batman! Seriously, this movie veers all over the place. It’s a romantic comedy and a horror story and a feminist empowerment tale. It’s one-half the lightness of Bewitched and one-half the darkness of Buffy, and it barely has anything in common with the Alice Hoffman novel which it’s adapted from.

It can also be unbearably twee at times. That whimsical leitmotif? Urgh.

So why do we even like it? Well for starters, it has witches in it. They live in a house so amazing that celebrities were making phone calls in the hopes of purchasing it, only to discover that it was just an architectural shell built especially for the film. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman have natural sisterly chemistry and the narrative is refreshingly focused on the relationships between women: not just the sisters, but the aunts and the daughters and the other women of the island.

The premise is fairly solid: after getting into a violent relationship with a man she can’t escape, Kidman’s Gillian calls Bullock’s Sally for help. In trying to extract her sister from Jimmy Angelo’s clutches, the two end up accidentally killing him, trying to resurrect him, and being forced to kill him again when his revived corpse attacks them. They bury him out in the back garden... only for his spirit to start haunting the house.

Only this fairly dark storyline is wrapped around the lightest of fluff: Sally yearning for a normal life, her daughters struggling with bullies at school, and Gillian riling up the rest of the housewives at the PTA meetings.

Eventually Aidan Quinn as a Texan detective arrives, who is nice enough but doesn’t muster up anything more than a “sure, I guess” reaction from the audience when he turns out to be Sally’s prophesied true love. (Not helping is that she had way more chemistry with her first husband, who gets three scenes and no lines).  

It’s seriously all over the place. The scene in which Quinn’s character comes face-to-face with the ghost of Jimmy Angelo is preposterous, matched only by the climactic exorcism scene which ends up as an ode to housewifery given the war-cry: “come on ladies; let’s clean house!” A part of me wants to celebrate the weaponization of feminine domesticity against an abusive ex-boyfriend... but it’s just so stupid, you guys.

Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing as the meddling aunts are a delight, but Bullock’s daughters (one of them played by a very young Evan Rachel Woods!) get short-shift considering they’re major characters in the third act of Hoffman’s original book.

Some things remain bafflingly unclear. The curse of the Owens women is that any man they love will eventually have his life cut short, brought on by the heartbreak of their ancestress Maria after she was abandoned by her lover. Which is sad for her, but also a real dick move to inflict this fate on all future generations. Thankfully, the curse is finally broken at the same time Sally finds a way to rid her sister of Jimmy’s demonic presence: by cutting their palms and pressing their blood together.

This... makes no symbolic or thematic sense. Why the hell does that work? How does it get rid of Jimmy? How does it break the curse? It’s such a lazy and inelegant solution.

But the film also has that cottagecore aesthetic, the midnight margaritas scene, Sally lighting a candle by blowing on the wick... the parts are much greater than the whole, and that’s what makes it a cult classic. It was this year’s chosen flick for our Halloween movie night at work, and even though only two of us showed up, it made for a fun night.

The Witch (2016)

It took me a while to summon up the fortitude to watch this, and even then it was after reading a synopsis, watching some of the scenes out of context, and starting it while it was still light outside. I enjoy the horror genre, but I have to take precautions so I don’t end up staying awake half the night.

After an unspecified affront to his community (something to do with a theological dispute) William and his family – wife, son, daughter, twins and infant son – leave the Puritan settlement at the dawn of white colonization in America, and head out into the wilderness on their own. As the terrifying soundtrack (screeching violins and wailing vocals) makes very clear: they’re completely fucked.

There are predictable family dynamics at work here: a deeply fraught bond between mother and daughter, a closer fellowship between the eldest siblings, some downright creepy twins, and a spiralling father who tries to be affectionate but can’t fathom anything not being completely under his control.

After so many nineties witches, in which the term conjures up glamourous single women with nifty abilities, it was kind of refreshing to head back to colonial times and experience some old school witches: in league with Lucifer, kidnapping babies, and dancing naked around a campfire.

This film is also fascinating in the way it can provoke such profoundly different reactions. Here’s one review that examines it through a feminist lens, in which William’s prideful masculinity is contrasted with the onset of Thomasin's feminine puberty, and another which explores the succession of religious schisms that lead the doomed family not only to the wilderness, but to America in the first place.  

I’m not entirely sure what to make of the whole thing. Admittedly, I have to roll my eyes at any attempt to interpret Thomasin’s final choice through some sort of feminist empowerment angle – for goodness sake, she sells her soul to the (very male) devil for butter and a fancy dress! All she’s done is exchange misery in one patriarchy for temporary materialistic pleasure in another. How is that a win for girl power??

That said, the film makes very clear that it’s their father’s pride that damns the family, and that Thomasin is but the unlucky scapegoat... and presumably the devil’s intended target the whole time. As far as I can gather, Black Phillip was riling up the family from day one of their arrival on the farm: whispering to the twins, using his servant to pick off the little brothers, and finally sitting back and letting the remaining members destroy one another before making his pitch to Thomasin.

But here’s what bugs me in stories like this one (see also, WGN’s Salem) which is that if witches and devils exist, then logically-speaking, so must their heavenly counterparts. If a family is being plagued by hellish monsters, making genuinely sincere and desperate prayers for assistance, then doesn’t God kind of owe it to them to help out a little?

I realize that this would destroy the flow of the horror narrative, which requires that things must go from bad to worse, but in this case I don’t feel that the family ever had a fighting chance. The witch was a very real entity, and there’s no indication that there’s anything Thomasin could have done to prevent her from making off with that baby. Despite the fact that the family is constantly lying to each other in the midst of their endless prayers and liturgies, what happens to them isn’t the result of conscious decision-making or true vindictiveness. Even if they had been perfect paragons of virtue, that witch was gonna get them sooner or later. This isn’t a tragedy of human flaws and fears, but a mere inevitability. 

There’s one exception to this grim outlook, and that’s that in the middle of all the grim religion – the Calvinist tracts, the endless self-flagellation, the continual fear of damnation (you can sense Thomasin’s weary “fuck this shit” attitude right from the start) there is a scene in which one of the family does seem to experience genuine (even hopeful!) religious ecstasy. Of course, he dies immediately afterwards, but it seems to have been played as a brief moment in which God truly comes through for this otherwise doomed household.

There’s so much else to parse through here. For instance, the glimpse of the Native Americans at the very start was fascinating – a reminder that all this witch stuff was brought to the New World by Europeans? Did the devil come over with the pilgrims? Or were witches haunting the woods long before their arrival?

The film asks a lot of questions and provides little in the way of answers, which is perhaps one of the key elements of the horror genre. It reflects the fact that terrible things can happen in this world, that we can’t always fathom the cause of it, and the answers we come up with to explain it all can be just horrifying as the mystery itself. It’s grim, but it’s compelling.

Brigsby Bear (2017)

A co-worker gave this to me to watch, and I’ve never been very good at saying no, so watch it I did. And it’s good, albeit deeply strange. The best way to experience it is to go in completely cold, so if you’re interested, stop reading now.

SPOILERS

James Mitchum lives in a bunker with his parents, knowing that the world outside is a dangerous place. While his mother tries to find the solutions to various mathematical equations, his father sometimes leaves with a gasmask in order to gather supplies. James has daily chores of his own to get on with, though his one form of entertainment comes through watching the Brigsby Bear show.

From what we the audience can garner through the clips we’re shown, it’s a Doctor Who/eighties children’s show mash-up, in which the titular Brigsby Bear goes on various adventures through a variety of different dimensions, fighting evil and collecting magical crystals.

Then one day, a police raid on the property sees him separated from his parents and told the truth about himself: as a baby he was kidnapped, and he’s been held captive by the Mitchums ever since. Everything he’s ever been told is a lie – including Brigsby Bear, which was actually written and filmed by his fake father, filled with subliminal messages to keep him in check (curiosity is bad, don’t masturbate too much, etc).

Here’s an example:

James is returned to his true parents and their teenage daughter Aubrey, and the slow process of reintegration into the real world begins. There are ups and downs of course, but the biggest problem is that James is fixated on Brigsby Bear, and desperate to finish the story. Having made friends within Aubrey’s social circle, they get together to help James complete his vision and shoot a Brigsby Bear movie.

Despite the decidedly odd premise, there’s some heart-warming stuff here. I loved the fact that Aubrey and her friends aren’t portrayed as cruel teenagers, but as normal kids trying to do the right thing, with a genuine interest in the show that James is so obsessed with.

Also, Mark Hamill really is a gift. He only gets two scenes, and yet manages to form a complete character, of equal parts good and bad, in both of them. People laugh about how he got typecast as Luke Skywalker, and it’s a shame, as he really didn’t get the career he deserved (though he’s quite an illustrious voice actor by this stage) and he’s fantastic here.

The Witches (2020)

The big question on everyone’s lips in the leadup to the second adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Witches was: would it skew closer to the original ending of the book? Well... yes, but also no. On the one hand, the boy (never named in the book, a deliberate omission that’s honoured here) does indeed remain a mouse; on the other, it’s clear that the film (as in the 1990 version, to the point where they changed it completely) is deeply uncomfortable with this.

As you’ll recall, the book ends with the boy-mouse asking his grandmother how long he has to live. She predicts that because he’s not an ordinary mouse, he might live for another nine years, something that the boy is happy with, as it means that he’ll die around the same time as his grandmother. On the page, it has a certain sense of poignancy despite its inherent tragedy, but the moment it makes the leap to the screen, it becomes horrifying in its implications.

So this take on the material is at pains to assure the viewer that life as a mouse is wonderful and fulfilling, with a montage that leaps forward several years into the future, and a framing device that shows the boy (now voiced by Chris Rock) having reached adulthood and still kicking around.

Anne Hathaway is having a great time as the Grand High Witch, though no actress could ever come close to the perfectly calibrated blend of ham and menace that was Angelica Housten, and the choice to shift the story to Alabama and Race Lift the Boy and his Grandmother is an interesting one (this leads to some light social commentary, about how witches only go after the marginalized, some micro-aggressions from the hotel manager about having Black people in his hotel, and some racial solidarity between Grandmother and the all-Black staff).

It works for me considering we now get to enjoy the incomparable Octavia Spencer as the Grandmother, who is in many ways the star of the film.

Another change is that the Boy’s pet mouse Mary has been reimaged as a third child – along with Bruno – that’s been transformed by the witch’s chocolate (she’s voiced by Kristin Chenoweth, which is a shame since she has what’s clearly an adult’s voice) and all three end up staying together after their parents either can’t be found or reject them (poor Bruno).

It’s a nice enough adaptation, but I’m afraid nostalgia clouds my judgment. We’re always going to prefer the content we grew up with.  

Gretel and Hansel (2020)

I just managed to squeeze this one in on Halloween night, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. A deeply stylized take on Hansel and Gretel (with a little sprinkling of Little Red Riding Hood) you’ll notice straight away that the switching of the names in the title is very deliberate. This is a version of the fairy tale in which Gretel is the undisputed protagonist – though come to think of it, it’s strange that she doesn’t get first billing in the original fairy tale considering she’s always the one to eventually take out the witch.

Though the dialogue is pretty leaden, especially on the heels of The Witch (which made Early Modern English sound completely naturalistic) the visual flair more than makes up for it, with some breath-taking shots of a forest in autumn, angular rooms and townships filled with negative space, and a witch’s house that sits like a black triangle in the midst of the trees (no gingerbread here).

Some details are applied to the beginning and end of familiar fairy tale, but with a murky backstory for the witch in the forest, and an emphasis on Gretel as a potential witch in her own right. As did so many of the other witch-related stories I consumed this month, it explores the cost of power and independence in a woman: even as the witch attempts to foster the seeds of potential in Gretel, she grows envious of her youth and innocence.

Pitting Sophia Lillias (Gretel) and Alice Krige (the witch) against each other is a real treat, with the two actresses – very young and very old – often seated on opposite sides of a table and given plenty of opportunity to simply play off each other to great effect. It was released to a somewhat divided response from critics, though even if you conclude that it’s all style and no substance, it’s still a gorgeous film to look at.

In short, it’s a great companion piece to The Witch, with plenty to absorb in the issues that it raises, but a greater sense of hope amidst its fairy tale ambience. There is no male devil here, only different forms of helpful or harmful womanhood.

Charmed: Season 1 (1998 – 1999)

And here is it: more than Practical Magic, more than Sabrina, more than The Craft even, when I think of nineties witchcraft, I think of Charmed. Specifically, the first and only the first season. It’s all downhill after this, with sloppier plots, shakier continuity and outfits that get more and more inexplicable. Don’t believe me? This gif-set pretty much sums up why I quit halfway through season three. What is even going on in these images?

But season one provides an episodic story that unfolds over twenty-two parts, with a variety of standalones and mini-arcs that makes it reasonably satisfying on its own terms. And honestly, out of all the witch-related stuff I watched this month, it’s surprisingly Charmed that held up best from a feminist perspective. These women are career-orientated, not hugely obsessed with their love lives, have a calling to protect the innocent, and prioritize their sisterhood above all else.

Many (though not all) of the foes they have are male warlocks and demons, most of the innocents they protect are other women coming into their own power, and as the season goes on a greater emphasis is put on the matrilineal line of their family tree. And they have great outfits and hair, which is a prerequisite for any modern witch. Honestly, who’d have thought Charmed of all things would tick so many feminist boxes?

Though weirdly enough, girl-power hour starts with a woman getting murdered – not just that, but a woman who can light candles with her mind, who is introduced chanting a spell of protection. So much for that.

The basic premise is that after a period of separation, the three Halliwell sisters are reunited under the same roof: workaholic oldest Prue, peacemaker middle-child Piper, and free spirit youngest Phoebe (though for the longest time as a kid, I was under the impression that Piper was the youngest and Phoebe in the middle). Tensions are high between Prue and Phoebe given an unelaborated-on incident between the former’s ex-fiancé and the latter’s history of boyfriend-stealing, not helped by Phoebe’s unannounced return to the manor house they all grew up in.

But after their mother’s oujia board (which weirdly enough, she gave to them as a gift while they were children) directs Phoebe to the attic room, she discovers an ancient book of spells and recites an incantation which – surprise! – grants them all preternatural abilities. Prue gets telekinesis, Piper can temporarily “freeze” time, and Phoebe gets premonitions, all of which are designed to help them battle the forces of evil.

Getting a handle on their new powers, and learning to juggle their calling with everyday life, is the thesis statement of season one. For the most part, it works out pretty well. Perhaps the most surprising thing when rewatching season one after the more outlandish plots of the other seven seasons is how grounded it all feels: Prue and Piper have jobs, and they’re actually required to go to those jobs in order to earn money. When demon-vanquishing starts getting in the way of their office hours, there are consequences.

Likewise, there’s usually a more mundane subplot in each episode involving one of the sisters, from troubles at work to complications in their daily life. Some of them are quite clever (in one, Prue casts a truth spell to ascertain how her love interest would react to her being a witch, and Phoebe takes advantage of this in order to gather information about a premonition she’s just had) and some are completely irrelevant (one has Piper having to deal with an obnoxious chef, which has nothing to do with anything else going on in the episode and doesn’t even get resolved by the end credits).

This dual-plotting approach can also lead to some bizarre tonal shifts. One story has Prue in a terrifying race against time against a fear-inducing, serial-killing demon... while Piper debates whether or not it's wise to start a relationship with a guy on Friday the 13th.  

They also never really found any ways of creatively utilizing the witches’ abilities. Weird comparison, but remember Wolverine and the X-Men, the animated television show in the early noughts? The writers were fantastic in finding innovative ways of playing around with the characters’ powers, from Nightcrawler bailing out a ship’s hold by teleporting himself in and out, emptying all the water that he’s touching at the time, to the otherwise invulnerable Kitty being stopped in her tracks when Magneto leaves her dangling from a sheet of metal, rendering her phasing ability completely useless.

Though it was undoubtedly down to budget constraints, nothing that cool or creative happens here. In fact, most of the first season involves Prue channelling her telekinesis through her eyes, which involves a lot of quick zoom-in close-ups of Shannon Doherty squinting at something, before they finally realize this looks ridiculous and have her start channelling her abilities through her hands instead (which they claim is an expansion of her powers, even though moving objects by merely looking at them is clearly the more impressive use of power than the more dynamic waving of hands).

The show also had a tendency towards anti-climaxes. Often the demons are defeated by the women simply standing in place and chanting a spell, and on occasion they don’t even realize there’s a demon/warlock/killer running around until the last ten minutes of the episode. They’re not particularly proactive superheroes, and most of the time the story comes to them – heck, in Feats of Clay they literally achieve nothing. The plot resolves itself entirely without their input.

Yet some things were surprisingly before their time. The Dream Sorcerer involves a textbook example of an incel, a full decade before that term went mainstream, and Love Hurts has an abusive ex-boyfriend who uses every line in the book to try and win his girlfriend back to him. Plenty of episodes are clearly cribbed from other source material (Nightmare on Elm StreetThe TerminatorGhostThe OmenThe Craft) and The Wedding From Hell has got to be the worst episode of any show that has ever existed. Insipid guest stars, stilted acting, stupid premise, awkward direction – I couldn’t help but suspect that it was pushed as far back as possible from the premiere given that Piper still seems to be dealing with the immediate aftermath of the first episode. If this had been the show’s second offering, the audience would have immediately jumped ship.

And yet other episodes are genuinely good: Wicca EnvyThat 70s EpisodeOut of SightDéjà vu All Over Again... these are solid plots with fun banter and decent characterization.

There was no season-long arc at work, a television artform that was perfected over on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but rather a number of little mini-arcs that would overlap across the course of several episodes: Prue’s job at Bucklands Auction House involved two secret warlocks (Rex and Hannah) who monitored her for several episodes before making their move, while Piper enjoyed an off-and-on again relationship with the handyman Leo (more than what he seemed) and Phoebe struggled to hold down a regular job. Three episodes out from the end we’re introduced to the last villain of the season, which builds nicely to the finale.

But the most important long-running subplot involved Andy, a police detective and Prue’s love interest, who pretty much had his own separate show going on: a gritty police procedural in which he investigated weird paranormal crimes with his partner (the Scully to his Mulder) and never actually solved anything.

Bucklands provided the necessary scope for several stories, what with the continual influx of ancient artefacts and magical items that had to pass beneath Prue’s nose (she was an appraiser) and Piper’s job at The Quake was the Charmed equivalent to Buffy’s The Bronze, and the setting of most of the more light-hearted plots. And of course, that beautiful old manor, second only to the Practical Magic house as the “most desirable house belonging to witches”.

I had forgotten several things, such as those repetitive establishing shots of San Francisco (get ready to watch that one tram car go past about a million times) and the fact that Darryl Morris (Andy’s partner, and an absolutely perfect example of a nineties Token Black Guy) was in the opening credits right from the start. Hey, remember opening credits, complete with catchy theme song? You never see them these days.

Although the later schism between Shannon Doherty and Alyssa Milano is well documented, there was initially a great sisterly chemistry between the three leads (and Prue/Phoebe had the most interesting dynamic given their tendency to butt heads) and all of them nicely fill their roles as the mum, the peacemaker and the free spirit – though it always baffled me that Piper was meant to be “the sweet one” since more often than not she came across as a terminal grump.

Popping up are plenty of familiar (albeit very youthful) faces, the most significant of which is a young John Cho guest-starring as a ghost, but also Michael Weatherley well before his twelve-year stint on NCIS, and character actors David Carradine, Jeff Kober and Billy Drago (you’d know them if you saw them).

There are some good ideas sprinkled throughout that you wish had been expanded on (one episode has three demon brothers who are clearly set up as counterparts to the Charmed Ones, which could have been an interesting ongoing story), several guest stars that could have made a return in some capacity (at one point they help a woman destined to be a future whitelighter that would have been a fun recurring character), and some developments that surely deserved more attention (you would think Piper’s boyfriend turning out to be a warlock who tries to kill her would have had more of an emotional impact on her, but she’s pretty nonchalant about it).

But apparently creator Constance Burge’s motto in creating the show was that that the three leads were not witches who happened to be sisters, but sisters who happened to be witches. The slow-but-steady loss of this mentality as the seasons went on was what led to her departure and the show’s move into more fantastical (and stupid) storylines.

And the drop-off happened really quickly. Remember season two’s Jenny? She was the first sign the writers had no real handle on the story. The world-building in season one might have been scattershot, but it worked within the context of the relatively standalone episodes, and the sloppy continuity of the later seasons drove me away from the show halfway through season three, well before Prue was killed off.

I’m left with the uneven but deeply nostalgic joys of season one, which is like being wrapped up in a blanket made of the nineties. Man, I miss the nineties. There was so little to worry about that we all legitimately cared about the environment. I had a few of these episodes recorded on VCR, and must have watched them literally dozens of times, while others I had only ever seen once before, after I bought the first season on DVD a few years ago.

Returning to this time capsule of a show was a lot of fun, though ironically I was looking forward to settling down with the 2018 remake, foreseeing that in the twenty years of television since the original it would have a more focused storyline and long-term planning... only to learn that Madeleine Mantock is leaving the show. And even more ironically, she also played the eldest sister with the power of telekinesis. Talk about history repeating.

Midnight Mass (2021)

There is so much to say about this show, and I’m not going to have time to delve particularly deeply into any of it. Suffice to say, that if you want a quick recommendation – yes. Watch it. It’s very good.

SPOILERS

That Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass has inspired so much on-line discussion is a point in its favour: this is a story that has something to impart, and does so intelligently – though not by letting any overt messages impinge on the flow of the storytelling. There is some pointed commentary, yes – but I think the fact that there is an ongoing debate among viewers about whether the show is pro or anti-religion is a good thing. It means there’s room for interpretation here.

Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) has just returned to Crockett Island, the place where he grew up and which is currently undergoing an economic crisis: not only a recent oil spill, but an exodus of citizens to the mainland, searching for a better life. He returns not in triumph but despair, having spent the last few years of his life in prison for the manslaughter of a young woman killed by the car he was driving. He was drunk at the time.

Bereft of his former Catholic faith, and with a rather lukewarm homecoming from his family (his mother is the nearest thing to an angel on earth, but his father is much more reticent) Riley doesn’t see much of a future ahead of him, not even in reuniting with his childhood sweetheart Erin (Kate Siegal) who is now divorced and pregnant with her first child.  

But he’s not the only newcomer on the island. The township’s elderly parish priest has been delayed in Jerusalem due to health issues, and been unexpectedly replaced by Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater) who takes to the position like a fish to water. Empathetic and charismatic, he’s clearly everything the former priest was not, and quickly invigorates the town’s congregation.

Here’s where the discussion about whether this show is pro or anti-religious comes in. It won’t come as a huge surprise to discover that Father Paul is not all he seems, and that several rather unsettling occurrences on the island – the sighting of a man walking alone in a storm, an influx of dead cats washed up on the beach – are connected to his arrival. And yet when his sermons start to get a little strange; when he starts introducing certain ideas and possibilities to his flock, the attending townsfolk are all ears.

It would seem the message being conveyed is that the parish’s religious devotion makes them vulnerable to manipulation, and that only those on the outskirts of the church (the atheist, the lesbian, the Muslim sheriff) are the few who aren’t blinded by whatever nefarious plot Father Paul has in store. And yet it’s not that simple. Whether or not you’re a church-going person, the sight of a paralysed young girl standing up from her wheelchair and walking without support is going to be considered a miracle.

For me at least, it’s important to note that Father Paul’s presence results in good things happening to people on Crockett Island, and it’s that more than reasonable to assume such things – from no longer needing glasses to the sudden lucidity of a dementia patient – are acts of God. Even when questioned by the aforementioned non-believers of the town, I don’t think it’s fair to attribute stupidity or fanaticism to any of the congregation in the wake of such events.

But what’s really happening here?

MORE SPOILERS, STOP NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW THE TWIST

Because we are all savvy genre viewers, we know that something untoward is going on, and spend most of the first few episodes just waiting for the other shoe to drop. As it happens, Father Paul did not come to the island alone, and it takes no stretch of the imagination to think of what else might be responsible for de-aging, miraculous healing, and a lot of dead cats.

Of course, the remarkable thing about Midnight Mass (for better or worse) is that it’s essentially a vampire story that never utters the word “vampire”. This seems to be for a number of reasons. First is that despite its content, the show is very deeply grounded in realism. The people of Crockett Island live in the real world, and even the initial “miracle” of young Leeza walking results in a muted and rather bewildered reaction, which actually skews close to the truth of what such an occurrence would probably engender in a small community. People celebrate, yes, but they’re also a little uneasy about it.

Furthermore, the vampire is in many ways more of a symbol than an actual character. It never utters a word, and Father Paul’s ability to project the identity of an angel upon it is indicative of its mutability (helped by the fact that Flanagan removes several of the more anti-Christian elements of vampiric lore, like the fact that they’re physically harmed by crucifixes or religious artefacts, which would have otherwise provided a fairly massive red flag).

By the end, the vampire is depicted as little more than an animal, one that goes into a mindless trance while feeding and running on what appear to be instincts rather than intellect. This creature is a plot instigator and not much else; unimportant in and of itself.

And let’s be honest: if we were really and truly caught up in this scenario, would any of us be naturally inclined to reach for the “it’s a vampire!” option? (Though the counterargument to that would be that people drenched in Catholic doctrine probably WOULD be more inclined to reach for this possibility once the reality of the supernatural can no longer be denied).

In short, there is never any “the Emperor has no clothes!” moment, which may come as a disappointment to some viewers. No one ever gets the chance to stand up and cry: “dude, that’s a fucking vampire!” Those characters who are deluded remain so up until the final episode, and the option of perceiving everything as a scientifically-driven series of events is a logic-based argument that’s also introduced towards the end.  

Which is an interesting way to tell a story. At the heart of Midnight Mass’s plot is a vampire, and yet at the heart of Midnight Mass is the way in which various smalltown folk interact with themselves, each other, and their personal faith. The vampire is almost incidental. 

For me at least, the most interesting conceits that Flanagan brings to the vampire mythos is twofold: first in finding the parallels between the darkness and violence of vampirism and that of organized religion, particularly Catholicism. After all, both require the drinking of blood, which becomes the very crux of Father Paul’s plan (a plot-point that apparently originated in Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, but since it’s used to good effect here, we’ll give it a pass).

There is a deep interest in portraying traditional Catholic sacraments simply for their own sake (with casual mentions of concepts like “ordinary time”, which I had to surreptitiously google while watching) though put together it’s clearly held up as another reason why the people of Crockett Island are so easily groomed for Father Paul’s masterplan– not just that they have faith, but they have this particular faith, where the inherent strangeness of rituals involving blood and demonstrative acts of faith are commonplace.

That said, it’s important to note that not everyone falls for it – but I’ll get to that in a bit.

The second great idea is in constructing a juxtaposition between vampirism and addiction. As I mentioned earlier, protagonist Riley is a recovering alcoholic whose return to the island is supplemented by AA meetings held by Father Paul at the church. It’s a theme that’s been rather less discussed in on-line circles, which is a shame since it leads up to one of the show’s most dramatic and rewarding moments.

I won’t give it away just yet, as I want to make it part of my list of Top Twelve Best Television/Film moments of the year, but suffice to say that alcoholism is what damns Riley, but ironically, also what saves him. On hearing Father Paul’s increasingly hysterical justifications for what he’s done, and on experiencing the need to feed on human blood for sustenance, Riley is the only person able to cut through the bullshit and recognize what’s happening for what it truly is: just another form of addiction.

All these ideas and themes are expertly woven together throughout the seven episodes: the cost of addiction, the potential dangers of religion, the question of whether or not God has a plan (you could make the argument that Riley’s crime in killing that young girl in a drunk-driving accident ultimately happened in order to prevent a much greater atrocity from occurring, but then you’d be left wondering what kind of God would set up that kind of cause-and-effect gambit) and how they all intersect within both the characters and the story that’s being told.

That I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface is a testament to how rich and deep the show is. No, it isn’t perfect. There is a fondness for monologues that gets increasingly silly as the episodes go on (just when the tension is racketing up, things grind to a halt so a man can make a long-winded lecture about his dead wife and past career) and for some reason every single person on this island choses never to draw their curtains at night.

The reveal of Father Paul’s true motivation is certainly foreshadowed, but it could have used a bit more in-depth exploration, and I also have a bit of a grievance about the character of Bev. You know this person very well: she’s the religious bitch in Gremlins. She’s the religious bitch in Edward Scissorhands. She’s the religious bitch in The Mist. She’s always religious and she’s always a bitch.

And she’s always a woman, given no depth or redeeming qualities whatsoever – the only character that’s guaranteed to be purely loathsome from start to finish. It aggravates me whenever this character pops up, as she always exists for the sole purpose of being hated by the audience, even though it doesn’t take much perception to see that these types of people – real or fictional – are profoundly unhappy. Doesn't anyone ever wonder why?

(I did however, appreciate the chilling trait that she had of providing a Bible-based justification for anything and everything she did, no matter how depraved. It reminded me of the trend in American politics in which a random Bible verse is trotted out whenever someone tries to do something – there was that widely-spread footage of a woman in Texas who triumphantly read out a passage that seemingly backed up her argument before her opposition wearily pointed out that the verse in question was discussing the annunciation of saints, not the election of Texan state senators).

So ultimately I’d disagree with those claiming this is a scathing indictment of organized religion, as there are various characters who ascribe to different beliefs that either embrace or reject the promise that Father Paul makes them. And in direct opposition to the vampirism-is-addiction and religion-is-dangerous themes, Riley’s parents stand fast to their faith and reject the bloodlust with dignity and conviction.

The whole thing is an emotional and theoretical rollercoaster ride. There are some stunning Wham Shots, moments of true heroism and complete vice, weighted commentary on existential questions involving death and religion, and a surprisingly beautiful setting. The way Crockett Island is clearly mapped out and filmed exponentially adds to the mood and tone. Definitely recommend.

Minor note: I got through this entire series without realizing that the actor who played Riley’s father was Henry Thomas – that is, the former child actor who was Elliot in E.T. I wouldn’t have recognized him in a million years.

6 comments:

  1. I am fairly certain there's a story about the ending to the 1990 version of The Witches that's never been properly looked into - the story goes that Dahl was incensed by Nicolas Roeg's alternate ending, and Roeg agreed to film an alternate ending that was truer to the book (note that in the final version there are elements from the original book's ending, such as Luke's toy train system, briefly visible) as a compromise. Roeg decided to go with the changed ending anyway (despite the truer-to-the-text version moving Dahl to tears when he saw it), although I doubt he spent hours of time and thousands of dollars on reshoots just to try and placate Dahl so he must have been *considering* using it.

    I suspect the stories about Dahl standing outside cinemas with a megaphone urging people not to see the film are probably apocryphal, if only because he died of cancer six months later...

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    1. Yeah, I've always questioned that story too. Not only for the illness factor but because it's just such a dick movie. Ursula le Guin had a more justified axe to grind.

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    2. RE: the ending, if IMDB is anything to go by (huge grain of salt) both endings were filmed to be decided in post and based on test screening reaction - unsurprisingly, the test audience preferred the ending where Luke turned back into a boy.

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    3. And honestly - it was the right choice. Sorry Dahl.

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  2. I recently rewatched the 90's The Witches myself, and damn is it still terrifying - Erica in the painting is so creepy without being at all explicit, the true form of the Grand High Witch is still hard to look at (the absolute horror of "a witch who dares to say I'm wrong"). For years I have been wanting a prequel about Helga's adventures and how she lost her finger. It seems like a no-brainer, but on the other hand I can just see there being some tragic backstory for the Grand High Witch and it twisted into a narrative of evil witch hunters just out to bring a girlboss down or something.

    Gone With the Wind - I'm not sure I think Mitchell's authorial voice is neutral, a great deal of the work is based upon her own family history and stories of the time period told to her as a child, and she constructs her world and story through that lens. But as you say we can certainly view the text in ways she did not intend - Scarlett is very much a character that embodies White Feminism, perpetrating white supremacy but also a victim of hierarchy (her Irish heritage), she suffers under but also upholds the patriarchy. She's horrible, but so damn compelling.

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    1. I deliberately DIDN'T read any in-depth biographies of Mitchell just to maintain my own distanced reading of the text, without any author bias. Or perhaps it's just because the South POV (that slaves were looked after, that they liked being slaves, that freedom was bad for them) is just SO fucking ridiculous that there's inevitably a disconnect between my brain and anything that is earnestly trying to sell this lie. I'm going to see a sardonic tone even if it's not there.

      Erica is definitely the most terrifying part of the movie for me. And that little boy in the painting they see later at the hotel... a whole story there and we learn nothing about him.

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