Eli Roth's History of Horror (2018) s02e04 Episode Script
Witches
1
By the pricking of my thumbs,
something wicked
this way comes.
[laughter]
[gasps]
male narrator: Who's afrad
of a wicked witch?
[laughs]
[both screaming]
narrator: Everybody.
"The Witch"
is a perfect example
of an
atmospheric horror movie.
[growls]
It was one of the scariest
films I've ever seen.
[screams]
Sometimes an evil witch
is just gonna come back
and haunt you.
[screams]
What are you gonna do?
- Hello?
- [screams]
Who would've thought
"The Blair Witch Project"
would work the way that it was.
It's disturbing.
I mean, this was kamikaze
filmmaking at its greatest.
It changed filmmaking.
[scary music]
And it's always been that the
witch has negative intentions.
She's punished at some point
for having the power.
You're a witch.
A solitary witch
is one thing,
but a group a women
working together
creating power that's more
than the sum of its parts,
is just
exhilarating.
[cheers and applause]
We were one of the first new
waves of bringing witchcraft
and paganism to the future.
[glass breaking]
- Aah!
"Suspiria" just feels weid
at all times.
[screams]
It's just so awesome.
We don't have consider the
rules and world of men at all.
- [grunts]
- Aah!
They're outside
of all of our concerns here.
[screaming]
♪♪
[laughs]
[eerie music]
♪♪
[screams]
narrator: The witch
is a towering figure
in the history of horror.
[voices moaning]
narrator:
The archetypical evil witch
is everything
mainstream religion
tells us a woman
should ot be:
a Satan-worshipping,
baby-killing predator
who fears neither God nor man.
[laughs]
narrator:
Like all good monsters,
a bad witch
does whatever she likes
whenever she likes.
[laughter]
That unapologetic,
very female power
frightens men
and fascinates women.
♪♪
In real life, witches were
non-conformist women
persecuted
by religious fanatics.
They suffered horrible deaths
for their imagined crimes.
[screaming]
narrator: Perhaps society's
collective guilt
fuels the stories we tell
about witches
who come back for revenge.
[scary music]
Oh, dear God!
narrator: Sometimes the
vengeful witches you don't see
are the most terrifying,
and there few better examples
than
"The Blair Witch Project."
(Bleep)! Go!
[screaming] Oh, God!
[screams]
Who would've thought
"The Blair Witch Project"
would work the way that it was.
The first time I saw t
movie, I was in the hospital,
and I was doped up.
My son brought
a VHS tape of it,
and he said,
"You gotta watch this."
Halfway through it, I said,
"Turn it off, it's too freaky.
I can't."
Oh, my God,
what the (bleep) is that?
What the (bleep) is that?
I had the same experience.
I was like, "I have
to turn the lights on."
I was so disturbed
by the end of the movie.
It's disturbing.
That's right.
I was, like,
I get chills thinking about
how scared I was.
- Yeah.
- [heavy breathing]
- Come on!
I hear him downstairs!
In "The Blair Witch Project,"
the witch,
it feels like it's everywhere.
Hello?
It's almost like
the woods itself is the witch.
There's not just this one
mysterious figure
that shows up.
The entire experience
is mysterious.
All right, come on.
Into the house.
Come on.
Come on.
narrator:
"The Blair Witch Project"
wasn't the first
found footage movie ever made,
but it was the first
t become a massive hit.
We have these
three film students
going off into the woods
to make a documentary
about what they believe
is an urban legend
of the Blair Witch.
Have you heard
of the Blair Witch?
Oh, yeah.
That's an old, old, old story.
So from the very beginning,
the interviews with the
townspeople are all credible.
These don't look like actors.
These look like just people
you would meet on the street.
And that crew is every bit
as annoying
[laughs]
As you might imagine a crew
in real life might be.
Oh, he licked it.
God bless him.
Yeah, there we go.
They didn't cast, like,
CW-type hunky leads.
They were, you know,
the schlubs next door
or the people in the dorm room
next to you.
- Packs are on.
- We're rocking.
- We're ready to go.
- Let's rock.
All I knew when I was gunning
for the job
and and and when I first
got hired was,
it was a movie about
three student filmmakers
who went out in the woods
to investigate the leged
of the Blair Witch,
and they went missing.
Actors Heather Donahue,
Josh Leonard,
and Mike Williams
were given film equipment ad
a loose set of instructions,
then sent off into the woods.
So they wanted to keep it
as naturalistic as possible.
It is the three of us
filming each other
and recording sound
of each other
and we would have
no direct interaction
with the directors of the film
while we were making it.
They gave us a GPS, and they
had programmed in waypoints
which were hatch marks
on the map,
and we were to find our way
to these different waypoints.
So we knew we were
gonna encounter things;
we just didn't know what
those things were gonna be.
What?
Some of your stuff is
hanging all over the ground!
No way.
- They're all over the place.
- Holy (bleep).
The special effects,
if you wanna call it that,
rocks and twigs, you know?
[laughs]
Things hanging in the woods
are so simple
that they feel true.
They don't feel like
something that, you know,
a set designer's
gonna come up with.
Hello?
They find clues that
the Blair Witch might be real.
You don't think
this is strange?
They start to be
kind of stalked.
They find themselves
lost in the woods,
and it seems to be due
to a supernatural force.
[cries]
They start to
act irrationally.
Help!
They end up going
in circles.
- Turn that thing off!
- (Bleep).
Then they start
getting picked off
kind of one by one.
- [heavy breathing]
- Come on!
Josh!
In the end of course,
they're all dead.
[thumps]
And that's how the footage
supposedly came to us.
[heavy breathing]
It's that beautiful moment
when she's on the ground,
and she's weeping
and shuddering
that actress was terrified
and put all of that work
into the camera,
and it came right at us,
and we wanted to help her.
I'm scared to close my eyes.
I'm scared to open them.
I think without
Heather's monologue
and that weird framing
of that shot,
I don't think the film works.
I am so, so sorry.
[whimpering]
I think that very iconic
moment made the film,
and added so many stakes
and so much relatability
to the film,
and Mike and I had no idea
that she filmed that
until we saw it for
the first time in a theater.
I'm gonna die out here.
♪♪
narrator: Made for $60,000,
"The Blair Witch Project"
grossed $250 million
at the box office.
[heavy breathing]
It was the first movie
that used the internet
to sell tickets basically,
to use the internet to create
a marketing campaign,
and it was brilliant.
It had never
been attempted before.
narrator: The film was
marketed as a true story,
a deception supported
by a convincing website.
I thought that film
was real.
I walked out of there going,
"We have to find
we have to find these people.
Where are they?"
I hear him.
I hear him.
I hear you.
Josh!
It feels like you're there.
It feels like something
that would happen.
[screams]
"Blair Witch" nailed it.
[screaming]
[thumps]
narrator: "Blair Witch"
is part of a long tradition
of treating witchcraft
as a force of evil,
but some movies show us
witchcraft can be
a force for good
if it's in the right hands.
[screaming]
narrator: In the movies,
witches wear many faces.
[scary music]
Ugly and beautiful.
Repellent and irresistible.
♪♪
But for most people,
the all-time iconic witch
arrived in 1939,
in the form of actress
Margaret Hamilton.
♪♪
If we were doing a Rorschach
test and you said witch,
the first thing
I would say back to you
is the Wicked Witch of the West
in "The Wizard of Oz,"
a film that millions upon
millions of people have seen.
♪♪
I think she is the
personification of a witch.
I'll get you, my pretty,
and your little dog too!
[cackles]
narrator: The merciless
Wicked Witch of the West
is one of the most
recognizable creations
in cinema.
Green face, hook nose,
pointed chin
she represents one of the
oldest villains of folklore:
the evil crone.
- [laughs]
- Oh!
narrator: And like many
horror archetypes,
she's the product
of cultural anxiety.
[laughing]
Aging, especially for women,
is terrifying.
If our bodies are
our primary form of currency,
then as we age, we lose value.
One way that women are kind
of contained in society
is by being expected
to focus on being appealing
and so the crone
is terrifying
because she has
no interest in that.
Aah!
[mysterious music]
[barking]
narrator:
But in the modern times,
witches have become dynamc
figures of female power.
[laughter]
Like the glamorous
Witches of Eastwick.
[laughter]
[whimsical music]
Repressed women liberated wn
they embrace their passions.
[dramatic music]
At first they fill
the traditional witch's role
of being Satan's concubines
[scary music]
But when they pool
their power,
they put the chauvinist devil
in his place.
[screams]
♪♪
[moans]
I put a spell on you.
[mysterious music]
And now you're mine.
narrator:
The three witchy sisters
of Disney's "Hocus Pocus" had
a classically evil goal:
to drain out
the souls of children.
[witches inhale and sigh]
They were scary and powerful,
but somehow lovable.
I suggest we form
a calming circle.
I am calm!
Oh, sister, thou art not
being honest with thyself,
are we?
[scary music]
It is a fine line
figuring out how evil
to make the witches,
how playful to make
the surroundings,
and they have to be a threat.
[snarls]
[kids screaming]
But they can't be unpleasant.
[screaming]
[rock music]
But the real turning point
in the representation
of witches
came with a horror movie
aimed at teenagers.
[eerie music]
♪♪
The young women in "The Craft"
embraced the Earth-worshipping
magic of modern day pagans
[whispering]
narrator: With a healthy dose
of supernatural
special effects.
♪♪
[knocking]
Hi, I got clean towels
for everyone.
Aah!
Oh, my butt.
- What's going on in here?
- Nothing, why?
- Are you girls getting high?
- No, Mom.
[laughs]
"The Craft" gave us outcasts
who kind of came
into their power,
despite or maybe even because
of that outsider status,
and it gave us this model
of girls who could be
kind of badass
and kind of goth
and just different.
"The Craft"
is about four girls,
three who have been together
for a while,
and a new girl arrives at
school, Sarah Bailey
Do you guys mind
if I sit with you?
'Cause I'm supposed to find
the lab group.
She meets this group
of outcasts
and finds a place where
she can maybe fit in,
and it turns out that
this group is witches.
Aid us in our magical
working on this May's eve.
[thunder cracks]
We see that they each have
a kind of issue.
Don't hit your head
on the board.
Racism
The scarring of Neve
Campbell's character's body.
[groaning]
Intimate partner violence,
some domestic violence.
Stop!
We see that
by working together,
they can kind of create
this power where
they're more than
the sum of their parts.
narrator: Like modern
Wiccans and Pagans,
these girls
don't worship Satan.
They draw their power
from nature.
all chanting: Fire, water, air.
I think witch's power
is so important
is because it's rooted
in strength.
Witchcraft and Paganism,
it's rooted in a connection
to the Earth.
As above
It is respect for the Earth.
So below.
But the idea was to take the
religion, Wicca, seriously.
If you get all
of the little details right
about this religion,
you can take a few liberties
and make something
supernatural happen,
and it's more believable.
Ours is the magic,
ours is the power.
[rock music]
They start practicing
witchcraft more intensely
and getting magical results,
and they're intoxicated
by the results,
and then they want more.
[both screaming]
It's analogy
for female sexuality.
If you notice,
as their powers get stronger,
our skirts get shorter.
Society's always been
scared of women
and their sexuality.
And teenagers, that's
their burgeoning sexuality
when it hits,
so the witchcraft kind of
an analogy for that fear
that we have
of women coming
into their power.
[scary music]
narrator: At first, the girls'
new power is liberating
[laughs]
narrator: But they soon begn
to abuse their gifts
[gasps]
narrator: First with
small acts of revenge
Just keeps falling out.
[screaming]
narrator:
And then with murder.
[thumps]
- [screams]
Nancy's character
is the addict.
She's the one who can't
restrain her use of the power.
When she gets a good feeling
she needs more of it.
♪♪
narrator: "The Craft"
uses witchcraft
as a metaphor for drug use.
[screams]
narrator:
But it also uses
the tight knit circle
of a witch's coven
to explore the world
of teenage girls
♪♪
A time when your best friends
can become your worst enemies
overnight.
There you are.
We've looking everywhere
for you.
As teenage girls,
they're hitting the age
where you start to get
pitted against each other.
Instead of having sisterhood,
we started to go,
"There can only be one!"
And that's insane.
[laughs]
♪♪
When you're a teenager,
your brain just isn't right.
You're chemically not balanced,
and then you add in
the social constructs
and the way that they're
trying to navigate that
and interact with one another.
There is something, like,
an element of violence to it,
even if it's never physical,
it's, like, emotional violence
that you deal with
as a teenage girl.
[laughter]
I think the horror genre
is actually a great genre
to explore those concepts
because you can make physical
what a lot of girls
are feeling internally
all the time.
[screams]
Stop it!
[heavy breathing]
narrator: "The Craft"
was a frothy blend
of adolescent angst
and modern witchcraft.
"Hereditary"
mixes similar ingredients
into a much darker brew.
- [screams]
narrator: In the movies,
the wicked witches
of olden times
were easy to spot.
[chatter]
But what do modern day
wicked witches look like?
[horrific musical sting]
Perhaps like the shadowy coven
in Ari Aster's harrowing film,
"Hereditary."
Though they are
never clearly seen
until the film's
explosive conclusion
[buzzing]
- [heavy breathing]
[screams]
Mommy, please,
I'm begging you.
I'm begging you to stop!
narrator: Their presence
is always felt.
[grunts]
One of the first images
that came to me
when I was developing
"Hereditary,"
was that of the dollhouse
and this artist who was,
you know,
making these very
true to life replicas
of, like,
the spaces in her life.
That just felt like
an appropriate metaphor
for this film about a family
that ultimately has no agency.
Ultimately, they are like dolls
in a dollhouse.
narrator: The family
is grappling with the death
of its icy matriarch.
They don't realize grandma was
the leader of a witch's coven
that worships a demon
named Paimon.
And she won't let
a small thing like dying
get in the way of her plans
for her granddaughter,
a strange 13-year-old
named Charlie.
[clicks tongue]
I really wanted to be
in a horror movie,
specifically as a character
that wasn't, like,
the one running around scared,
so I could kind of figure out
what that person is thinking
and, like, why they're doing
the things they do
and how their brain works.
I don't think like that,
I wouldn't normally, like,
cut bird heads off
narrator:
Charlie's peculiar behavior
is explained by the fact
that she and the demon
share a body
thanks to grandma's
black magic.
At first,
"Hereditary" seems to be about
a woman who doesn't realize
her child is possessed.
- You're going.
- Why?
Because it'll be fun.
Because you'll get to hang out
with other kids.
narrator: But then Chare
and her brother Peter
go to a party,
she has
an allergic reaction
I think my throat's
getting bigger.
narrator: He tries to rush her
to a hospital
and things take a tragic turn.
[tires screech]
Ooh!
[coughs]
[gasping]
I was excited
to get decapitated.
I've always wanted to die
in a film or a show
in some, like,
very overdramatic way
and getting decapitated,
it's, like, one of
the best ways to go.
It's so dramatic.
It's so, like, extreme.
[tires screeching]
The head comes off,
but it's handled in a very
kind of tasteful way,
and part of the fun of that
was knowing that
we were gonna stay with Peter
for a very long time,
go home with him,
go to bed with him,
and then drop the head
eight minutes later.
[crying]
That's where we reveal what
the movie actually is.
narrator:
Charlie's death triggers
the already dysfunctionl
family's collapse.
She's gone forever!
And what a waste.
If it could've maybe brought us
together or something.
If you could've just said,
"I'm sorry,"
or faced up to what happened,
maybe then we could
do something with this,
but you can't take
responsibility for anything!
So now I can't accept.
There were just some horribly
emotionally draining moments
where you
Toni Collette is so good
in that movie, and you just
all you wanna do is find a way
for her to release her
of her pain.
[cries]
[crying]
narrator: But pain
is precisely the emotion
the witches use
to manipulate their victims.
[gasps]
The movie's about a family
that in many ways
is kind of following each other
into madness,
especially Toni Collette's
character
and Alex Wolff's character.
They're really kind of
pushing each other there.
- Why did you try to kill me?
- I love you.
I didn't!
I was trying to save you!
Why did you try to kill me?
[both crying]
You are sick.
narrator: Once the coven
has pushed the family
over the edge,
the film explodes
into a supernatural orgy
of violent death.
[screaming]
By the time
you get to the end
of the movie,
and Toni Collette's, like,
levitating and sawing
her own head off
with that horrifying look
on her face,
[terrifying music]
I didn't know what to do.
Like, I didn't even know
where the movie was going.
[screams]
[thump]
I love when movies, you know,
kind of embrace
a more operatic sensibility.
Why not just go off the rails
and just go there, you know?
You know that you're gonna
be alienating
a large section
of the audience,
and you know that people are
kinda gonna get off the ride
at that point, but for me
- Oh, my God.
- It's okay, it's okay.
I just didn't care.
It's okay, it's okay.
narrator: Like the coven
in "Hereditary,"
demonic women in "The Witch"
are rarely seen.
- [grunts]
- [screaming]
narrator:
But they know exactly
how to drag a family to hel.
[bleating]
[both grunting]
narrator: In colonial Ameri,
the face of a witch
often look like this
[tense music]
The face of Thomasin,
the teenage protagonist
of Robert Eggers' "The Witch."
Tell us why you
went to the wood.
- I promise.
- I care not.
♪♪
"The Witch"
is the scariest movie
in its residual effect on me,
maybe ever.
[gasps]
I felt contaminated
by the evil of that movie.
[laughs]
♪♪
narrator: Set in 1620,
"The Witch" tells the tale
of a family banished
from the Plymouth colony
because the patriarch
is too unbendingly religious
even for
his fellow Calvinists.
The family sets up a homestead
in the wilds of New England,
and are targeted
by the baby-killing witches
that live in the woods.
♪♪
Mmm, boo!
[laughs]
[baby laughing]
There you are.
There you are.
[chuckles]
Mmm, boo!
[eerie music]
Sam?
♪♪
When the baby disappears
you can imagine being
completely out there
without any kind of real sort
of civilization around you,
to sort help.
It's just a few of you
and the family in the woods.
♪♪
[barks]
narrator: "The Witch" was shot
entirely in natural light.
both: Black Phillip,
Black Phillip!
narrator: With the actors
wearing costumes
made from
period appropriate fabrics.
Everything feels real.
[sighs]
Black Phillip is the nae
I give, he goes along with
- I cannot abide your songs.
- Please you, Mercy.
narrator: Even the film's
dialogue is authentic,
much it taken
from actual transcripts
of the Salem Witch Trials.
Take your leave.
♪♪
Free us from
the shaman's omen,
would you do unto us, Father.
Amen.
narrator: Thomasin lives in
a world of religious dread
where Satan is real.
- [grunts]
- [screams]
narrator: Witches
are his unholy consults,
and temptation and corruption
lurk around every corner.
[scary music]
♪♪
[heavy breathing]
Come on.
narrator:
After her young brother
is seduced and murdered,
the family begins to suspect
Thomasin is responsible.
[screams]
narrator:
Her emergent womanhood
is as unsettling to them
as Black Phillip,
the Satanic goat.
Baa, baa, baa.
Horror loves to exaggerate.
So the idea of the girl
going through puberty
as a source of horror
[heavy breathing]
And as a source
of female power
is something that shows up
in a lot of horror films.
[cries]
It is you!
[crying]
I am your daughter.
The devil is in thee
and has had thee.
Here's this good person who
is being consumed by an evil
that she cannot escape.
- [screaming]
She only wants to be good and
only wants to do what is right.
[heavy breathing]
And the idea of becoming
usurped by evil
I am no witch.
Is one of the scariest ideas
that you can think of
from a theological or religious
point of view.
Please, Father.
No, it's not safe!
But at the same time
the movie is very critical
in saying,
"This is what religion
"and religious hysteria
"and religious repression
also inevitably does
to young agile minds."
Aah!
[grunts]
narrator:
Betrayed by her family,
Thomasin loses everything
and must make
a terrible choice.
♪♪
[whispering] Wouldst thou
like to live deliciously?
Yes.
♪♪
[women chanting]
I don't think joining a Satn
worshipping group of witches
is seen as necessarily
a good thing
[women chanting]
But the fact that
it's seen as preferable
to the patriarchal society
that it was in
is a much more
powerful damnation, I think,
about society.
She ultimately gets
to have her power,
um, and that ending is just
a great revelatory ending.
narrator: Some women
reluctantly become witches.
[eerie chill blows]
Others happily walk the path.
[laughter]
[chatter]
narrator: The nice ladies
of the Royal Society
for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children
are not
what they appear to be.
[grunts]
narrator: They are, in fa,
child-hating monsters
led by the diabolical
grand high witch
[dastardly music]
A misshapen crone
without a drop of decency.
The witch who dares
to say I'm wrong
will not be with us
very long!
Aah!
narrator:
Directed by Nicolas Roeg,
produced by Jim Henson,
and based on the book
by Roald Dahl,
"The Witches" takes a very old
school view of the dark arts.
[eerie music]
Roald Dahl and Nick Roeg
pulled no punches.
Witches are evil;
they report to the devil
[eerie musical sting]
They live to kill children.
Real witches have no toes.
The opening of "Witches"
is this beautiful little
six-year-old girl
[dramatic music]
Cursed into a painting.
Gazing at us.
Until she dies of old age,
locked and trapped
in the painting.
One morning, she was gone.
It's really terrifying.
[gurgles]
narrator:
Despite its dark undercurrent,
"The Witches" is one
of those rare films
that actually is fun
for the whole family.
[snarling]
[couple screaming]
narrator: But in 1990,
some were not amused.
Get the mice.
The Witches of America
or the Wiccans
were protesting the movie
for such a negative portrayal
of witches,
and they're absolutely right.
[laughter]
Yeah, somebody goes and say,
"Witches, uh,
those witches were realy
negatively portrayed."
Good, then,
let's have a conversatin
because that's the way
a lot of people used to feel.
[laughs]
Bye.
[laughs]
[laughs]
Why are you laughing?
I'm not laughing.
Is something suddenly funny?
narrator: When it comes to
unrepentantly evil witches,
Rob Zombie's
"The Lords of Salem"
is hard to top.
Oh, that felt good.
narrator:
These women come armed
with a subversive message
about female power.
"Lords of Salem," I feel,
is Rob Zombie's best film.
It's a really good story.
It's a nightmarish story.
narrator: Sheri Moon Zombie
plays Heidi Hawthorne,
a radio DJ
in Salem, Massachusetts.
I have no info
on where this came from.
All I know is the group
is called The Lords.
narrator: She's tricked into
playing a mysterious record
that awakens
the latent witchiness
in the women of Salem.
Heidi's descent into darkness
is sped along by the coven
that lives
in her apartment building.
I came up with this coven
of witches in Salem
[crowd screaming]
That were destroyed
by Jonathan Hawthorne,
and then we jump to modern day
where this modern day
coven of witches
choose Heidi Hawthorne,
who's a descendent
of Jonathan Hawthorne
to be the the vessel by which,
you know,
the Antichrist comes back,
and the witches return.
[screaming]
narrator:
Unlike most witch movies,
"The Lords of Salem" is
actually on the side
of the murderous witches and
their satanic agenda of evil.
[laughter]
The witches are the heroes
in this one again, as usual.
[laughs]
That's why I created
the character of
the Torsten played
of the German
black metal guy
ranting against Christianity
just to get a little more
in there.
[laughs]
Just to complain about it all.
Our philosophy
is to expose the lies
of the Christian whores
and Jesus,
the true bringer of death.
[laughs]
narrator: The men in the film
are secondary characters,
oblivious to the deadly
and very female energy
building up in Salem.
[scary music]
I wanted the whole movie
to feel like it was a dream.
Is this really happening, does
she think this is happening,
is this just a drug dream,
or is she crazy?
- [snarls]
- [screaming]
[horrific musical sting]
[heavy breathing]
♪♪
narrator: The film culminates
with a hellish ceremony
as the witches summon
the return of the Antichrist
through Heidi.
♪♪
I like the ending a lot,
because I've always been a
big fan of Ken Russell movies,
and I like crazy (bleep).
- [speaking foreign language]
- [screams]
'Cause I thought, like, well,
if if you have someone
who their entire soul
is being stripped away
because they're being dragged
to hell by witches
and forced to give birth
to Satan
[witches chanting]
What is that gonna look like?
[laughs]
In the burning rivers
of the dead.
Ultimately, we see this as
a kind of act of revenge
against
this patriarchal culture
that found women's power
threatening.
[eerie music]
And so it was this
generations-long act
of revenge
and sort of asserting
this power
as something that can't
be contained so easily.
♪♪
[laughs]
narrator: If Rob Zombie's
"The Lords of Salem"
is a black metal dirge
[screaming]
narrator:
Dario Argento's "Suspiria"
is the witch movie
as high opera.
[screams]
narrator: Filled with drama,
music, color,
and unforgettable violence.
[laughs]
[eerie music]
narrator: In 1977's
"Suspiria"
♪♪
Writer/director Dario Argento
combined witchcraft
with a violent murder mystery.
Aah!
narrator: To create
a dreamlike masterpiece
of horror.
[squeaking]
narrator: To this day, thers
nothing else quite like it.
[loud droning music]
[screams]
"Suspiria" just
feels weird at all times.
[thunder cracks]
As soon as she walks
out of the airport,
the music's going, the winds
blowing way too hard,
and everything's,
like, psychedelic,
you're like, "The (bleep)
is this crazy movie?"
It's just so awesome.
You wouldn't understand.
It all seemed so absurd.
[eerie music]
narrator: Suzy Bannion,
played by Jessica Harper,
has come to Germany to attend
a prestigious dance academy.
She enters a world
of supernatural terror.
[screaming]
narrator:
And over the top violence.
[screaming]
The first, like,
ten minutes of "Suspiria"
is really unsettling,
and you don't really know the
logic of the universe we're in.
The sets are kinda, like,
fantastical and amazing.
[screams]
Incredible eye candy,
incredible music.
[screams]
And also the shocks are
it's so extravagant and gory
and unsettling.
[screaming]
narrator: After traumatizing
the audience
with a brutal double murder,
Argento follows Suzy
into the academy.
Suzy Bannion,
our new student.
Oh, yes.
narrator: Suzy becomes e
target of the sinister witches
who run the school.
[unsettling music]
♪♪
Witch!
♪♪
One of the really notable
elements of "Suspiria"
that is more contemporary than
at the time the movie was made
is that it is female-centric.
The protagonists and the
antagonists are all female.
There isn't a patriarchal
oppressor in "Suspiria."
[speaking foreign language]
Who's there?
The power of this movie
is matriarchy,
and the hero's journey of it
will have nothing to do
with a woman
standing in the face
of a man trying to oppress her
or hurt her
because we actually don't even
have to consider
the rules and world
of men at all.
Witch!
They're outside
of all of our concerns here.
♪♪
Witch!
narrator: In "Suspiria," plot
takes a back seat to style.
[gasps]
[screaming]
narrator: The film is like
a surreal nightmare
filled with gorgeously
photographed murders
set to a heart-pounding
and groundbreaking soundtrack
by the band Goblin.
[tense music]
♪♪
In terms upsetting some of
the conventions
of film scoring,
I think "Suspiria's"
a really good example
[screaming]
Because a lot of the time,
the music really
takes a central,
kind of forefront position.
[screaming]
And I think a lot of the
negative response to that film
is his aestheticization
of these really horrific
acts of violence.
[screaming]
[horrific musical sting]
What Dario Argento
was really doing,
he was making
an adult fairy tale.
It's amazing to see that
his inspiration for it
was "Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves."
[thunder cracks]
He wanted the color scheme
of a Disney film,
and he he got it.
- [gasps]
It's another externalization
of the fears and the anxieties
that the main character
is going through.
[screams]
It really was supposed to be,
like, a fairy tale,
and originally he wanted young
children to be in the film.
He's got the door handles
really igh on the doors
because he wanted to create
certain things
that it seemed as though thy
were little girls in some way.
♪♪
narrator: Eventually,
Suzy uncovers the dark secrets
of the academy.
[suspenseful music]
And she fights for her life
against the coven's
invisible queen
and her zombie slave.
[laughing]
narrator:
Like a fairy tale,
good ultimately triumphs
over evil.
[shouts]
[agonized moaning]
[gasps]
That movie was taking
the modern slasher genre
and turning it into high art,
and I feel like
the horror genre
is just now really beginning
to catch up
with the simple idea
of high aspirational art
in American horror cinema.
[chilling music]
♪♪
Luca Guadagnino's recent
update of "Suspiria"
swaps Argento's bright colors
for muted earth tones,
and a serpentine plot.
♪♪
I like the original
"Suspiria,"
just 'cause it's gorgeous,
but I will say in the remake,
I felt like they made much
better use of the dancing.
[eerie piano music]
[moaning and crying]
[eerie music]
♪♪
narrator: Rather than pitting
Suzy against the witches,
Guadagnino puts her
in the middle of a battle
in between Madame Blanc
and Helena Markos,
good and evil witches
vying to run the academy.
[horrific musical sting]
- [screams]
[scary music]
I liked that struggle
for power
between these
two feminine forces.
You have essentially, like,
an election drama
between Markos and Blanc
that culminates
in a black Sabbath scene
that's like,
"Yeah, give me election drama
"with people's heads literally
exploding off their bodies
in a chamber covered
in women's hair."
I'll watch that seven
out of seven days a week.
[moans]
♪♪
It's not common
in other genres
to see women as
powerful and dangerous.
Find him.
[screams]
And to watch them take back
that power and use it
to break free
is really exciting.
narrator: Young
or old,
cruel or kind,
witches embody the magic
and mystery of femininity.
They command our respect.
Oh, God!
narrator: And remind us
that the people who brought us
into this world
Can also take us out of it.
You're doomed forever!
[screams]
[screams]
[thumps]
By the pricking of my thumbs,
something wicked
this way comes.
[laughter]
[gasps]
male narrator: Who's afrad
of a wicked witch?
[laughs]
[both screaming]
narrator: Everybody.
"The Witch"
is a perfect example
of an
atmospheric horror movie.
[growls]
It was one of the scariest
films I've ever seen.
[screams]
Sometimes an evil witch
is just gonna come back
and haunt you.
[screams]
What are you gonna do?
- Hello?
- [screams]
Who would've thought
"The Blair Witch Project"
would work the way that it was.
It's disturbing.
I mean, this was kamikaze
filmmaking at its greatest.
It changed filmmaking.
[scary music]
And it's always been that the
witch has negative intentions.
She's punished at some point
for having the power.
You're a witch.
A solitary witch
is one thing,
but a group a women
working together
creating power that's more
than the sum of its parts,
is just
exhilarating.
[cheers and applause]
We were one of the first new
waves of bringing witchcraft
and paganism to the future.
[glass breaking]
- Aah!
"Suspiria" just feels weid
at all times.
[screams]
It's just so awesome.
We don't have consider the
rules and world of men at all.
- [grunts]
- Aah!
They're outside
of all of our concerns here.
[screaming]
♪♪
[laughs]
[eerie music]
♪♪
[screams]
narrator: The witch
is a towering figure
in the history of horror.
[voices moaning]
narrator:
The archetypical evil witch
is everything
mainstream religion
tells us a woman
should ot be:
a Satan-worshipping,
baby-killing predator
who fears neither God nor man.
[laughs]
narrator:
Like all good monsters,
a bad witch
does whatever she likes
whenever she likes.
[laughter]
That unapologetic,
very female power
frightens men
and fascinates women.
♪♪
In real life, witches were
non-conformist women
persecuted
by religious fanatics.
They suffered horrible deaths
for their imagined crimes.
[screaming]
narrator: Perhaps society's
collective guilt
fuels the stories we tell
about witches
who come back for revenge.
[scary music]
Oh, dear God!
narrator: Sometimes the
vengeful witches you don't see
are the most terrifying,
and there few better examples
than
"The Blair Witch Project."
(Bleep)! Go!
[screaming] Oh, God!
[screams]
Who would've thought
"The Blair Witch Project"
would work the way that it was.
The first time I saw t
movie, I was in the hospital,
and I was doped up.
My son brought
a VHS tape of it,
and he said,
"You gotta watch this."
Halfway through it, I said,
"Turn it off, it's too freaky.
I can't."
Oh, my God,
what the (bleep) is that?
What the (bleep) is that?
I had the same experience.
I was like, "I have
to turn the lights on."
I was so disturbed
by the end of the movie.
It's disturbing.
That's right.
I was, like,
I get chills thinking about
how scared I was.
- Yeah.
- [heavy breathing]
- Come on!
I hear him downstairs!
In "The Blair Witch Project,"
the witch,
it feels like it's everywhere.
Hello?
It's almost like
the woods itself is the witch.
There's not just this one
mysterious figure
that shows up.
The entire experience
is mysterious.
All right, come on.
Into the house.
Come on.
Come on.
narrator:
"The Blair Witch Project"
wasn't the first
found footage movie ever made,
but it was the first
t become a massive hit.
We have these
three film students
going off into the woods
to make a documentary
about what they believe
is an urban legend
of the Blair Witch.
Have you heard
of the Blair Witch?
Oh, yeah.
That's an old, old, old story.
So from the very beginning,
the interviews with the
townspeople are all credible.
These don't look like actors.
These look like just people
you would meet on the street.
And that crew is every bit
as annoying
[laughs]
As you might imagine a crew
in real life might be.
Oh, he licked it.
God bless him.
Yeah, there we go.
They didn't cast, like,
CW-type hunky leads.
They were, you know,
the schlubs next door
or the people in the dorm room
next to you.
- Packs are on.
- We're rocking.
- We're ready to go.
- Let's rock.
All I knew when I was gunning
for the job
and and and when I first
got hired was,
it was a movie about
three student filmmakers
who went out in the woods
to investigate the leged
of the Blair Witch,
and they went missing.
Actors Heather Donahue,
Josh Leonard,
and Mike Williams
were given film equipment ad
a loose set of instructions,
then sent off into the woods.
So they wanted to keep it
as naturalistic as possible.
It is the three of us
filming each other
and recording sound
of each other
and we would have
no direct interaction
with the directors of the film
while we were making it.
They gave us a GPS, and they
had programmed in waypoints
which were hatch marks
on the map,
and we were to find our way
to these different waypoints.
So we knew we were
gonna encounter things;
we just didn't know what
those things were gonna be.
What?
Some of your stuff is
hanging all over the ground!
No way.
- They're all over the place.
- Holy (bleep).
The special effects,
if you wanna call it that,
rocks and twigs, you know?
[laughs]
Things hanging in the woods
are so simple
that they feel true.
They don't feel like
something that, you know,
a set designer's
gonna come up with.
Hello?
They find clues that
the Blair Witch might be real.
You don't think
this is strange?
They start to be
kind of stalked.
They find themselves
lost in the woods,
and it seems to be due
to a supernatural force.
[cries]
They start to
act irrationally.
Help!
They end up going
in circles.
- Turn that thing off!
- (Bleep).
Then they start
getting picked off
kind of one by one.
- [heavy breathing]
- Come on!
Josh!
In the end of course,
they're all dead.
[thumps]
And that's how the footage
supposedly came to us.
[heavy breathing]
It's that beautiful moment
when she's on the ground,
and she's weeping
and shuddering
that actress was terrified
and put all of that work
into the camera,
and it came right at us,
and we wanted to help her.
I'm scared to close my eyes.
I'm scared to open them.
I think without
Heather's monologue
and that weird framing
of that shot,
I don't think the film works.
I am so, so sorry.
[whimpering]
I think that very iconic
moment made the film,
and added so many stakes
and so much relatability
to the film,
and Mike and I had no idea
that she filmed that
until we saw it for
the first time in a theater.
I'm gonna die out here.
♪♪
narrator: Made for $60,000,
"The Blair Witch Project"
grossed $250 million
at the box office.
[heavy breathing]
It was the first movie
that used the internet
to sell tickets basically,
to use the internet to create
a marketing campaign,
and it was brilliant.
It had never
been attempted before.
narrator: The film was
marketed as a true story,
a deception supported
by a convincing website.
I thought that film
was real.
I walked out of there going,
"We have to find
we have to find these people.
Where are they?"
I hear him.
I hear him.
I hear you.
Josh!
It feels like you're there.
It feels like something
that would happen.
[screams]
"Blair Witch" nailed it.
[screaming]
[thumps]
narrator: "Blair Witch"
is part of a long tradition
of treating witchcraft
as a force of evil,
but some movies show us
witchcraft can be
a force for good
if it's in the right hands.
[screaming]
narrator: In the movies,
witches wear many faces.
[scary music]
Ugly and beautiful.
Repellent and irresistible.
♪♪
But for most people,
the all-time iconic witch
arrived in 1939,
in the form of actress
Margaret Hamilton.
♪♪
If we were doing a Rorschach
test and you said witch,
the first thing
I would say back to you
is the Wicked Witch of the West
in "The Wizard of Oz,"
a film that millions upon
millions of people have seen.
♪♪
I think she is the
personification of a witch.
I'll get you, my pretty,
and your little dog too!
[cackles]
narrator: The merciless
Wicked Witch of the West
is one of the most
recognizable creations
in cinema.
Green face, hook nose,
pointed chin
she represents one of the
oldest villains of folklore:
the evil crone.
- [laughs]
- Oh!
narrator: And like many
horror archetypes,
she's the product
of cultural anxiety.
[laughing]
Aging, especially for women,
is terrifying.
If our bodies are
our primary form of currency,
then as we age, we lose value.
One way that women are kind
of contained in society
is by being expected
to focus on being appealing
and so the crone
is terrifying
because she has
no interest in that.
Aah!
[mysterious music]
[barking]
narrator:
But in the modern times,
witches have become dynamc
figures of female power.
[laughter]
Like the glamorous
Witches of Eastwick.
[laughter]
[whimsical music]
Repressed women liberated wn
they embrace their passions.
[dramatic music]
At first they fill
the traditional witch's role
of being Satan's concubines
[scary music]
But when they pool
their power,
they put the chauvinist devil
in his place.
[screams]
♪♪
[moans]
I put a spell on you.
[mysterious music]
And now you're mine.
narrator:
The three witchy sisters
of Disney's "Hocus Pocus" had
a classically evil goal:
to drain out
the souls of children.
[witches inhale and sigh]
They were scary and powerful,
but somehow lovable.
I suggest we form
a calming circle.
I am calm!
Oh, sister, thou art not
being honest with thyself,
are we?
[scary music]
It is a fine line
figuring out how evil
to make the witches,
how playful to make
the surroundings,
and they have to be a threat.
[snarls]
[kids screaming]
But they can't be unpleasant.
[screaming]
[rock music]
But the real turning point
in the representation
of witches
came with a horror movie
aimed at teenagers.
[eerie music]
♪♪
The young women in "The Craft"
embraced the Earth-worshipping
magic of modern day pagans
[whispering]
narrator: With a healthy dose
of supernatural
special effects.
♪♪
[knocking]
Hi, I got clean towels
for everyone.
Aah!
Oh, my butt.
- What's going on in here?
- Nothing, why?
- Are you girls getting high?
- No, Mom.
[laughs]
"The Craft" gave us outcasts
who kind of came
into their power,
despite or maybe even because
of that outsider status,
and it gave us this model
of girls who could be
kind of badass
and kind of goth
and just different.
"The Craft"
is about four girls,
three who have been together
for a while,
and a new girl arrives at
school, Sarah Bailey
Do you guys mind
if I sit with you?
'Cause I'm supposed to find
the lab group.
She meets this group
of outcasts
and finds a place where
she can maybe fit in,
and it turns out that
this group is witches.
Aid us in our magical
working on this May's eve.
[thunder cracks]
We see that they each have
a kind of issue.
Don't hit your head
on the board.
Racism
The scarring of Neve
Campbell's character's body.
[groaning]
Intimate partner violence,
some domestic violence.
Stop!
We see that
by working together,
they can kind of create
this power where
they're more than
the sum of their parts.
narrator: Like modern
Wiccans and Pagans,
these girls
don't worship Satan.
They draw their power
from nature.
all chanting: Fire, water, air.
I think witch's power
is so important
is because it's rooted
in strength.
Witchcraft and Paganism,
it's rooted in a connection
to the Earth.
As above
It is respect for the Earth.
So below.
But the idea was to take the
religion, Wicca, seriously.
If you get all
of the little details right
about this religion,
you can take a few liberties
and make something
supernatural happen,
and it's more believable.
Ours is the magic,
ours is the power.
[rock music]
They start practicing
witchcraft more intensely
and getting magical results,
and they're intoxicated
by the results,
and then they want more.
[both screaming]
It's analogy
for female sexuality.
If you notice,
as their powers get stronger,
our skirts get shorter.
Society's always been
scared of women
and their sexuality.
And teenagers, that's
their burgeoning sexuality
when it hits,
so the witchcraft kind of
an analogy for that fear
that we have
of women coming
into their power.
[scary music]
narrator: At first, the girls'
new power is liberating
[laughs]
narrator: But they soon begn
to abuse their gifts
[gasps]
narrator: First with
small acts of revenge
Just keeps falling out.
[screaming]
narrator:
And then with murder.
[thumps]
- [screams]
Nancy's character
is the addict.
She's the one who can't
restrain her use of the power.
When she gets a good feeling
she needs more of it.
♪♪
narrator: "The Craft"
uses witchcraft
as a metaphor for drug use.
[screams]
narrator:
But it also uses
the tight knit circle
of a witch's coven
to explore the world
of teenage girls
♪♪
A time when your best friends
can become your worst enemies
overnight.
There you are.
We've looking everywhere
for you.
As teenage girls,
they're hitting the age
where you start to get
pitted against each other.
Instead of having sisterhood,
we started to go,
"There can only be one!"
And that's insane.
[laughs]
♪♪
When you're a teenager,
your brain just isn't right.
You're chemically not balanced,
and then you add in
the social constructs
and the way that they're
trying to navigate that
and interact with one another.
There is something, like,
an element of violence to it,
even if it's never physical,
it's, like, emotional violence
that you deal with
as a teenage girl.
[laughter]
I think the horror genre
is actually a great genre
to explore those concepts
because you can make physical
what a lot of girls
are feeling internally
all the time.
[screams]
Stop it!
[heavy breathing]
narrator: "The Craft"
was a frothy blend
of adolescent angst
and modern witchcraft.
"Hereditary"
mixes similar ingredients
into a much darker brew.
- [screams]
narrator: In the movies,
the wicked witches
of olden times
were easy to spot.
[chatter]
But what do modern day
wicked witches look like?
[horrific musical sting]
Perhaps like the shadowy coven
in Ari Aster's harrowing film,
"Hereditary."
Though they are
never clearly seen
until the film's
explosive conclusion
[buzzing]
- [heavy breathing]
[screams]
Mommy, please,
I'm begging you.
I'm begging you to stop!
narrator: Their presence
is always felt.
[grunts]
One of the first images
that came to me
when I was developing
"Hereditary,"
was that of the dollhouse
and this artist who was,
you know,
making these very
true to life replicas
of, like,
the spaces in her life.
That just felt like
an appropriate metaphor
for this film about a family
that ultimately has no agency.
Ultimately, they are like dolls
in a dollhouse.
narrator: The family
is grappling with the death
of its icy matriarch.
They don't realize grandma was
the leader of a witch's coven
that worships a demon
named Paimon.
And she won't let
a small thing like dying
get in the way of her plans
for her granddaughter,
a strange 13-year-old
named Charlie.
[clicks tongue]
I really wanted to be
in a horror movie,
specifically as a character
that wasn't, like,
the one running around scared,
so I could kind of figure out
what that person is thinking
and, like, why they're doing
the things they do
and how their brain works.
I don't think like that,
I wouldn't normally, like,
cut bird heads off
narrator:
Charlie's peculiar behavior
is explained by the fact
that she and the demon
share a body
thanks to grandma's
black magic.
At first,
"Hereditary" seems to be about
a woman who doesn't realize
her child is possessed.
- You're going.
- Why?
Because it'll be fun.
Because you'll get to hang out
with other kids.
narrator: But then Chare
and her brother Peter
go to a party,
she has
an allergic reaction
I think my throat's
getting bigger.
narrator: He tries to rush her
to a hospital
and things take a tragic turn.
[tires screech]
Ooh!
[coughs]
[gasping]
I was excited
to get decapitated.
I've always wanted to die
in a film or a show
in some, like,
very overdramatic way
and getting decapitated,
it's, like, one of
the best ways to go.
It's so dramatic.
It's so, like, extreme.
[tires screeching]
The head comes off,
but it's handled in a very
kind of tasteful way,
and part of the fun of that
was knowing that
we were gonna stay with Peter
for a very long time,
go home with him,
go to bed with him,
and then drop the head
eight minutes later.
[crying]
That's where we reveal what
the movie actually is.
narrator:
Charlie's death triggers
the already dysfunctionl
family's collapse.
She's gone forever!
And what a waste.
If it could've maybe brought us
together or something.
If you could've just said,
"I'm sorry,"
or faced up to what happened,
maybe then we could
do something with this,
but you can't take
responsibility for anything!
So now I can't accept.
There were just some horribly
emotionally draining moments
where you
Toni Collette is so good
in that movie, and you just
all you wanna do is find a way
for her to release her
of her pain.
[cries]
[crying]
narrator: But pain
is precisely the emotion
the witches use
to manipulate their victims.
[gasps]
The movie's about a family
that in many ways
is kind of following each other
into madness,
especially Toni Collette's
character
and Alex Wolff's character.
They're really kind of
pushing each other there.
- Why did you try to kill me?
- I love you.
I didn't!
I was trying to save you!
Why did you try to kill me?
[both crying]
You are sick.
narrator: Once the coven
has pushed the family
over the edge,
the film explodes
into a supernatural orgy
of violent death.
[screaming]
By the time
you get to the end
of the movie,
and Toni Collette's, like,
levitating and sawing
her own head off
with that horrifying look
on her face,
[terrifying music]
I didn't know what to do.
Like, I didn't even know
where the movie was going.
[screams]
[thump]
I love when movies, you know,
kind of embrace
a more operatic sensibility.
Why not just go off the rails
and just go there, you know?
You know that you're gonna
be alienating
a large section
of the audience,
and you know that people are
kinda gonna get off the ride
at that point, but for me
- Oh, my God.
- It's okay, it's okay.
I just didn't care.
It's okay, it's okay.
narrator: Like the coven
in "Hereditary,"
demonic women in "The Witch"
are rarely seen.
- [grunts]
- [screaming]
narrator:
But they know exactly
how to drag a family to hel.
[bleating]
[both grunting]
narrator: In colonial Ameri,
the face of a witch
often look like this
[tense music]
The face of Thomasin,
the teenage protagonist
of Robert Eggers' "The Witch."
Tell us why you
went to the wood.
- I promise.
- I care not.
♪♪
"The Witch"
is the scariest movie
in its residual effect on me,
maybe ever.
[gasps]
I felt contaminated
by the evil of that movie.
[laughs]
♪♪
narrator: Set in 1620,
"The Witch" tells the tale
of a family banished
from the Plymouth colony
because the patriarch
is too unbendingly religious
even for
his fellow Calvinists.
The family sets up a homestead
in the wilds of New England,
and are targeted
by the baby-killing witches
that live in the woods.
♪♪
Mmm, boo!
[laughs]
[baby laughing]
There you are.
There you are.
[chuckles]
Mmm, boo!
[eerie music]
Sam?
♪♪
When the baby disappears
you can imagine being
completely out there
without any kind of real sort
of civilization around you,
to sort help.
It's just a few of you
and the family in the woods.
♪♪
[barks]
narrator: "The Witch" was shot
entirely in natural light.
both: Black Phillip,
Black Phillip!
narrator: With the actors
wearing costumes
made from
period appropriate fabrics.
Everything feels real.
[sighs]
Black Phillip is the nae
I give, he goes along with
- I cannot abide your songs.
- Please you, Mercy.
narrator: Even the film's
dialogue is authentic,
much it taken
from actual transcripts
of the Salem Witch Trials.
Take your leave.
♪♪
Free us from
the shaman's omen,
would you do unto us, Father.
Amen.
narrator: Thomasin lives in
a world of religious dread
where Satan is real.
- [grunts]
- [screams]
narrator: Witches
are his unholy consults,
and temptation and corruption
lurk around every corner.
[scary music]
♪♪
[heavy breathing]
Come on.
narrator:
After her young brother
is seduced and murdered,
the family begins to suspect
Thomasin is responsible.
[screams]
narrator:
Her emergent womanhood
is as unsettling to them
as Black Phillip,
the Satanic goat.
Baa, baa, baa.
Horror loves to exaggerate.
So the idea of the girl
going through puberty
as a source of horror
[heavy breathing]
And as a source
of female power
is something that shows up
in a lot of horror films.
[cries]
It is you!
[crying]
I am your daughter.
The devil is in thee
and has had thee.
Here's this good person who
is being consumed by an evil
that she cannot escape.
- [screaming]
She only wants to be good and
only wants to do what is right.
[heavy breathing]
And the idea of becoming
usurped by evil
I am no witch.
Is one of the scariest ideas
that you can think of
from a theological or religious
point of view.
Please, Father.
No, it's not safe!
But at the same time
the movie is very critical
in saying,
"This is what religion
"and religious hysteria
"and religious repression
also inevitably does
to young agile minds."
Aah!
[grunts]
narrator:
Betrayed by her family,
Thomasin loses everything
and must make
a terrible choice.
♪♪
[whispering] Wouldst thou
like to live deliciously?
Yes.
♪♪
[women chanting]
I don't think joining a Satn
worshipping group of witches
is seen as necessarily
a good thing
[women chanting]
But the fact that
it's seen as preferable
to the patriarchal society
that it was in
is a much more
powerful damnation, I think,
about society.
She ultimately gets
to have her power,
um, and that ending is just
a great revelatory ending.
narrator: Some women
reluctantly become witches.
[eerie chill blows]
Others happily walk the path.
[laughter]
[chatter]
narrator: The nice ladies
of the Royal Society
for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children
are not
what they appear to be.
[grunts]
narrator: They are, in fa,
child-hating monsters
led by the diabolical
grand high witch
[dastardly music]
A misshapen crone
without a drop of decency.
The witch who dares
to say I'm wrong
will not be with us
very long!
Aah!
narrator:
Directed by Nicolas Roeg,
produced by Jim Henson,
and based on the book
by Roald Dahl,
"The Witches" takes a very old
school view of the dark arts.
[eerie music]
Roald Dahl and Nick Roeg
pulled no punches.
Witches are evil;
they report to the devil
[eerie musical sting]
They live to kill children.
Real witches have no toes.
The opening of "Witches"
is this beautiful little
six-year-old girl
[dramatic music]
Cursed into a painting.
Gazing at us.
Until she dies of old age,
locked and trapped
in the painting.
One morning, she was gone.
It's really terrifying.
[gurgles]
narrator:
Despite its dark undercurrent,
"The Witches" is one
of those rare films
that actually is fun
for the whole family.
[snarling]
[couple screaming]
narrator: But in 1990,
some were not amused.
Get the mice.
The Witches of America
or the Wiccans
were protesting the movie
for such a negative portrayal
of witches,
and they're absolutely right.
[laughter]
Yeah, somebody goes and say,
"Witches, uh,
those witches were realy
negatively portrayed."
Good, then,
let's have a conversatin
because that's the way
a lot of people used to feel.
[laughs]
Bye.
[laughs]
[laughs]
Why are you laughing?
I'm not laughing.
Is something suddenly funny?
narrator: When it comes to
unrepentantly evil witches,
Rob Zombie's
"The Lords of Salem"
is hard to top.
Oh, that felt good.
narrator:
These women come armed
with a subversive message
about female power.
"Lords of Salem," I feel,
is Rob Zombie's best film.
It's a really good story.
It's a nightmarish story.
narrator: Sheri Moon Zombie
plays Heidi Hawthorne,
a radio DJ
in Salem, Massachusetts.
I have no info
on where this came from.
All I know is the group
is called The Lords.
narrator: She's tricked into
playing a mysterious record
that awakens
the latent witchiness
in the women of Salem.
Heidi's descent into darkness
is sped along by the coven
that lives
in her apartment building.
I came up with this coven
of witches in Salem
[crowd screaming]
That were destroyed
by Jonathan Hawthorne,
and then we jump to modern day
where this modern day
coven of witches
choose Heidi Hawthorne,
who's a descendent
of Jonathan Hawthorne
to be the the vessel by which,
you know,
the Antichrist comes back,
and the witches return.
[screaming]
narrator:
Unlike most witch movies,
"The Lords of Salem" is
actually on the side
of the murderous witches and
their satanic agenda of evil.
[laughter]
The witches are the heroes
in this one again, as usual.
[laughs]
That's why I created
the character of
the Torsten played
of the German
black metal guy
ranting against Christianity
just to get a little more
in there.
[laughs]
Just to complain about it all.
Our philosophy
is to expose the lies
of the Christian whores
and Jesus,
the true bringer of death.
[laughs]
narrator: The men in the film
are secondary characters,
oblivious to the deadly
and very female energy
building up in Salem.
[scary music]
I wanted the whole movie
to feel like it was a dream.
Is this really happening, does
she think this is happening,
is this just a drug dream,
or is she crazy?
- [snarls]
- [screaming]
[horrific musical sting]
[heavy breathing]
♪♪
narrator: The film culminates
with a hellish ceremony
as the witches summon
the return of the Antichrist
through Heidi.
♪♪
I like the ending a lot,
because I've always been a
big fan of Ken Russell movies,
and I like crazy (bleep).
- [speaking foreign language]
- [screams]
'Cause I thought, like, well,
if if you have someone
who their entire soul
is being stripped away
because they're being dragged
to hell by witches
and forced to give birth
to Satan
[witches chanting]
What is that gonna look like?
[laughs]
In the burning rivers
of the dead.
Ultimately, we see this as
a kind of act of revenge
against
this patriarchal culture
that found women's power
threatening.
[eerie music]
And so it was this
generations-long act
of revenge
and sort of asserting
this power
as something that can't
be contained so easily.
♪♪
[laughs]
narrator: If Rob Zombie's
"The Lords of Salem"
is a black metal dirge
[screaming]
narrator:
Dario Argento's "Suspiria"
is the witch movie
as high opera.
[screams]
narrator: Filled with drama,
music, color,
and unforgettable violence.
[laughs]
[eerie music]
narrator: In 1977's
"Suspiria"
♪♪
Writer/director Dario Argento
combined witchcraft
with a violent murder mystery.
Aah!
narrator: To create
a dreamlike masterpiece
of horror.
[squeaking]
narrator: To this day, thers
nothing else quite like it.
[loud droning music]
[screams]
"Suspiria" just
feels weird at all times.
[thunder cracks]
As soon as she walks
out of the airport,
the music's going, the winds
blowing way too hard,
and everything's,
like, psychedelic,
you're like, "The (bleep)
is this crazy movie?"
It's just so awesome.
You wouldn't understand.
It all seemed so absurd.
[eerie music]
narrator: Suzy Bannion,
played by Jessica Harper,
has come to Germany to attend
a prestigious dance academy.
She enters a world
of supernatural terror.
[screaming]
narrator:
And over the top violence.
[screaming]
The first, like,
ten minutes of "Suspiria"
is really unsettling,
and you don't really know the
logic of the universe we're in.
The sets are kinda, like,
fantastical and amazing.
[screams]
Incredible eye candy,
incredible music.
[screams]
And also the shocks are
it's so extravagant and gory
and unsettling.
[screaming]
narrator: After traumatizing
the audience
with a brutal double murder,
Argento follows Suzy
into the academy.
Suzy Bannion,
our new student.
Oh, yes.
narrator: Suzy becomes e
target of the sinister witches
who run the school.
[unsettling music]
♪♪
Witch!
♪♪
One of the really notable
elements of "Suspiria"
that is more contemporary than
at the time the movie was made
is that it is female-centric.
The protagonists and the
antagonists are all female.
There isn't a patriarchal
oppressor in "Suspiria."
[speaking foreign language]
Who's there?
The power of this movie
is matriarchy,
and the hero's journey of it
will have nothing to do
with a woman
standing in the face
of a man trying to oppress her
or hurt her
because we actually don't even
have to consider
the rules and world
of men at all.
Witch!
They're outside
of all of our concerns here.
♪♪
Witch!
narrator: In "Suspiria," plot
takes a back seat to style.
[gasps]
[screaming]
narrator: The film is like
a surreal nightmare
filled with gorgeously
photographed murders
set to a heart-pounding
and groundbreaking soundtrack
by the band Goblin.
[tense music]
♪♪
In terms upsetting some of
the conventions
of film scoring,
I think "Suspiria's"
a really good example
[screaming]
Because a lot of the time,
the music really
takes a central,
kind of forefront position.
[screaming]
And I think a lot of the
negative response to that film
is his aestheticization
of these really horrific
acts of violence.
[screaming]
[horrific musical sting]
What Dario Argento
was really doing,
he was making
an adult fairy tale.
It's amazing to see that
his inspiration for it
was "Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves."
[thunder cracks]
He wanted the color scheme
of a Disney film,
and he he got it.
- [gasps]
It's another externalization
of the fears and the anxieties
that the main character
is going through.
[screams]
It really was supposed to be,
like, a fairy tale,
and originally he wanted young
children to be in the film.
He's got the door handles
really igh on the doors
because he wanted to create
certain things
that it seemed as though thy
were little girls in some way.
♪♪
narrator: Eventually,
Suzy uncovers the dark secrets
of the academy.
[suspenseful music]
And she fights for her life
against the coven's
invisible queen
and her zombie slave.
[laughing]
narrator:
Like a fairy tale,
good ultimately triumphs
over evil.
[shouts]
[agonized moaning]
[gasps]
That movie was taking
the modern slasher genre
and turning it into high art,
and I feel like
the horror genre
is just now really beginning
to catch up
with the simple idea
of high aspirational art
in American horror cinema.
[chilling music]
♪♪
Luca Guadagnino's recent
update of "Suspiria"
swaps Argento's bright colors
for muted earth tones,
and a serpentine plot.
♪♪
I like the original
"Suspiria,"
just 'cause it's gorgeous,
but I will say in the remake,
I felt like they made much
better use of the dancing.
[eerie piano music]
[moaning and crying]
[eerie music]
♪♪
narrator: Rather than pitting
Suzy against the witches,
Guadagnino puts her
in the middle of a battle
in between Madame Blanc
and Helena Markos,
good and evil witches
vying to run the academy.
[horrific musical sting]
- [screams]
[scary music]
I liked that struggle
for power
between these
two feminine forces.
You have essentially, like,
an election drama
between Markos and Blanc
that culminates
in a black Sabbath scene
that's like,
"Yeah, give me election drama
"with people's heads literally
exploding off their bodies
in a chamber covered
in women's hair."
I'll watch that seven
out of seven days a week.
[moans]
♪♪
It's not common
in other genres
to see women as
powerful and dangerous.
Find him.
[screams]
And to watch them take back
that power and use it
to break free
is really exciting.
narrator: Young
or old,
cruel or kind,
witches embody the magic
and mystery of femininity.
They command our respect.
Oh, God!
narrator: And remind us
that the people who brought us
into this world
Can also take us out of it.
You're doomed forever!
[screams]
[screams]
[thumps]