I’ve been thinking about my blog yet again, I know, I say that every time I try to come back to this. There is a small mind block in my head in regards to blogging - when I was a teenager I used to write in a diary everyday - without fail. Multiple pages at times, it was cathartic to me to write out my thoughts and feelings. And then one day, my mom picked up my diary and read it all. She put two and two together and made 10. Next thing you know, I’m being forced to sit down at the dining room table with my boyfriend at the time (who by the way, I had only just kissed to this point) and being given the “sex” talk WITH him. From that day, I couldn’t bring myself to write, no matter how much I wanted to. Blogging for me, is very much along the same lines - I want to, I try to, but then.. there’s something that stops me internally.
But hey, we’re going to try again. And since it’s my favourite month of the year, I wanted to try to come back with something I’ve done in the past that had good results and was something I could keep to.
October Horror Film Reviews
I’m a huge horror film buff - I love them, they are awesome and I cannot get enough of them. Other ladies may cover their eyes and wince - I’m watching with rapt fascination as blood explodes all over the main characters. Now, mind you, I’m a lot more squeamish in real life, but movies are all safe and good because I know it’s not real.
So being that it is after midnight on October 1st, I feel that it is appropriate to start watching horror films - It is something I do every October, I will watch at least one, if not two films per day. And this year, I will be sharing with you lovely people. I generally stitch while I watch them so this will fall in line with the “Snow Dragon’s Stitching” title.
September 30th - first movie to start “The VVitch” (there will be some spoilers in this)
Not a particularly new movie, it was made in 2015, but it is new to me and my collection - I love picking up movies from the discount bin for my horror collection, sometimes the best movies are the ones that the critics hated.
This one... ugh...
Now, I will state this at the get-go here, I generally avoid “witch” movies and for good reason. My great-grandmother was a wise-woman, she was skilled with herbs and the like and would create cures for others women of her village upon request. My grandfather was a closet Pagan, he went to church because it was expected of him, but never believed any of it. And when I was 8 years old, I turned my back on organized religion. When I was in my early teens, I was at the library and this woman came in. I spent a good amount of time hanging out in the library, since I could finish a book in a couple hours, it didn’t make a ton of sense to actually check the books out, I’d just sit there and read them. This woman seemed so different, she was so self-assured and I watched her walk over to the alternative religion section. She knew exactly what she was going for and was in and out quickly. After she left, I wandered over and started peeking at the books on that shelf. I picked up Scott Cunningham’s “Wicca: A guide for the solitary practitioner” and it was like a part of my brain just yelled... “YES! This is what I already believed!” For a couple more years, I kept experimenting with other religions, youth groups, etc. but nothing felt right in the same way. So I have been a Pagan for many, many years now. Years back, I went to Salem with my mom, and something about it chilled me. I’ve heard other Pagans say they felt at home there... to me it felt like someone was walking on my grave. I felt chilled and uncomfortable. The stories of what those women - what all men and women accused of witchcraft suffered devastated me and it is a part of history that should never be forgotten since other cultures and places are acting the same even in today’s day and age.
So the stories of evil “witches” anger me since most witches were not inherently evil and were healers and having intelligence or wit could have been enough to get you labelled as a witch. This movie chills my blood in the same way that Salem did. It is based on New England folklore and tells the story of a family who are banished from the village and go to live on the outskirts of a haunted wood. Their crops fail, and their family starts to starve. One day, the eldest daughter is watching the infant child and he is stolen from her in a moment of inattention. Her mother grows to hate her, her two youngest siblings are cruel to her and though her father cares for her, he is pious to a fault. When her brother is cursed by the witch from the woods, her siblings blame her, her mother casts her out and her father accuses her, ignoring her pleas. So to defend herself, she accuses her siblings of being evil. Not knowing who to believe, her father locks all three children up. And that frees the evil to take the entire family. Mistrust and over zealousness are always dangerous and especially so to those who don’t fall in with the “masses”.
Does this movie present an authentic showing of what it probably was like? Yeah... it probably does. Is it creepy and a good horror movie? Yes. Yes it is. Did I like it? No. No I didn’t. And not because it wasn’t good, but instead of terror - it makes me sad. It broke my heart knowing that has happened and could still happen again in the right circumstances. I hope beyond all hope it never comes to that, and I hope that one day people will stop persecuting others in the name of religion. It can stay in my collection but it is not one I will be rushing to put back on at any point in the near future.
