0142 – The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)

spacetime coordinates:  1630s New England

The Witch (stylized as The VVitch, subtitled A New-England Folktale) is a 2015 historical period supernatural horror film written and directed by Robert Eggers in his directorial debut and stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson. The film follows a Puritan family encountering forces of evil in the woods beyond their New England farm.

the film was inspired by many folktales, fairytales and written accounts of historical witchcraft, including journals, diaries and court records. much of the dialogue comes directly from the period sources. The production team worked extensively with British and American museums, as well as consulting experts on seventeenth-century British agriculture.

In order to give the film an authentic look, Eggers shot only “with natural light and indoors, the only lighting was candles.” Eggers also chose to stylize the film’s title as “The VVitch” in its title sequence and on posters, stating that he found this spelling in a Jacobean era pamphlet on witchcraft, along with other period texts.

In the Witch’s Coven scene, the chant is in Enochian which is an angelic language often used in magical rituals. It first recorded by the 16th century occultist John Dee and his partner Edward Kelley. In this particular scene, the witches are using The Eleventh Enochian Key is used to herald the coming of the dead and establish a sustenance beyond the grave. To bind to the earth. A funerary call.

In December 2013, costume designer Linda Muir joined the crew, and consulted 35 books in the Clothes of the Common People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England series to plan the costumes. The costumes were made with wool, linen, or hemp. Muir also lobbied for a larger costume budget.

A hare appears frequently in the film. In New England superstitions, hares were considered magical creatures in their own right, but were often associated with witches, either as a witch’s familiar (called a milk-hare), which stole or spoiled milk from the farm animals, or the witch themselves, who was thought able to turn into a hare in order to spy on and influence people.

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imdb, wikipedia

0111 – Season of the Witch (2011)

spacetime coordinates:  Villach in the year 1235 // 14th-century Holy Roman Empire// Styria // Wormwood forest

Season of the Witch is a 2011 American fantasy adventure film directed by Dominic Sena. starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman and Claire Foy. The film draws inspiration from the 1957 film The Seventh Seal.

In the 14th century, Teutonic Knights Behmen von Bleibruck (Cage) and Felson (Perlman) are engaged on a crusade, taking part in several different battles throughout the 1330’s (1332 Gulf of Edremit, 1334 Siege of Tripoli, 1337 Imbros & 1339 Artah) and eventually in the Smyrniote crusades. After witnessing the massacre of civilians during the 1344 capture of Smyrna, the two knights desert the Order and the crusade and return to Austria.

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Wormwood, the name of the forest where blood is shed, is also the name of a destructive entity in the Bible. This entity, a star whose name also translates as Bitterness, appears to cause widespread illness. According to Revelation 8:10-11, “The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water–the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.”

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‘Season of the Witch’ Trailer HD

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imdb