The cinematic witch : the development of the witch in popular horror films

The film Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922) established certain conventions related to the witch horror film genre. With each new film, the witch reflects and is influenced by the socio-cultural norms and ideals of the time in which the films were created.

INTRODUCTION

RESEARCH GAP AND PROBLEM STATEMENT

There is also a third option, as in the case of The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016). And to what extent have the film conventions established in Häxan influenced the witch's body and supernatural abilities in these films?

LITERATURE REVIEW

PSYCHOANALYSIS, PSYCHODYNAMIC FRAMEWORKS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON HORROR FILMS

Noël Carroll argues that the pleasure in horror derives from the cognitive interest of gradual revelations, revelations and the existence of the impossible monster. Feminism is specifically about female agency and the representation of the female body and gender (Barry, 2009:117).

THE HORROR GENRE: LITERARY AND OTHER ACADEMIC DISCOURSES RELATING TO THE GENRE

Women aligning themselves with Dionysus are thus threatening to the family hierarchy and Western society. Some theorists argue that viewers enjoy horror films because of the catharsis they receive (Tudor) while others believe that only a perverted or severely insane and repressed mind can enjoy these types of stories (Grixti, 1989:86, Tudor , 1997:449).

THE WITCH IN LITERATURE, POPULAR CULTURE, AND FILM

Finally, in the updated version of the television series Ducktales (2017), Magica De Spell is also a green-skinned witch, although she is a duck-human hybrid. This series title appears to be based on the iconic song from the 1939 production of The Wizard of Oz.

SOCIOCULTURAL AND NEW HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

In the United Kingdom it led to the formation of the Cultural Materialists and in the United States the New Historicists were born (Ryan, 1996:ix). According to Greenblatt, a text is not limited to the limitations of the medium in which it is created. Marjorie Levinson, for example, welcomes criticism and sees it as part of the New Historicist process (Levinson, 2012:355).

The witch as found in contemporary popular media originated during the witch trials in the 16th century (Buckley, 2013:25). Diane Purkiss (1996:24) argues that the process of witch hunting gave rise to the popular witch as we know it today. The ripple effect that the work elicits on those who interact with it at different points in time contributes to the meaning(s) of the text.

As audiences change over time, so do their interpretations of films due to the prevailing cultural norms of the time of interpretation. The third relationship, kenosis, refers to the process of emptying or humbling the self (Bloom, 1997:14). Levinson suggests that only texts from the time of the event or context be considered.

HÄXAN: THE ORIGINS OF THE CINEMATIC WITCH’S APPEARANCE AND SUPERNATURAL ABILITIES

The film's content was also directly inspired by Malleus Maleficarum der Hexenhammer (The Hammer of the Witch), a guide to witch hunting originally written in 1487, and La Sorciére (1862) by Jules Michelet, which is an investigation of witchcraft and the ensuing persecutions, together with numerous other publications on the subject (Doty & Ingham Stevenson, 2007:17). Many of them reuse the same characters to tell different stories about the witch hunting era. One of the witches comes back into the cave with the severed hand and upper arm of a hanged thief.

From the above section, it becomes clear that the witch's body is the focus of the film. The Tatar can be compared to the stereotypical description of the witch as mentioned in the literature review. Only the film's medieval setting and the fictional characters separate it from the xenophobic society of the time.

Some of the erotic scenes in the film are not in line with Victorian moral values. In the first half of the film the viewer is mostly exposed to the witch as an old crony. The witch as a voluptuous young woman appears prominently in the second half of the narrative.

Figure 1. Häxan: Witchcraft through the Ages. 1922. [Film still from Blu-ray]. Directed by Benjamin Christensen

THE WITCH OF 1960s: YOUTH, BEAUTY, AGENCY, AND POSSESSION

BLACK SUNDAY (1960)

Also, some transformation effects in the film would not have been possible if it had been shot in color (Lucas, 2007:296). At the same time, the male characters in the film are never photographed or portrayed in a similar way, suggesting the influence of the male gaze. He also criticizes what he describes as the conservatively inspired fluctuation of the saint and whore Barbara Steele embodies in the film (Conterio, 2015:74).

He compares this scene to a strange captivity scene with the camera acting on the male gaze. Of interest is that in Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968), Barbara Steele is portrayed as a green-skinned witch. For the rest of the film, she is mostly seen sleeping, hypnotized by Dr.

Asa displays supernatural power only twice in the rest of the film with the hypnosis of Dr. The idea of ​​a sixteenth-century bloodstained witch combines three of the tropes outlined in the previous chapter. Black Sunday's witch is of course much more complicated than one would expect after the initial viewing of the film.

Figure 3. Black Sunday. 1960. [Film still from Blu-ray] Directed by Mario Bava. Italy: Kino Lorber Films

NIGHT OF THE EAGLE (1962)

Leon Hunt (2001:82) describes Night of the Eagle as a British production by name only because the writers and director are American. Barry Forshaw devotes a larger section to Night of the Eagle in his book British Gothic Cinema (2013). Ian Cooper (2016:69) says even less about Night of the Eagle in Frightmare: A History of British Cinema (2016), but makes the reader aware of the clear similarities (influences) to the films Repulsion (1965), Rosemary's Baby ( 1968). ), Skeleton Key (2005) with their predecessor Night of the Eagle.

The Night of the Eagle is still important as an influential force, as I will illustrate later in this chapter. Night of the Eagle, an Independent Artists production, is tame compared to the Hammer films being released at the time. This can be linked to the suburban lives of the Taylors in Night of the Eagle, as we will discuss in the following paragraphs.

There are other ways in which the witch has evolved and changed in Night of the Eagle. In Night of the Eagle, however, it becomes clear that Tansy's power stems from the West African obea. The last trope I found in Night of the Eagle is the witch using her abilities to get revenge on a man.

Figure 7. Night of the Eagle. 1962. Directed by Sidney Hayers. [Film still from DVD] United Kingdom: StudioCanal.

THE WITCHES (1966)

The witch in The Witches is a departure from the aging witch living in squalor in the woods. In other words, the contemporary rural context of the time we find in The Witches is a reminder of what used to be the social norm in England. This is further suggested by the obvious colonial connections that are made in the film.

As mentioned in the chapter on Night of the Eagle, divorce rates and single-parent households were becoming more common in the 1960s. Linda's biological parents are never mentioned in the film and she is shown to be alive. In The Witches, a witch possesses men, women and children, making them do things they wouldn't normally do.

The only difference in The Witches is that Stephanie doesn't seem to surround herself with the dead or. The witches found in Black Sunday, Night of the Eagle and The Witches share several similarities. Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasly are also examples of the good witch as seen in the Harry Potter film series.

Figure 9. The Witches. 1966. Directed by Cyril Frankel. [Film still from DVD] United Kingdom: StudioCanal

THE WITCH OF THE 1970s: SEX, VIOLENCE, AND DEATH

Both films have been described as the first films ever produced where women actively control the film's plot and events (Platz, 2012:528). It also gives the impression that the controversial scenes were more of a reaction to young directors reveling in their newfound freedom to portray illegal material. However, the youth of the 1960s and their rock and roll lifestyles paved the way for this to happen, as seen in the previous chapter.

A Wikipedia search cross-referenced with IMDB found that the 1970s produced over 400 horror films, with most falling into the exploitation/exploitation, slasher/torture, possession, rape/revenge, or vampire genres, all produced by studios. independent films (Wikipedia, 2020; Platz Weiner, 2010:41; Zeisler, 2008:69). These films, while empowering for some men and women in the industry, sometimes depicted women as violent, crazy, hysterical, and overtly sexual, especially when produced and directed by men. Some have argued that this was due to the perceived threat of women gaining power following Second Wave feminism and ignorant fear-mongering media houses (Platz Zeisler.

Jack's Wife and Suspiria are very different in plot, production and portrayals of the witch. Sex, nudity, violence, and gruesome death would become prominent in horror films during the 1970s, but even more so in the 1980s. The following sections discuss sex, nudity, violence, and death in the context of seventies film and what to say about the witch horror film and how it relates to the tropes and conventions established in Haxan, which in turn originate from the tensions between Dionysians and Apollonians.

JACK’S WIFE (1972)

Witchcraft transforms her protest and makes it palatable to her peers, as we see in the final scene of the film where she reveals that she is a witch. He wanted the film to be an intelligent commentary on the suburban housewife of the time (Nicotero, 1973:29). According to Romero, the title of the film suggests what the point of the film is, namely that Joan is no one in the world per se and that she is simply Jack's wife (Lippe, Williams and Wood, 1979:62). ).

In Jack's Wife, beauty and youth are again a theme, like all the 1960s witch films discussed so far. There's also the film's title and its meaning to consider in relation to Joan's case. Joan is Jack's wife, as the film's title suggests, in other words, just like the suburban house he owns, he also owns Joan.

The exposure of Joan's naked body at the end of the film further emphasizes this and suggests that a woman's age is irrelevant. The use of the supernatural is also rephrased in Jack's Wife with only hints of what preceded it. At the end of the film, after Jack's death, she is rewarded with praise and admiration by her peers.

Figure 12. Jack’s Wife. 1972. Directed by George A. Romero. [Film still from DVD] USA: Anchor Bay.

SUSPIRIA (1977)