MovieChat Forums > The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2016) Discussion > The scene that has lingered in my memory...

The scene that has lingered in my memory for a few days...(spoiler)


The scene at the beginning where the Witch kills the baby and then starts doing...stuff, with it. That scene is disturbing. It also is a stylised scene that I have seen rarely in horror films. Usually a scene like this would end in a jump scare, and normally would come at the end of the movie too. So it was strange seeing at the beginning, and just having bizarre and disturbing imagery as opposed to jump scares.

I'm still not really sure what the Witch was doing in that scene, apart from killing the baby (which is disturbing enough).

So while the rest of the film has dissipated from my mind for the most part, this one lingers.

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I just watched it. That scene was chilling and mysterious. Wikipedia states that she was using the baby's fat to make a flying ointment, but I didn't see that. I'll have to watch it again.

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When you saw the part with the moon, she was levitating in the air towards it. It was kind of hard to see.

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She seemed to morph into a crow.

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She kills it, smashes it up with a stick and spreads its guts all over her body.

~~~
"I'm not used to being out in months that don't begin with 'O'."
-The Ringmaster, Dark Harbor

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Ha ha a stick,

It's called a Mortar and pestle, used to grind stuff for 20,000 years

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Pilon.jpg/800px-Pilon.jpg

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It was a very unsettling scene.

She was making flying ointment. Early lore tells that witches used it so they could fly to the Sabbath on their brooms. The recipe called for the fat of an unbaptized baby. In some text, it's stated that the witch would then apply the flying ointment on their bodies and broom. And that's exactly what is depicted in the film.

The director Robert Eggers compiled research on old witch lore for the film. And it's truly frightening.

I'll never look at depictions of witches flying on brooms the same.

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The same concept was used in Warlock http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098622/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Brains are good, especially when sauteed with carmelized onions.

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I'm not familiar with the lore but this is really good insight. I see that scene in a whole new light now.

It was disturbing as hell. There were so many other ways that it could have been filmed or could have looked but the tone was set from there on.

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Now that I think about it, those shots reminded me of how I felt watching the opening shots of 'Begotten'. Same with the opening shot of 'Sinister'.

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It reminded me of Bewitched with Nicole Kidman.

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"She was making flying ointment."

People say this, but I think it's wrong.

The witch that kills the baby is old, the witch that Caleb finds is young. Both seem to have the same cloak. The witch used the baby to make herself youthful again.


 Celebrating 100 Years of DADA * Feb. 5, 1916 * Zurich

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The witch he fins is still old, she is just putting on a spell to look young. If you look at her hands, they are still old and wrinkly. I think if she used the baby to look young it would work on her body. Also, she is soon flying off on her broom after the scene and rubbing the baby blood on her broom before that.

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“ If you look at her hands, they are still old and wrinkly”
Actually you can clearly see her right hand as she exits the door of the hut and her left hand that she puts on Caleb before the kiss and they are normal hands. It is only then the old hand appears

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I can see why one might think she used the baby in a spell to make herself appear young. If one isn't familiar with witch lore, it may not be apparent that the baby is being used to make "flying ointment" or "Witches Unguent".

We see the witch rise into the air against the backdrop of the full moon after she rubs the ointment all over her body and the broomstick. But without knowing baby fat was believed to be part of the recipe for flying ointment (according to primary sources of the early modern period), it isn't apparent as far as the plot is concerned as to why the witch would take the baby and use it's rendered fat to smear all over her body if not to further the story involving the family. I.e. Make herself appear young so she can bewitch Caleb thus preying upon the family more.

But that's not the case. The witch took the baby to make "flying ointment". The director spent several years studying the lore and primary sources of the period. And according to some of the sources, that's how "flying ointment" was made and what it was used for (or so they believed). So it's inclusion in the film gives a horrifying introduction to the evil it was believed witches did as well as creating the first horror committed against the family by the witch.

If you didn't know how witches allegedly were able to fly on a broomstick, you do know and it's truly horrifying.

I loved this film. Brilliant.

Thank you for making witches scary again.

P.S. Wiccans, I know witches aren't really.

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"If one isn't familiar with witch lore..."

So now I have to be an expert medievalist to understand this film?

I'm pretty well read; but, yeah,  we're all going to pour through the archives at Cornell to interpret this film correctly!


 Celebrating 100 Years of DADA * Feb. 5, 1916 * Zurich

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[deleted]

"...it's not hard to figure out!"

Apparently, it is! I forgot some details from a scene that was murky, and remembered the old witch / young witch dichotomy.

That's the power / weakness of images. We each see what is important to each.


 Celebrating 100 Years of DADA * Feb. 5, 1916 * Zurich

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[deleted]

People are being a little high hattish (read: obnoxious) about the whole "You mean to say you don't KNOW what's in flying ointment?"

Yeah, it's something you'd know if you were into folklore, but its a pretty particular set of folklore from a very specific time period. It's kind of annoying because I'll bet half the people on this board didn't know what the hell it was either, until they read about it in some review somewhere.

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"It's better not to know so much about what things mean." David Lynch

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Personally, I don't go into most movies thinking that I know every detail of the subject matter. It makes it easier to accept that conventional wisdom has witches using this method and the director accessing that info for his movie.

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If babies blood is needed to make witches fly......Then how was Thomasin able to fly at the end?

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She is seen rubbing the guts on her broomstick and body. She only appeared to look that way to Caleb in order to lure him to the dark side. Heh heh.

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The witch that kills the baby is old, the witch that Caleb finds is young. Both seem to have the same cloak. The witch used the baby to make herself youthful again.


My thoughts exactly.

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I'm pretty sure it's flying ointment. I won't say definitively, but I'd bet my bank accounts on it. She uses it on her stick also, which she then uses to fly to the moon or a Sabbat that was taking place.

In the scene with Caleb, she is not really a young woman. It's a charm or a glamour, and Caleb falls for it (since he's already having trouble keeping his eyes off his budding sister) but at the end of that shot, the arm that draws Caleb closer is that of an old crone's.

In the real world version of flying ointment, historians believe that 'witches' used a number of psychotropic drugs which made them hallucinate that they could fly on their brooms or what have you.

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"It's better not to know so much about what things mean." David Lynch

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If babies blood is needed to make witches fly......Then how was Thomasin able to fly at the end?

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Black Phillip was right there with her. I don't think the Devil has trouble floating a 98 lb. naked teenaged chick skyward, dude.

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"It's better not to know so much about what things mean." David Lynch

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If the devil has no trouble making Thomasin fly without the babies blood.....Then why couldn't he makes the witches fly without it? lol

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I wondered if Perhaps Thomason was a natural witch and she finally realized it at the end and came into her own so to speak. She may be exhaulted by Black Phillip and have more natural abilities. Just my take on it.

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Have you considered reading the book The History of Witches Ointments? Fascinating book It's written by Thomas Hastis. It explains a lot!!

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The witch that kills the baby is old, the witch that Caleb finds is young. Both seem to have the same cloak. The witch used the baby to make herself youthful again.


That's how I saw it too.  Makes perfect sense.


"I'm the ultimate badass,you do NOT wanna f-ck wit me!"Hudson,Aliens😬

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There's clearly more than one witch. We see a whole group of them at the end. And we see an image of the witch flying in the air after the baby is killed.

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In folklore of Witches it is called an Unguent.

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I thought it was making her young. She was terribly old and gross, but at the end of rubbing it all over herself, I thought I saw a young woman's face as she lay there. It was dark though, and there were a few really discreet camera effects, so I don't know. And I thought the pretty woman that kissed Caleb was the same woman, that's why her hands turned old and gross for a minute.

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The witch he finds is still old, she is just putting on a spell to look young. If you look at her hands, they are still old and wrinkly. I think if she used the baby to look young it would work on her body. Also, she is soon flying off on her broom after the scene and rubbing the baby blood on her broom before that.

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Also, she is soon flying off on her broom after the scene and rubbing the baby blood on her broom before that.


People keep saying this but at no point in the film is the witch seen flying.
We see her from behind leaving the coven but she doesn't fly.
At first I actually thought she was turning into a crow.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed how she slowly merged in to the shape of a crow.
I don't know if that was intentional or not.

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The only good part in an otherwise mediocre horror film.

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[deleted]

I'd love to agree but The Witch isn't a British film.

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[deleted]

It is of course, set in New England but the director/writer is American.
And the girl who played Thomasin is American too.
It seems she did a pretty great job at convincing people she was English!

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Well her whole life has been split between living in Argentina and England, so its probably not too difficult

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Fair enough but she has an American accent naturally. That was my point.

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[deleted]

She's still American. She has an American accent it my point lol.
Plus, the director is American too.

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[deleted]

OH MY GOD, stop talking to me! LMAO.
Do you normally go around correcting people?
What an annoying personality you have.

THE DIRECTOR IS AMERICAN. SO, IT'S AN AMERICAN FILM.
That is all I was saying, originally so stop being an annoying dick lol.
Jesus....

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[deleted]

Very interesting!

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[deleted]

To me it looked like she was using the baby to make a potion to make her young again.

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People found that disturbing? Smh. Viewers are just soft these days.

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What ISN'T disturbing about a baby being killed and grinded up, you lunatic!? lol

It didn't disturb me personally but it's pretty understandable that it would disturb someone else.

You don't look cool coming along and trying to seem like a badass lol.
You just look like someone trying to seem like a badass.....And it is embarrassing.

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What ISN'T disturbing about a baby being killed and grinded up, you lunatic!? lol

It didn't disturb me personally but it's pretty understandable that it would disturb someone else.

You don't look cool coming along and trying to seem like a badass lol.
You just look like someone trying to seem like a badass.....And it is embarrassing.


I agree lol 

"I'm the ultimate badass,you do NOT wanna f-ck wit me!"Hudson,Aliens😬

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It's true that is why he is too embarrassed to come back and respond lol.

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