Wouldst thou like a taste of my artisanal evil cheese?

February 27, 2016 1:24 PM

Meet The Witch's breakout star, Black Phillip - a goat with his own Twitter account.
posted by Neely O'Hara (22 comments total)

I saw The Witch last weekend, and I'm pretty sure it's my new favorite movie. It hit, like, every mark for me, which includes how incredibly historically accurate it is. Just don't buy into the hype about it being the scariest movie ever.

The goat that played Black Phillip was named Charlie. From Collider:

But Charlie proved to be one of the most difficult parts of a difficult shoot; “a real nightmare,” said Eggers. “We were supposed to have three goats that looked identical, but instead we ended up with one goat that didn’t want to do anything we wanted to do.” The goat sent [Ralph] Ineson to the emergency room three times during the shoot. Taylor-Joy joked that they “locked horns” because they had the two biggest beards on set.

posted by teponaztli at 2:24 PM on February 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, that Twitter seems sort of spoiler-y, but maybe that's just me.
posted by teponaztli at 2:27 PM on February 27, 2016

Huh, I thought it was so terrible. I mean the goat talks. He has a line "do you want to live deliciously?" There is a coven of naked witches ascending to the sky. The theatre I saw it in erupted in laughter at the end.

Goat was good though.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:46 PM on February 27, 2016

He's lucky he doesn't live around here.
posted by howfar at 3:00 PM on February 27, 2016

I'll say that the reason I loved it so much is that it's very much a movie told from an 18th century perspective. A huge portion of the dialogue and plot is pulled directly from period sources, and it centers on period ideas about witches. It doesn't try to rationalize things from a modern perspective, it doesn't come up with scientific explanations for anything. It's not historically accurate in the sense that it's what life was really like, but it's a compelling folklore. I love that there's a movie folktale set in this time and this place.

I don't think it's really a horror movie, and I think the reason people hate it is because they want it to be one. It's not even particularly scary, although there are some really intense scenes. People have told me they thought it was boring, or that there should have been more mystery about what the witch really was, but I think that's missing the point: this was a family drama about trust and scapegoating, with a feminist perspective on the role of women in family and society.

It's not a perfect movie, but it's just exciting to see something that wholeheartedly embraces mythology and folklore to make a story set far outside my own experience.

Or as I'm sure they'd have said in the 18th century, "them that do hate shall hate, but I loved it marvelous welle."
posted by teponaztli at 3:07 PM on February 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

I mean, it's basically the same film as Brooklyn.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:11 PM on February 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, The Witch is great. Audiences hated it, but that's what you get when you open a $3 million arthouse film in 2000+ theaters and promote it like it's the new Blumhouse horror programmer.
posted by Mothlight at 3:30 PM on February 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

(OK, I didn't want to comment too much in this thread, but it was driving me crazy: I said "18th century" when I meant to say 17th century. I think the movie is set somewhere around 1630 or 1640-ish.)
posted by teponaztli at 3:46 PM on February 27, 2016

If anyone's interested, there's a Witch thread on Fanfare if anyone feels like talking about the movie itself (as opposed to the burgeoning phenomenon of the Black Phillip Appreciation Society).
posted by KingEdRa at 3:52 PM on February 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't think it's really a horror movie, and I think the reason people hate it is because they want it to be one.

I was pretty bored once I realized the witch was actually a witch. Historically accurate!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:40 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I mean the goat talks. He has a line "do you want to live deliciously?"

It's "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" and it is the best line in the movie.

Also here is the guy who provides the beastly voice. It looks like he also lives deliciously.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 4:55 PM on February 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

SPOILER



You know there's something crazy going on in society when there is a movie that shows a witch killing a baby and bathing in its blood, and the devil goat is the one people are falling in love with.

Thanks, Obama!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:52 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you want to know more about the history behind the movie, the New York Public Library posted a resource and reading list on their blog.
posted by teponaztli at 6:39 PM on February 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I want to like this movie, but I can't get past the idea of so many white women running around naked in the woods so soon after the Plymouth Colony was founded. Like, where did they come from? Wouldn't they be missed? And, if you suspected your baby had been stolen by a witch, wouldn't you pick up your hatchet and maybe go do some hunting?
also, I'm sure the Native American residents would have been like, Lol old women baby murderers living alone in our woods. Let's just leave them alone to do their thing, lol.
posted by Chrischris at 6:57 PM on February 27, 2016

More from Eggers on the damned goat:

The goat, Black Phillip. He just wasn't really trained the way all the other animals were so he was a nightmare. Truly, almost impossible every day. He never ever cooperated. But I don't blame him for not caring about my film. He was just trying to be a goat. Our editor Louise Ford really saved the day in crafting a performance for him.

I'm glad he was a real goat and not CG, even with all the torment.

posted by phunniemee at 6:58 PM on February 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I did like The VVitch more than most I went with, it seems - it was a well crafted character study laden with dread and tension more than oogie-boogies. Altho in the end, the composition as a whole (more so than the subject matter specifically) felt like a tutorial level for people not quite ready to handle Lars von Trier's 'Antichrist'.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:33 PM on February 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

New level for Goat Simulator! There is already a Devil Goat achievement if you drag a few people into the pentagram hidden in the woods.
posted by benzenedream at 7:45 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Goats are wonderfully unruly, and bright, and independent. If they were biddable, they just wouldn't be goats.
posted by Lou Stuells at 7:57 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

And, if you suspected your baby had been stolen by a witch, wouldn't you pick up your hatchet and maybe go do some hunting?

They believe the child to have been stolen by a wolf and actually do plan to hunt for it. By the time they get around to deciding there is actually a witch around, they reenact the crucible in, like, eight hours, accusing each other, and it all winds down swiftly and badly.
posted by maxsparber at 11:23 PM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think it's really a horror movie, and I think the reason people hate it is because they want it to be one.

This is exactly right.
posted by davebush at 6:34 AM on February 28, 2016

Spoiler alerts, people! Dammit!
posted by zardoz at 3:16 PM on February 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Er, sorry :(

On the other hand, I don't think as much has been spoiled as you'd think. A lot of what I and other have said is stuff that becomes clear in the first 10 minutes.
posted by teponaztli at 5:45 PM on February 28, 2016