Halloween Spooktacular

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Like, I sort of thought the movie would get more into why Eric and Shelley were murdered. We here something about how Shelley was fighting tenant eviction, but we never learn how it links up with the Steven Seagel-esque bad guy (That's one of the weak points of the movie. This guy reminded me too much of Steven Seagal to be intimidated by him; his underlings were far scarier). Did he own most of the property in the city? If he is, then why is he starting all the fires? But the movie isn't really interested in exploring that, and I don't even care.

I was wrong though, earlier, about movies like this not getting made. They do make movies somewhat like this, if not exactly. I would say A24 movies traffic in aesthetically appealing dream-logic (if not undead vigilantes) and their movies are quite good. Think about it; not everything in The Lighthouse is explained. What's going on with the light and why is Dafoe obsessed with it? Is it some kind of seductive Lovecraftian terror, from the sky or from the sea? Or is it a result of isolation-induced madness? Is the Siren even real? These questions are never even answered, and I'm starting to see how the movie is better for it. This is why these A24 movies are so satisfying, because unlike much of modern cinema, they lift us out of our everyday existence. None of these movies care about being realistic; I saw that a criticism of the film was that they thought it was implausible that a community like that could get away with their rituals. That just makes me roll my eyes. Would they have liked the movie if they spent 30 minutes addressing in excruciating detail how they escaped the attention of the police? No, because it would have sucked.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Uggh, I love A24 movies but why is the dialogue always so quiet.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Day 11: The VVitch

Summary: A Puritan girl gets fed up with being accused of being a witch and decides to become a witch.

This one I feel about similarly to A Ghost Story. I liked it, but not as much as I was hoping to. Perhaps I shouldn't have paused it for snacks too often. The film was much talkier than I expected, and all in English accents with period dialogue. I had my laptop hooked up to a TV screen to watch it. Given all these factors, I found the dialogue hard to understand. I was able to improve on the situation by connecting the computer with my laptop. Usually, I just use Bluetooth with my phone. That did the trick however. This fiddling also interrupted me getting into this movie.

Also, I think my cat ruined the ending of this movie. When Thomasin finds the coven, I heard electric guitars and the unmistakable voice of Jack White. I thought that was an interesting choice, and then upon further investigation, I realized my Spotify account was playing. Ivanushka must have stepped on the laptop. Or maybe it was Black Phillip?

I appreciate that we have a witch who takes the form of a rabbit or hare instead of a black cat. That's very traditional, if I'm remembering what I read correctly. I suppose the reason you don't see rabbits in Halloween iconography is that Halloween doesn't want the Easter Bunny muscling in on its turf. The stuff with all the crops and livestock is definitely a folklore thing.

The look Thomasin gives when banished outside the community is pretty great; it's like "we're all screwed now."

The "Witch of the Woods" is a malevolent force, and is responsible for the deaths of a few children. These are fairy tale witches, essentially, the kinds that are all about stuff like devouring children. They're not like in Charmed or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Sabrina or something like that, where witches might use magic as a tool for good.

The subtext here, therefore, is more about corruption and purity. The parents are flawed. The younger siblings are under the influence of the devil.

Note the references to apples (while the specific fruit is never mentioned in Genesis, this is what everyone thinks of because of all the centuries of iconography), which is linked to sin. The scene where the apple is pulled out of Caleb's mouth is fascinating to think about in that light.

One cool thing about this movie, the father no doubt expects to become closer to God, instead, everyone becomes closer to the Devil. None of the prayers or piety do anything. It's almost like this movie is existing in a world where the Devil exists, but God doesn't. I would say this song describes the movie pretty well:

Katherine is played by Kate Dickie who played Lysa Arryn in Game of Thrones. The actor playing William Ralph Ineson, really reminds me of the Hound, although I know it's not him.

My overall feeling is that it's an interesting watch, but I felt there should be a little more to it. I'm also accusing my cat of being a witch and blaming him for ruining the movie, so I'm going to board him up in the little barn I have in my apartment for a while.

 

[The Cat]

Note the references to apples (while the specific fruit is never mentioned in Genesis, this is what everyone thinks of because of all the centuries of iconography), which is linked to sin. The scene where the apple is pulled out of Caleb's mouth is fascinating to think about in that light.

I've never thought of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as an apple. Pears, flirefly fruit(a ducktails reference, a tree with a glowing fruit that produces light, light being a metaphor for knowledge) mostly for the reasons outlined below.

Avalon: The Isle of Apples

Avalon, the Isle of Apples, the apples of Celtic legend and a foundation myth for Britain.

applesandpeople.org.uk

The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil have only recently(relatively) been written off simply as apples. Most older paintings show fruits more reminiscent of golden pairs. Because the Hebrew Bible describes the forbidden fruit only as peri, the term for general fruit, no one knows. It could be a fruit that doesn't exist anymore. Historians have speculated it may have been any one of these fruits: pomegranate, mango, fig, grape, etrog or citron, carob, pear, quince or mushroom. In some western Christian art, the fruit of the tree is commonly depicted as the apple, which originated in central Asia. This depiction may have originated as a Latin pun: by eating the mālum (apple), Eve contracted malum (evil).According to the Bible, there is nothing to show the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was necessarily an apple. There also is likely an homage to the Greek mythological story of the Golden Apple of Discord, when it comes to some of the paintings paying homage to the renaissance, paying homage to the classical period etc.

Personally I think the idea of the fruit being an apple has more to do with trying to demonize the druids and the Druidic faith and practice who as the article stated above, considered the apple tree sacred.

Personally I think its interesting to consider the Tree of Knowledge of good an evil was covered in psychoactive mushrooms.

Apple Folklore, Fairy Tales, Myth, and Magic

Visit the post for more.

enchantedlivingmagazine.com

"In an Irish folktale, the red-haired Connla, son of King Connaught and Aife, the famed warrior queen, becomes infatuated with a fairy maiden who gives him an apple that becomes whole again once eaten. Connla dines on this magical apple for one month and longs for the fairy maiden
to return, which she does and takes him on her crystal boat to the otherworld, where trees bear an endless supply of these mysterious apples that give him everlasting youth. The price to pay is that he cannot return to the earthly realm. A similar myth is found in Druid folklore, where Bran is enticed to the otherworld by an enchanting fairy maiden who carries a musical apple branch.


In Greek mythology, the apple tree is at the center of the garden of the Hesperides, a tree belonging to Hera that bore magical golden fruit and gave immortality to those who ate
it. In Norse mythology, the apple tree is also seen as a tree of immortality. Goddess Idunn, keeper of apples, fed the fruit to all the gods and goddesses, ensuring they would have eternal youth.


There are countless other appearances of the apple in stories of old. There is Avalon, meaning Isle of Apples, from Arthurian legend, the land of the fairies and the dead that’s ruled over by Morgan le Fay. There is Merlin the magician, who lived and worked in a grove of apple trees, ingesting fruit from his orchard that gave him sight and the power of prophecy.


The apple has also been depicted in ancient stories and fairy tales as being quite the opposite of life-giving, instead seen as ominous, dangerous, and even poisonous. The Latin word for apple is malum, which also means evil, thus the probable connection to the belief that the apple is a forbidden fruit or even a poisonous one. Think of the Garden of Eden, or the story of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm. As an aside, I invite you to read Snowdrop, a lesser-known version of Snow White from Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (and later artfully illustrated by Arthur Rackham). The poisonous apple in this story is “beautiful to look upon, pale with rosy cheeks, and everyone who saw it longed for it, but whoever ate of it was certain to die.”

Caleb vomits an apple, because he lied to his mother about going into the woods to find apples when they really went in to go hunting.

​

 

[Totenkindly]

Since the entire film relies on a growing pervasive sense of dread, I think all the distractions and pauses probably derailed the experience.

Watched in one complete sitting without distraction, it's like you just feel the screws ratcheting higher and higher to a fevered and almost unbearable pitch until the final destruction of the family unit... and then as Thomasin goes into the shed that final time and hears that voice speak out in the silence... it's just a total WTF moment.

Note this is kind of the modus operandi for "The Lighthouse" as well, although it's both a mental and emotional insanity leading to madness in that film.

While The Northman was put together well and is an enjoyable film, it's a little more straightforward and less dependent on dread + insanity. I wonder where his Nosferatu will go this winter.

Katherine is played by Kate Dickie who played Lysa Arryn in Game of Thrones. The actor playing William Ralph Ineson, really reminds me of the Hound, although I know it's not him.

Ineson really got broad audience exposure from The VVitch and you've likely seen him in more things by now -- including doing the Green Knight's voice in "The Green Knight."

But he did play Amycus Carrow in the Harry Potter films.

 

[Totenkindly]

I've been derailed by sickness and work so much and it's already October 12, so I think I'll get my 13 films in although I just completed my first today.

Here's my tentative grabbag (although I'll still be changing the list as I go):

1. V/H/S Beyond (2024) -- done
2. Possum
3. birth/rebirth (2023)
4. Carnival of Souls (1962)
5. Color Out of Space (2020)
6. The Dark and the Wicked (2020)
7. Influencer (2023)
8. Luz (2019)
9. The Rental (2020)
10. Speak No Evil (2022)
11. When Evil Lurks (2023)
12. Bone Tomahawk (2015)
13. Pearl (2022)

I usually like to mix these up in country origin, release years, etc., so this list could change -- but the benefit of most of them is that they are shorter run times than most films and that might suit me this year.

 

[Totenkindly]

V/H/S Beyond -- Don't wanna spoil it, but it's not much spoiling to say this is just another entry in this franchise and they can probably just keep pumping them out.

Despite the half-decent reviews, nothing here is really gonna linger much for me -- although if "Tusk" really bothered you, then the "Doggie Daycare" bit might eat at you too.

I'm going to bitch about the Parachuting segment because it's pretty much everything that is stereotypical bad about V/H/S. Pretty much it just relies on shock and high-adrenaline people running from danger (so you've seen this bit a hundred times) and yet the monsters make no sense. What do they actually want? Their bodies make no sense. Their abilities make no coherent sense. Their purposes don't seem explicable or coherent. It's all treated "literally" but there's no consistency to the story or portrayal, it's all crazy shit added for shock value.

I think Mike Flanagan's piece has the most confidence in his material, because it's paced, low-key, and very small-scale. There's an attempt to retain coherency even in the face of alien presence. But as a story it doesn't really go anywhere. I was thinking maybe he would tie the flashes of the protagonist's daughter to something but it never sealed the deal and felt like it ended prematurely. However, it's a nice throwback to his low-budget character-driven Absentia days.

The "connecting thread" (the produced documentary) is actually well done and feels authentic but again there is no real payoff to it.

When I recall my favorite VHS moments, I'm not sure anything from this collection will come to mind honestly.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Day 12: The Witches (1990)

Summary: A boy and his grandmother discover a plot by witches to turn all the children of the world into mice.

This is another kids movie that I nevertheless remember being kind of creepy as a kid.

I also had to revisit this because I learned that Nicolas Roeg directed this. My mind was blown to discover he directed this film that I remember from my childhood. I've seen two of Roeg's films, and they've led me to conclude that he was Britain's David Lynch.

I don't know how he got this gig, but he does a phenomenal job. There's a lot of showing rather than telling here. I know they softened things from Roald Dahl's book, but it still manages to be unsettling. The focus tends to be from a child's point of view, we tend to see things through Luke's point of view and I think that's important. Knowing all the rules doesn't save Luke from being turned into a mouse, and the only thing that turns him back is a witch who had a change of heart (which was an invention of this film's script).

The mouse animatronics are cute and remarkable, and all the witch and fake person prosthetics are great. I can't see this film having any of this charm or spookiness with CG. Can you imagine the Grand High Witch in rat form being that disgusting in CG? The only thing that looks dated to me are the magic effects which is cel-drawn animation that doesn't hold up.

This movie includes a boy who is quite similar to Augustus Gloop but is named Bruno.

I haven't watched the remake, but I can't see how I would like it. It seems to rely heavily on CG from the bits I've seen, for one thing. It sounds like the setting has been changed to America rather than the UK, and I hate that change, and there are probably other changes I hate. Robert Zemeckis directed it, and he's made plenty of great things, but that's true for Spielberg, and he's made some turds.

I'm reminded of the really lame Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory remake; it seems like they went out of their way to address concerns about the original film being too scary (compare the boat ride scenes; in the remake it's basically a log flume ride at Six Flags), which is especially disappointing because it's Tim Burton and this kind of thing used to be his bread and butter. I feel like The Witches (2020) would be much the same.

I'm not going to say I watched these movies and turned out ok because I didn't (although I doubt these movies had anything to do with that). I suppose the filmmakers of these remakes had good intentions, and it's not like I have children, after all. But... life is scary, and really, it's scarier than anything in these movies. At least in Roeg's film, all the witches order the same soup so it's possible to give them a dose of their own medicine. Why prepare kids for a life free of fear and anxiety when that doesn't even exist?

For my money, The Witches(1990), is another good film for kids who don't mind being scared. I don't see why it's so bad for children to have these.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The next film will revolve around one of the scariest things of all... an interview.

 

[Polaris]

The next film will revolution around one of the scariest things of all... an interview.

Let me guess. That fine movie known as Interview with the Vampire.

 

[Totenkindly]

Let me guess. That fine movie known as Interview with the Vampire.

Either that, or Late Night with the Devil.

 

[Totenkindly]

Just finished the original of Speak No Evil (2022) -- gotta love European horror films. Lower budgets than US films but they tend to have more substance than the US remakes. (Big case in point would be the remake of "The Vanishing" years back, where the US version completely changed the ending into a violent happy ending for the protagonist. Another similar point would be the craziness of "The Tale of Two Sisters" which I think was redone as "The Uninvited" which was far more straight-forward but too much so.)

I'd be curious to see what differences exist between this and the James McAvoy version that came out in September.

One thing I've seen explored in lower-budget horror is how people are often locked into vulnerable paths by social mores. The chains are not literal, and one could walk way at any point, saving themselves -- but either the rules of propriety or etiquette prevent people from saying/doing what needs to be said/done until it is too late. Tied into this is when you perceive others doing something that might not be technically wrong (or is ambiguously wrong) and that just feels very wrong to others around them, yet because it's not explicitly wrong but simply leaves you "feeling" that something is off, the rule of "reasonableness" encourages you to dismiss your own internal warning signals. There was an interesting book by Gavin de Becker a few decades back ("The Gift of Fear") exploring those kinds of warning signals in more detail, noting how sometimes there are even rational inferences between drawn by your psyche but because of the timing you simply have the intuition without having time to process it consiously.

Here it isn't even like the couple isn't trying to extricate themselves, which makes it worse. They sense something is off, they try to remove themselves multiple times, but through some unfortunate luck and circumstance end up being repeatedly enmeshed.

 

[Totenkindly]

Bone Tomahawk (2015) -- been planning to watch this for some years now, and there's a lot of "who's who" in this film. I think Richard Jenkins was really great, as if you weren't aware he was in the film you likely might not have realized it was even him (since it seemed a bit different from his more mainstream roles). Russell grounds the film, and Matthew Fox is an annoying shit but he stands out because of that -- he's a foil for most of the other cast.

I honestly was expecting something a bit more off the rails in terms of energy, whereas the film is very much a slow burn even in its climax scenes. Still, the final act has a few really gruesome bits, things I haven't really seen before in a film, and while I usually have an iron-cast stomach, I felt kind of ill after one of them.

I think my favorite parts of the film are the travel banter among Russell, Jenkins, Fox, and Wilson, and a few small twists that occur along the way. I still feel like Wilson's character was a bit too hardy in the last act but I wouldn't begrudge it.

nice (though short) turn with the infamous Sid Haig (from so many famous Rob Zombie films) in the beginning, and the infamous James Tolkan (who is still alive, that crusty bastard, at 93!) in a very small part as the Pianist.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Either that, or Late Night with the Devil.

The answer:

Day 14: Interview with a Vampire

Summary: A vampire reveals to a reporter his life throughout the ages.

Regarding Louis: I think Brad Pitt is wrong for this part. I like Brad Pitt in other things. He's great as the arrogant warrior Achilles in Troy, or the loveable dope of a gym employee in Burn After Reading, or as the proto-manosphere influencer Tyler Durden in Fight Club. This role calls for a performance that's more soulful and introspective, though. Melancholy, I would say. I've never seen Brad Pitt pull something like that off, and I don't see it here.

Regarding Lestat: I was prepared to roll my eyes at this, but Tom Cruise does a fantastic job. I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise as a person; I see him as equivalent to an anti-vaxxer, but that won't stop me from watching him in a film. This is one of his better performances. He's cold, merciless, and funny; his irritation with Louis's conscience comes off clearly. He embraces what he is and that all comes through.

Regarding both of them: Lots of subtext here, I don't think I need to say anything more.

Some of the stuff with Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) made me a little uncomfortable.

This theater of the vampires stuff is pretty twisted. It might be one of the most memorable parts of the movie.

That woman who Claudia tries to adopt as her mother is wearing an incredibly beautiful dress. That shade of green... Apparently this character is a stand-in for Rice who was inspired to create Claudia after losing her own child.

The ending of Louis's tale is pretty brutal stuff. Of course, nobody ever gets what they want, even when immortal...

This movie has flaws and would work better with somebody else playing Louis, but I considered watching it to be a great experience. It's even philosophical and poetic. I don't know how much of it comes from Rice's writing, but there were parts where I was stunned by how beautiful the dialogue was.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Since the entire film relies on a growing pervasive sense of dread, I think all the distractions and pauses probably derailed the experience.

Yes, probably. I didn't want to use subtitles because I thought they would be distracting, but that was probably the wrong route in this case. I still had a hard time making sense of the dialogue, even when I fixed the audio problem.

Watched in one complete sitting without distraction, it's like you just feel the screws ratcheting higher and higher to a fevered and almost unbearable pitch until the final destruction of the family unit... and then as Thomasin goes into the shed that final time and hears that voice speak out in the silence... it's just a total WTF moment.

Maybe I should revisit it next year....

Note this is kind of the modus operandi for "The Lighthouse" as well, although it's both a mental and emotional insanity leading to madness in that film.

Hark, Triton, hark! That I watched in one sitting, without any fiddling around.

 

[Totenkindly]

Regarding Lestat: I was prepared to roll my eyes at this, but Tom Cruise does a fantastic job. I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise as a person; I see him as equivalent to an anti-vaxxer, but that won't stop me from watching him in a film. This is one of his better performances. He's cold, merciless, and funny; his irritation with Louis's conscience comes off clearly. He embraces what he is and that all comes through.

Yeah, Anne Rice was really pissed when Cruise was cast because she didn't imagine him in the part, and later admitted she was wrong and that he was actually very good.

Pitt just feels so flat and monotonous here. I mean, I guess Louie IS a boring character (which is why everyone is annoyed with him) but I think having someone who could evoke pathos via his internal agony and lack of commitment would have been better.

Some of the stuff with Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) made me a little uncomfortable.

Well, it was supposed to. Dunst was 12 IRL when she did this, but Claudia in the movie is an 11 year old who is actually much much older, yet forever trapped in a girl's body -- basically an adult woman's mind now but trapped forever to look like a child.

In the book, she was 5 and ended up murdering Lestat and dumping him in bayou with Louie when she was like 70, yet always fated to look 5. So she's got the capability of sexualization but socially that's a huge taboo. The TV show even boosted her age higher, I read (to 14) to avoid much of this, although I think it loses something in the process. Still, I think it's easier to deal with on the page -- it feels different when you see it visually, plus having a sexual 5 year old actress is undoable for obvious reasons.

I mean, the whole situation is terrible and unsettling.

But I do remember the first time I saw this film within a year or two after it came out and I was, "Kristen Dunst is going to be a star, she's just spectacular at 12," and that has pretty much played out although she's avoided most of the glitzy celebrity trappings of fame and has built up a fairly respectable body of work along with some mainstream stuff.

This theater of the vampires stuff is pretty twisted. It might be one of the most memorable parts of the movie.

Yeah, right? A bunch of vampires draining their victims blood on stage to an unwitting audience, while pretending to be vampires draining their victims blood.

I think this is about the time I became aware of Antonio Banderas (I might have seen him before) and Stephen Rea as actors -- I cannot for the life of me remember if I saw "The Crying Game" before or after I saw this film, obviously Rea was the protagonist of that film.

 

[Totenkindly]

I've seen half of these -- decent films overall.

Plan to watch The Empty Man this month.

10 Underrated Horror Movies With Great Acting, Ranked

Apostle, Ginger Snaps, and The Fury are all among the best, underrated horror movies with wonderful performances.

collider.com

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, Anne Rice was really pissed when Cruise was cast because she didn't imagine him in the part, and later admitted she was wrong and that he was actually very good.

Yeah, I read that after I wrote that.

Pitt just feels so flat and monotonous here. I mean, I guess Louie IS a boring character (which is why everyone is annoyed with him) but I think having someone who could evoke pathos via his internal agony and lack of commitment would have been better.

I think maybe Timothy Chalumet would be good; he can brood really well. There's also a series, but I don't know how that actor does.

Well, it was supposed to. Dunst was 12 IRL when she did this, but Claudia in the movie is an 11 year old who is actually much much older, yet forever trapped in a girl's body -- basically an adult woman's mind now but trapped forever to look like a child.

In the book, she was 5 and ended up murdering Lestat and dumping him in bayou with Louie when she was like 70, yet always fated to look 5. So she's got the capability of sexualization but socially that's a huge taboo. The TV show even boosted her age higher, I read (to 14) to avoid much of this, although I think it loses something in the process. Still, I think it's easier to deal with on the page -- it feels different when you see it visually, plus having a sexual 5 year old actress is undoable for obvious reasons.

I mean, the whole situation is terrible and unsettling.

But I do remember the first time I saw this film within a year or two after it came out and I was, "Kristen Dunst is going to be a star, she's just spectacular at 12," and that has pretty much played out although she's avoided most of the glitzy celebrity trappings of fame and has built up a fairly respectable body of work along with some mainstream stuff.

That's cool. I saw her in Power of the Dog more recently; she was good in that (and it was a great film, IMO). I was also shocked to rewatch Jumanji and discover she was in that, too.

Yeah, right? A bunch of vampires draining their victims blood on stage to an unwitting audience, while pretending to be vampires draining their victims blood.

I think this is about the time I became aware of Antonio Banderas (I might have seen him before) and Stephen Rea as actors -- I cannot for the life of me remember if I saw "The Crying Game" before or after I saw this film, obviously Rea was the protagonist of that film.

I need to rewatch that Zorro movie he was in. I remember that being a really good time.

Question:

Do you know of any poor or middle-class vampires? (Ones who started out that way, I mean)

Coming up this week....

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I've never thought of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as an apple. Pears, flirefly fruit(a ducktails

Woo-oo!

reference, a tree with a glowing fruit that produces light, light being a metaphor for knowledge) mostly for the reasons outlined below.

View attachment 31647​

Avalon: The Isle of Apples

Avalon, the Isle of Apples, the apples of Celtic legend and a foundation myth for Britain.

applesandpeople.org.uk

The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil have only recently(relatively) been written off simply as apples. Most older paintings show fruits more reminiscent of golden pairs. Because the Hebrew Bible describes the forbidden fruit only as peri, the term for general fruit, no one knows. It could be a fruit that doesn't exist anymore. Historians have speculated it may have been any one of these fruits: pomegranate, mango, fig, grape, etrog or citron, carob, pear, quince or mushroom. In some western Christian art, the fruit of the tree is commonly depicted as the apple, which originated in central Asia. This depiction may have originated as a Latin pun: by eating the mālum (apple), Eve contracted malum (evil).According to the Bible, there is nothing to show the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was necessarily an apple. There also is likely an homage to the Greek mythological story of the Golden Apple of Discord, when it comes to some of the paintings paying homage to the renaissance, paying homage to the classical period etc.

Personally I think the idea of the fruit being an apple has more to do with trying to demonize the druids and the Druidic faith and practice who as the article stated above, considered the apple tree sacred.

Well, there's an interesting American association with apples that may also relate to its association with sin. Before Prohibition, apples were used much more frequently for alcoholic cider than eating. Johnny Appleseed's apples were used for alcohol, actually. To grow apples for eating you need to graft the fruit, apples grown from seed are not desirable for eating. His last name wasn't Applegraft, after all. The status of the apples as a source of alcohol aroused the ire of temperance activists. They would even chop down apple trees. The temperance movement associated the apple with sin, and this may have spread to the wider society.

Personally I think its interesting to consider the Tree of Knowledge of good an evil was covered in psychoactive mushrooms.

View attachment 31644

Apple Folklore, Fairy Tales, Myth, and Magic

Visit the post for more.

enchantedlivingmagazine.com

"In an Irish folktale, the red-haired Connla, son of King Connaught and Aife, the famed warrior queen, becomes infatuated with a fairy maiden who gives him an apple that becomes whole again once eaten. Connla dines on this magical apple for one month and longs for the fairy maiden
to return, which she does and takes him on her crystal boat to the otherworld, where trees bear an endless supply of these mysterious apples that give him everlasting youth. The price to pay is that he cannot return to the earthly realm. A similar myth is found in Druid folklore, where Bran is enticed to the otherworld by an enchanting fairy maiden who carries a musical apple branch.

I don't remember if this is part of the Bran story, but I like this story:

A man takes a fairy lover and goes to live with her in the Otherworld. After what feels like a few weeks, he has a desire to leave. The fairy woman warns him to stay and that he cannot return once he leaves, but he insists, as he misses his old friends and family. He leaves the Otherworld, and he lands on the shores of his home, and finds out that hundreds of years have actually passed, and that everyone he knew was dead.

In Greek mythology, the apple tree is at the center of the garden of the Hesperides, a tree belonging to Hera that bore magical golden fruit and gave immortality to those who ate
it. In Norse mythology, the apple tree is also seen as a tree of immortality. Goddess Idunn, keeper of apples, fed the fruit to all the gods and goddesses, ensuring they would have eternal youth.


There are countless other appearances of the apple in stories of old. There is Avalon, meaning Isle of Apples, from Arthurian legend, the land of the fairies and the dead that’s ruled over by Morgan le Fay. There is Merlin the magician, who lived and worked in a grove of apple trees, ingesting fruit from his orchard that gave him sight and the power of prophecy.


The apple has also been depicted in ancient stories and fairy tales as being quite the opposite of life-giving, instead seen as ominous, dangerous, and even poisonous. The Latin word for apple is malum, which also means evil, thus the probable connection to the belief that the apple is a forbidden fruit or even a poisonous one. Think of the Garden of Eden, or the story of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm. As an aside, I invite you to read Snowdrop, a lesser-known version of Snow White from Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (and later artfully illustrated by Arthur Rackham). The poisonous apple in this story is “beautiful to look upon, pale with rosy cheeks, and everyone who saw it longed for it, but whoever ate of it was certain to die.”

View attachment 31645

Caleb vomits an apple, because he lied to his mother about going into the woods to find apples when they really went in to go hunting.

​

See, I feel like I missed a lot of things. Like, why did the mother not want them to go hunting? I should have used closed captioning but I thought I should try for a purer experience. I really needed them with this movie, though, because of the thick accents and the nature of the dialogue.

An English teacher told me once that the English accent at the time of the Revolutionary War was far closer to a Southern accent. I have no idea how we could possibly know that, but if true, I understand why they didn't go with that. It would have confused everyone; the point was that they were all fresh off the boat, and that would have gotten lost.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I've been derailed by sickness and work so much and it's already October 12, so I think I'll get my 13 films in although I just completed my first today.

Here's my tentative grabbag (although I'll still be changing the list as I go):

1. V/H/S Beyond (2024) -- done
2. Possum
3. birth/rebirth (2023)
4. Carnival of Souls (1962)
5. Color Out of Space (2020)
6. The Dark and the Wicked (2020)
7. Influencer (2023)
8. Luz (2019)
9. The Rental (2020)
10. Speak No Evil (2022)
11. When Evil Lurks (2023)
12. Bone Tomahawk (2015)
13. Pearl (2022)

I usually like to mix these up in country origin, release years, etc., so this list could change -- but the benefit of most of them is that they are shorter run times than most films and that might suit me this year.

Carnival of Souls is great.... If you haven't seen it, you're in for a treat.