Some witches are known to have the power of clairvoyance. Does it exist? Clair meaning “clear” and voyance meaning “vision” is the alleged ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through an extra sense. Although scientists consider this ability to be pseudoscience, there are people who claim to have the ability. Some clairvoyants claim to see past events, the future, or other levels of perception that others cannot see. Throughout history those who claim to see the future have often been revered and respected. Nostradamus began publishing his predictions in 1550 and people still analyze and study them today. Edgar Cayce is a more contemporary example of a self-proclaimed clairvoyant. He was one of the founders of the New Age Movement in the early 1900s and influenced its teachings regarding karma, reincarnated souls, astrology, holistic medicine, and dream interpretation. Some famous clairvoyant characters in horror movies are Tangina from Poltergeist, Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone (1983), and Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring (2013) series.
Witches are known to use spells to make others act a certain way or fall in love with them. Are there such things as love potions? Mandrake, henbane, and verbena are ingredients used in love potions that can be traced back to Biblical times. Psychologists say there are scientific reasons we may feel attracted to or fall in love with someone quickly. It takes between ninety seconds and four minutes to feel an initial attraction, and this is first due to our observation of a person’s body language, the tone and speed of their voice, and what they say. There are also attraction messages being sent through scent. Pheromones are produced by humans, animals, plants, and even bacteria for a variety of reasons. They can be used to collaborate or fight sexual attraction and can even lead to initial feelings of unexplained love.
Love is at the center of Carrie. Carrie’s powers are otherworldly or witch-like but at the heart of the story is a terrorized girl who craves love from both her mother and her peers. This juxtaposition of the mundanity of being a teenager along with the heightened depiction of the supernatural is what propels Carrie into a haunting and memorable story. Many of us can relate to feeling shunned or bullied in high school. Nathan Payne, who directed Carrie: The Musical in 2019 said “Carrie stands the test of time and could be set in any era because its themes are universal. Everyone experiences being a teen differently, but bullying is so common and I think revenge fantasies are the dark secret that most people have at some point.” Carrie is given the power to seek revenge. And it is this revenge, taken too far, that ultimately kills her.
At the end of the film, when Sue Snell (Amy Irving) visits Carrie’s grave in a hazy dream, we share her conflicted feelings. As the audience we feel pity for Carrie for the trials she endures and also fear her for the destruction she is capable of. It is this complicated duality that sets Carrie White in the horror pantheon with the likes of poor, vengeful souls like Frankenstein’s monster. Although Carrie’s powers are witch-like, it is her humanity that endures.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
Year of Release: 1999
Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
Writers: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
Starring: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard
Budget: $60,000
Box Office: $248.6 million
To fully understand the phenomenon surrounding The Blair Witch Project, one simply needs to glance at the film’s budget in comparison to the money it amassed. On the cusp of the twenty-first century, The Blair Witch Project exploded, sending droves of thrill-seekers to the theater. At the Internet’s infancy, the filmmakers capitalized on a unique strategy that paid off in millions. The marketing was done in such a way as to make people believe the footage, depicting three budding filmmakers in search of the Blair Witch in the remote Maryland woods, was real. “Found footage” movies hadn’t become popular yet and many people went into the theater expecting to watch the last harrowing days of three missing people. This was perhaps the first movie to use viral marketing through the Internet and other channels to reach a wide audience and get buzz going for a film. Missing persons posters were put on merchandise and even IMDB, the Internet movie database, listed the actors as “missing” and “presumed dead” for a time. A website for the film was created that looked to provide proof of the Blair Witch and the legends surrounding her. The unique (at that time) marketing and excellent word-of-mouth led The Blair Witch Project to become a tremendous box-office success.
We had the incredible opportunity to speak with Simon Barrett, the screenwriter of the 2016 movie Blair Witch, to find out more about his process of balancing creativity with science.
Kelly: “What is it about horror that gets your creativity flowing?”
Simon Barrett: “I tend to be attracted to specific stories and scenarios, a lot of which might fall into the horror genre. But the genre itself doesn’t necessarily appeal to me more than any other.”
Meg: “When you’re developing a supernatural story, how do you balance real world science and believability?”
Simon Barrett: “The advantage of telling a supernatural tale is that you’re already letting the viewer know that your story isn’t intended to be real, so you have a fair amount of license to get creative with the story’s relationship to actual reality. That said, I tend to be a fairly harsh or pedantic viewer, and if a film gets something obviously factually wrong, it does often take me out of the movie, and sometimes I find it really frustrating. I mean, if I’m watching a horror movie, and instead of being caught up in the suspense of the narrative I’m thinking something like, ‘Really, did no one on set know how a defibrillator works?’ then that film has failed, at least for me in that moment. Anything that we as viewers know to be wrong will remind us that the story we’re watching isn’t real. So, in terms of the science of a supernatural element itself, I think it just has to maintain some kind of internal logic, so that nothing takes the viewer out of the film or makes them doubt its feasibility. I don’t need to believe every detail of how kryptonite or a transporter beam works, but I do need for their effects to be consistent so I’m not distracted from the story, basically.”
Meg: “I agree!”