Browsing Tag

Robert Eggers

Posted on September 29, 2025

What If Witches Are Actually Real? Zach Cregger’s Weapons and Witches

Guest Post

Robert S. Cairns

In high school we had to read Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953), an allegory about the McCarthy-era, Communist ‘Red Scare’ in America that used the Salem Witch Trials as its point of comparison. Years later, I discovered there was actually Communist infiltration during this time and that the fear was credible. If the supposed hysteria surrounding the ‘Red Scare’ had some basis in truth, could the same be said of the witches Arthur Miller used as a historical reference?

Years later still, I watched Carl Theodore Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (1943). Another allegory for mass hysteria, I remember wondering why witches couldn’t just be real in this moment of occult-haunted history, and why it seemed as if the intelligent person had to represent them by way of allegory. Dreyer depicted the existence of miracles in his other, most famous film, Ordet (1955). But apparently witches were a step too far for him.

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The Lighthouse
Posted on February 23, 2020

Religion and Sex in The Lighthouse & The Witch

Guest Post

Horror understands that what is most desired is the same as what is most feared.  Scholars of religion often overlook this while the makers of horror films bank on it.  Consider the critically acclaimed oeuvre of Robert Eggers, both his 2015 film, The Witch, and his more recent The Lighthouse (2019).

If you’ve ever been isolated from other people—say, in solitary confinement, or even in a room with a medical device so dangerous that the operators have to leave while you’re left alone with its buzzing and clanging—you will understand The Lighthouse.  Horror has long recognized the psychological power of isolation.  Ripley and crew aboard the Nostromo, Wendy, Danny and Jack at the Overlook, a handful of scientists at an Antarctic research base, the list could go on and on.  Showcasing Roger Eggers’ trademark verisimilitude, The Lighthouse traps two wickies—lighthouse keepers—both with secrets, far from the reach of the rest of civilization.  They’re trapped between a deity and sexuality. Read more

Posted on April 7, 2017

Chopping Wood in The Witch and The Amityville Horror

Dawn Keetley

Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) is a horror film, to be sure, although most critics have tended not to treat it as a genre film, focusing on its impressive innovations in production, narrative, and cinematography.

Every time I’ve watched the film, though, I’ve been struck by the scenes of Ralph Ineson’s William, the Puritan patriarch, furiously chopping wood. He does so three times (that magic number) and each time he is more disturbed. These scenes stand out not only because lumber is pretty much the only thing the struggling family has in abundance but also because it strikingly evokes The Amityville Horror, both the 1979 original (Stuart Rosenberg) and the 2005 remake (Andrew Douglas).

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