Hey, everyone! Jimbo here š Today on Streamin Demons we cover the new (Sweet Home), the borrowed (The Empty Man), and the old (Lights Out, no, not that one).
We have a great bunch with Voodoo Priestess digging into the real old Lights Out and Other Supernatural Tales teevee show from 1946. For reference, Nazi Germany fell in 1945. Our special guest, Audrey, gets excited with a near perfect rating of the Korean horror-drama from Netflix, Sweet Home. Finally, when not bombing on stage (aka during the pod), Jim somehow found enough time to watch (most of) the Empty Man and give it the highest praise for the season. Small warning for Empty Man, there are some strobe light effect scenes so if you have medical issues with those please skip!
All this and more on the Streamin’ Demons!
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If you want to see the things we talk about, check out our Amazon links. If you buy, we do get some $$ back (<–disclaimer)
Supernatural is not strictly a show about witchcraft. Or, is it?
Sam, Dean and John Winchester are not witches.
Or, are they? When you watch Supernatural as a modern witch, you realize that a lot of what the Winchester boys do during their battles to protect the world from monsters are things we do as part of our witchy routines.
Just the facts
Starting in 2005 and running until 2020 for fifteen seasons, Supernatural tells the stories of Sam and Dean Winchester as they protect the world from the forces of darkness. Together with a collection of human and otherworldly allies, they battle demons, ghosts, cryptids and all manner of horrifying dark creatures. It was one of many CW shows that delved into the darker side of the world before committing entirely to bad DC content.
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What Supernatural got right
The first thing that jumps out when watching Supernatural is the metric ton of salt used in the show. Specifically, salt is used to protect against any number of ghastly things.
This is very familiar to any modern witch. We have so much salt. Black salt, red salt, blessed salt. Salt to cleanse, salt to banish, salt to protect. When I saw Dean and Sam with massive containers of kitchen salt, I felt like Iād found my people.
Then there is of course John Winchesters notebook. Or, dare I say, grimoire. This also felt familiar. And it’s one of the things I loved the most about Supernatural.
Look, we all want the big family grimoire with the lovely, flowing artwork and beautiful handwritten spells like in Charmed. But in reality, most grimoires look a lot more like the Winchester notebook, with sketches and notes shoved in and held in place with gum bands and paperclips. And while Iām not going to say that my grimoire has daring notes about demonic beings Iāve battled, it certainly has more quick sketches (mostly of plants) than it does beautiful calligraphy. This is supposed to be a useful document full of information we can reference quickly, not an art piece.
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Longtime viewers of the show will point out that not only do the Winchesters not call themselves witches, but they often interact with witches. Sometimes as allies, and sometimes as enemies.
The witches in the show are pretty true to life. They are good and bad. They can be anyone, from any walks of life.
The witches use many tools modern practitioners use, including crystals, scrying mirrors and protection symbols. Honestly, they are pretty spot-on. Except for the spectacular TV magic they implement.
Finally, I want to discuss the question I asked at the start. Are the Winchesters witches?
No, theyāre not. Because they donāt claim the title. Even if someone does magic, theyāre not a witch unless they say they’re a witch. The whole point of witchcraft, after all, is personal power and personal choice.
What Supernatural got wrong
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All of that being said, Supernatural was of course not a perfect depiction of witchcraft. For one thing, there is no grand coven of witches. I donāt think enough of us could agree on enough to create one.
But if we did, Stevie Nicks would be the Supreme.
Witches also donāt have to come from a long line of witches or be taught by other witches. Many of us are self-taught from books. And sadly, many of us live in communities where we might be the only witches around.
Thankfully, there are online communities from which to learn and grow. You donāt need to be a generational witch, or even have a close witch mentor. Itās a practice, and practice is all thatās required.
All in all, Supernatural is a fairly good example of modern witchcraft. The show might not be about witches, but itās a great representation.
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(4 / 5)
By the way, if you like this you might enjoy my haunted apartment novella, Quiet Apocalypse. The main character is a modern witch, and I share some real magic in this fictional story of an unexpected end of the world.
“It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts.
āThe Werewolf.ā
Published way back in 1979, Angela Carterās short story anthology The Bloody Chamberis now considered a classic by many people. It is also thought of as one of Carterās more, if not most, controversial fictional works. It is common knowledge that fairy and folk tales of old are a lot darker than the cartoon versions we are familiar with. Carter takes this darkness to a new level. These stories contain common themes of sexual desire, violence and love. Many of these stories depict explicit sexual descriptions. If you are a person who takes note of trigger warnings be aware. These stories contain scenes that discuss and depict abuse, bestiality, rape, incest and paedophilia.
The Stories.
Each of Carterās ten stories in The Bloody Chamber collection are based on fairy or folk tales. In several of these stories this is obvious. For example, the collections eponymous story, āThe Bloody Chamberā, is undoubtedly based on the tale of Bluebeard and Carterās Puss-in-Boots keeps its original name. We see Beauty and the Beast represented obviously in both āThe Courtship of Mr Lyonā and āThe Tigerās Brideā.
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There are other stories here that only pull at the loose threads of existing fairy or folk tales; taking a single thought or idea and running with it in another direction completely. There are actually several that seem to mashup a combination of stories in one. For example, in āThe Lady of the House of Loveā, the plot as a whole feels like a take on Sleeping Beauty, but there is an obvious reference to Jack and the Beanstalk. The Countess reciting the āfee, fi, fo, fumā rhyme of that story to her victim.
Highlights.
I am a sucker for both fairy and folk tales and as such the highlight here for me was seeing characters and parts of plots that are somewhat familiar in a different light. This sort of āre-tellingā (for want of a better word) invites the reader to ask āwhat ifā and I think that that is a very powerful thing to do.
There was a certain dark, wintery aesthetic to all of the stories in this collection that was also big highlight for me. The rain, the wind, the snow, I could feel the chill rising off the pages. The repeated images of birds and birdcages, mirrors and roses created ominous feel and really ticked all of the gothic horror boxes.
Drawbacks.
There were two issues that I had with reading this anthology that really made me struggle to get through to the final pages.
The first was the style of Carter’s writing. Yes, I understand that these are adult fairy tales and there is a level of flowery, descriptive writing that is expected to encounter as a result. But I just felt like I was drowning in dense description in several of these stories. So much so that my brain zoned out several times and I had to stop and rewind, turning back to reread several pages at a time.
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My second issue was that it often felt like the violence was skimmed over due to the length of some of the stories, one being only two pages long. The reader barely has time to process what has happened before the story had ended and a new one begun. It often felt like getting punched in the face. For some this point might land in the highlights section, but for me it was a big drawback.
Final Take.
The stories in The Bloody Chamber anthology are divisive. Some love every single one of them, others have a strong aversion. For me, I liked a few. My attention was held by āThe Erl-Kingā and the story of āThe Bloody Chamberā itself was an enjoyable read.
Overall though, I think this one missed the mark for me. It might only be because the prose was so heavy with description that I had trouble concentrating on the stories themselves. Despite this, The Bloody Chamber is one of those books that everyone should read at least once in their life.
So I tried to convince the AI to give me a spider made out of fingers, because there’s no way it could possibly mess that up right? Wink. After multiple unfulfilled requests for finger spiders, I bring you this snarky little AI art series with NightCafe and Canva for the month of September…
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: fingers as spider; spider made of fingers; a spider out of nothing but fingers; finger spider hand.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders Coming Soon! It’s just a matter of time before these horrifying AI art generated creations come crawling into your home to feast on your blood. For they are hungry and they are evolving…
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: fingers as spider; spider hand shadow puppetry; fingers in shape of spider; spider that is a hand.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders They’re Here! Too late, you let them into the house. You’d better be sure to find and squish them all before they breed and come after you. They are still hungry, and they are still evolving…
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