Buffy the Vampire Slayer S1E3 “Witch”
AKA: I will live vicariously through you one way or another
Warm up your cold open with some fire
Witch starts off with some heavy emotional labor. Buffy and Giles are helping Willow and Xander move through the grieving process for their good pal Jesse.
JUST KIDDING. We’re only on episode three, baby. There’ll be plenty of time for that feelings nonsense later (I’m looking at you, seasons 5 and 6). No, today we’re going to listen to Giles liken cheerleading to a cult. He attempts to forbid it, but Buffy forbids his forbiddance. She says she just needs something safe and normal in her life. The quick cut to a bubbling cauldron clues us into the irony.
Willow and Xander accompany Buffy to tryouts, where the latter gives her a bracelet. It says “Yours Always,” which Xander insists was pre-engraved on all of them. Yuck. Cordelia tries talking shit to Willow and Buffy, but Willow is more interested in catching up with Amy. Amy and Willow used to have brownie-eating sleepovers, but more recently Amy lost a bunch of weight training several hours a day with her mom. That’s enough backstory for the cold open, though, because would-be cheerleader Amber is on fire and Buffy has to put it out.
Dreams
The gang reconvenes in the library to speculate about spontaneous combustion, which is often tied to rage. Willow offers to hack school records to see if Amber has a history of outbursts while Xander asks around. Buffy says they don’t need to help, but they’ve decided they’re the Slayerettes. These leads end up going nowhere.
Back at the Summers house Joyce is muttering dismissively as Buffy describes her day. She doesn’t actually know what Buffy was auditioning for. Buffy not-so-subtly remarks that Amy and her mom train together, but Joyce points out that she has a gallery to run. Single-parenting in SoCal ain’t cheap.
At the next day of tryouts, Amy runs into Cordelia. Literally – she knocks her over. Cordy gives Amy this long spiel about her dreams of being a cheerleader and what that would entail. She makes vague threats about what will happen if she didn’t make the team.
Amy is unsurprisingly bummed, and because you can’t spell “Buffy Summers” without “Bummer” our favorite Slayer is here to commiserate. It turns out they each find themselves living with single mothers as the result of divorce. Amy feels like she needs to live up to her mom’s cheerleading legacy and the pressure has been mounting since her parents’ split.
Meanwhile Xander is going on and on about Buffy to Willow and I am already so sick of this subplot. He is asking Willow for advice on how to ask Buffy out and calling her “one of the guys” all in one breath.
If you’re not first…
The results have been posted: Cordelia is on the team, Buffy is first alternate, and Amy is third alternate. Despite the term “alternate” Xander assumes this means they made it-made it and is a bit too cheery when delivering the news.
We see the bubbling cauldron again, this time with a voice cursing Cordelia. (Amazon’s closed captions completely ruined the mystery of who the titular witch is.)
Joyce has been briefed on this episode’s theme, so upon hearing Buffy didn’t make the squad she encourages her daughter to join Yearbook like she did in high school. Joyce just wants Buffy to stay out of trouble, and Buffy just wants her mom’s support.
Xander tries to ask Buffy out, but THANK GOD Cordy is acting weird enough for Buffy to need to cut him off and follow her. At her driver’s ed course, the instructor insists Cordelia drive – even though Cordelia says she isn’t feeling well and has apparently failed three times. Seriously, dude, you’re going to have her drive you and two other students when she is vocally expressing her inability to drive safely?
We get a blurry PoV shot and, shock of shocks, Cordelia crashes the car. She winds up standing in the street, completely blind. She is only saved from being hit by an oncoming truck (whose driver was all too willing to hit a pedestrian) by Buffy.
Witchunt
Back in the library Giles theorizes witchcraft is the source of the trouble. The Scoobies deduce it must be Amy since the prior two victims – and Amy’s mom – were cheerleaders. Buffy doesn’t blame her since she knows the pressure Amy’s mom is putting on her. This is especially nice of her considering she is no longer an alternate due to Cordelia’s untimely blinding. Buffy is officially in the target pool.
Giles explains how they can determine if Amy recently cast a spell. The ingredients will all be conveniently located in their combo chemistry-biology class. Buffy spills the potion on Amy during a chaotic sequence where another cheerleader is also being cursed (her mouth just disappears. It’s just gone. I’d say this is one of the more disturbing shots of the episode.). The potion turns blue, which means Amy is the witch. Unfortunately, Amy realizes what is happening and steals Buffy’s bracelet for her next concoction. Back at her house, she takes out a lot of her pent up aggression on her mom and makes her mom do her homework.
The next morning Buffy is beyond peppy. She breaks her alarm, half apologizes/half argues with Joyce, says something about being the Slayer to Joyce, and sings “Macho Man” a lot. This translates to her literally throwing another cheerleader across the gym during pre-game practice. Of course, this means her stint as leader of Sunnydale cheers is over before it really began.
Willow and Xander carry Buffy to the library, and she’s basically the drunk friend on the precipice between very happy and very sad. In a nice callback to Xander and Willow’s earlier conversation, Buffy says Xander is like one of the girls.
Giles diagnoses Buffy with a nasty case of Bloodstone Vengeance. They’ve got about 3 hours to either reverse the spell or cut off Amy’s head. Buffy votes for the former, because she still doesn’t blame Amy for all of this.
Which witch is which?
Buffy and Giles go to Amy’s house. They find Amy’s mom. Giles gives her this really intense dressing down before Buffy sees… a plate of half-eaten brownies?!! That’s right: the single characteristic we know about Amy is how we know she and her mom have swapped bodies. Amy’s mom told her she was wasting her youth which is just sad. I’m sad that all we know about Amy is that she likes brownies and her mom doesn’t like her.
They grab her mom’s spellbooks and head back to the school. Willow and Xander are at the game keeping an eye on who they still think is Amy. We get some more PoV shots from her perspective: flashes of Giles, Buffy, and the real Amy in the chemistry lab attempting to reverse the spells. She runs out of the game to stop them, and Willow and Xander follow her. There is a brief fight in the hall, which includes Amy(‘s mom) doing a Darth Vader choke out to Xander and a Jack Torrence to the chem lab door.
Giles has finished reversing the spell in time, but Amy’s mom is still crazed. She and Buffy throw each other around a bit. It’s witch versus slayer. Buffy deflects a spell meant for her with the reflective surface of a dissection plate. Amy’s mom is magicked away to live in her old cheerleading trophy forever. Amy gets to live with her dad now. And guess what: they’re making brownies this Saturday. Buffy and Joyce get a nice reconciliation as well.
Trav’s single sentence review of Witch: No wonder Amy’s dad left.
I really like this episode. It’s our first true monster of the week, but we also get some real-world storylines to parallel the supernatural ones. It also introduced us to Amy, the first of several recurring minor characters. (Don’t worry, we won’t talk about brownies anymore.) We also get a better sense of Buffy’s moral compass and how she differentiates good and evil at this point in time. 
(4 / 5)
Where to watch Witch (sponsored links!)
There are a lot of holiday horrors with the phrase Silent Night in their title. So, to help keep things straight, Silent Night Bloody Night is the one that no one should waste their time watching.
The story
Released in 1972, Silent Night Bloody Night is the story of an abandoned house. When it’s inherited by a man named Jeffrey Butler, the town tries to buy it from him. He sends his lawyer, John Carter, to negotiate. What follows is a Christmas-time revenge killing spree in the house that used to be an insane asylum and is now just a gross eyesore. Much like in Halloween, a prodigal son came home and started killing. Unlike in Halloween, viewers can’t bring themselves to care.
What worked
I would like to give credit where it’s due when I can find it. There were some legitimately creepy scenes in this movie. Two of them, to be precise.
The shots of the escaped inmates are well done. The makeup, dull facial expressions, and zombie-like movements were truly unnerving. In what is maybe the only well done scene in the whole movie, an inmate walks into the dining room and slowly drains a glass of wine. He then breaks the glass and uses the broken piece to rip out a doctor’s eye.
I also enjoyed or was at least unnerved by, the phone calls the killer makes from the house. They were great little eerie moments.
What didn’t work
I first need to point out that the production value of this movie is ass. I’m sure I could have shot a better movie on a Tamagotchi.
The whole thing is grainy, dark and dull. Even scenes with bright colors have all the brightness of a mechanics wash rag. And there are parts where the physical film was corrupted, leaving big black splotches.
Maybe I’m being too hard on it. I mean it was released in 1972. It’s not like they had access to advanced filming equipment. Like, for instance, The Godfather or Deliverance.
Oh, wait. Both those films also came out in 1972. And they sure as hell don’t look like this. Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory and Twelve Chairs came out the year before and they look great.
Granted, those films were preserved, digitized, and treated like the works of art they are. Silent Night, Bloody Night was apparently kept near a furnace, in the hopes that it might catch fire and never trouble anyone again.
None of that would matter, though, if the movie was any good. But it’s not. Let’s start with the voiceovers because that’s what the movie starts with.
Voiceovers are great when they add context or interesting commentary. A Christmas Story has voiceovers through the whole thing, and that’s great. This commentary, however, is a cautionary tale against telling not showing. It fails to be interesting or give additional information. It’s just bad.
What bothered me most is that not one shred of joy seems to have gone into this film. Unlike Mercy Christmas, which we talked about last week, nobody is having a good time.
The music is morose rather than eerie. The acting is lazy and half-hearted. Even in the most dramatic scenes, everyone delivers their lines like they’re reading off a list of instructions to build something they don’t care about building. And the effects are just horrific. We don’t see a single blow in any of the fight scenes. We see people wincing in pain, and weapons being raised. And that is it.
I suppose we might say this is to stave off the censors. But my God, that’s not what a Christmas horror movie is for. And it still has an R rating, even though we see neither boobies nor an axe biting into flesh. If you’re going to get stuck with the R rating, earn it.
Overall, Silent Night Bloody Night was devoid of anything joyful. It wasn’t fun to watch, it didn’t leave me with anything to ponder or savor. It was just a bad movie, from start to finish.
(1 / 5)
Christmas time is here! It’s time to listen to the same five songs until your ears bleed, spend time with people you’d fake your own death to avoid the rest of the year and stuff yourself with way too much food. And, it’s time for my favorite holiday tradition, watching horrible Christmas movies to tell you all exactly how god-awful they are. Let’s start with Mercy Christmas, a film about a family with a unique set of holiday traditions. And, a unique holiday menu.
The story
Our main character is named Michael Briskett. He’s a lonely man working a dull job with an abusive boss. But he’s doing his best to have a good Christmas. He even throws a party for everyone at his work.
No one shows up, though, except for the boss’s beautify assistant, Cindy. Together they have some drinks, and eventually, she invites him to her family’s Christmas celebration.
Personally, if a woman that beautiful had asked me out, I’d assume she thought I had money. But poor Michael is so swept up in being included that he jumps on the chance.
When he arrives at the family home of the Robillards, he finds two nasty surprises waiting. The first is that Cindy’s brother is Andy, his horrible boss. The second is that the family intends to eat him and three other people throughout Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.
After that is, Michael finishes up a work project for Andy. Because it’s not bad enough that he will be eaten, he also has to work over Christmas.
What worked
There are two kinds of bad Christmas movies. The ones that are actually bad, like Gingerdead Man, and the ones that are bad in all the wonderfully right ways that make them a real holiday treat. Mercy Christmas was one of the latter.
First, no one is taking a single second of this seriously. The writers sure didn’t, when they wrote a scene in which Michael and Eddie are tied together by Christmas tree lights to battle the Robillards. The actors didn’t. Half the time you can see them holding back a mighty laugh with all of their might. The stunt coordinators, the costume department, and the effects team were all doing their very best to make this movie as hilarious as possible. Because at every moment, every detail was selected to be funny and festive rather than serious. Cindy wearing a cross to church service. The pineapple on the roast leg. Grandma insisting that they do stockings at her specific time, as though they haven’t got three strangers tied up in the basement. All of this was funny as hell, exactly as it was supposed to be.
Every single person involved with Mercy Christmas was having a fantastic time. As I mentioned, the whole cast felt like they were about to start laughing. There is so much joy in their faces, even when it’s not exactly a joyful scene. But it’s the attention to comical detail that makes it clear that this movie was a labor of love for everybody.
Finally, I adore that the Robillard family acts exactly how we all picture people behaving at a big family Christmas. At least, if the family has money. Everyone’s arguing over food, talking about how they miss their mom, and fussing at each other. But everyone is also doing their little part to make Christmas great for their family after suffering the loss of their beloved mom.
If they weren’t eating people, this could have been a Hallmark Christmas movie.
What didn’t work
All of that being said, there was one thing that bothered me about this movie.
Over and over, we come back to the fact that Mrs. Robillard died. It’s brought up often enough that I thought for sure that it was going to be a bigger plot point. But it isn’t. That just seems to be window dressing for the family.
This felt like failed misdirection. When misdirection is done well, we don’t care about it anymore after the sleight of hand is accomplished. But there is no sleight of hand here. There is no misdirection. We’re just left wondering why the hell the mother was brought up so often if nothing was going to come of it.
All in all, Mercy Christmas was a fun, bloody movie with some incredibly satisfying moments. And while I don’t know if it’ll make it on my list every year, I can see myself coming back for seconds.
(4 / 5)
To a lot of fans, this is the film that killed the franchise. It says a lot that the next installment is yet another retcon. Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers attempts to explain Michael’s unrelenting evil, which lead to mixed opinions from longtime fans. There are two cuts of the film, theatrical vs producer’s. For a lot of people, the latter is the only one worth mentioning. Aiming to be as accurate as possible, I will be talking about the producer’s cut. Let’s begin!
Plot
We start Halloween VI with a six-year time jump from part five. Jamie is now barefoot and recently pregnant, running away from Michael as he wants her baby. While she manages to hide the little one away, Michael finally gets his hunger satiated by killing her. The moment is one of the most brutal ways in the franchise up until that point. Rest in peace, Jamie, you held your ground for as long as you could, the sequels were just too relentless.
The movie then cuts to a whole different scene going on. We have a new family living in the Myers house and their youngest child is hearing voices telling him to kill his loved ones. Tommy Lloyd is watching the family, played by none other than Paul Rudd in his first-ever theatrical role. Tommy still carries trauma from the events all those years ago when Laurie Strode was babysitting him. So when he finds Jamie’s baby, his part in the story becomes even more essential.
Dr Loomis also stars in what was Donald Pleasance’s final role before his passing. He and Tommy try to stop Michael once and for all before the cycle can repeat itself. As it turns out, Michael is a victim of a druid cult which makes him want to kill his family members every Halloween. Thorn, the cult in question, thinks they can control Michael and make him do their bidding. This results in catastrophe and Michael goes berzerk and kills all the cult members. Once again, it’s one of the most gruesome montages for the franchise up until that point.
Tommy and Kara are left to face Michael on their own which they manage to do with some corrosive liquid and good luck. However, nothing stays dead in this franchise as it’s soon revealed Michael somehow escaped and this time Dr Loomis might not be so lucky…
Overall thoughts
I would say for me personally Halloween VI definitely ranks somewhere near the bottom. The whole point of Michael is that there is no rhyme or reason to his killings and this film tries to go against that. I am glad the mistake was rectified by the upcoming installment. There were still some good things about it, such as Paul Rudd’s acting that reveals some raw talent as far as I’m concerned, as well as some direction choices and musical score. However, I also think it absolutely deserves all the criticism that it gets.
(2.5 / 5)
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