"The Witch Phillip" is a haunting tale that has been passed down through generations. The story revolves around a mysterious witch named Phillip, whose origins are unknown. Legend has it that Phillip possessed immense powers and dark magic. According to the legends, Phillip resided in a hidden forest deep within the mountains, far away from civilization. The forest was said to be enchanted, with whispering trees and eerie creatures lurking in the shadows. Many believed that entering the forest would result in certain doom.

Black Phillip: The Real Story Behind the Breakout Goat From ‘The Witch’

When production designer-turned-director Robert Eggers set about making his first feature, The Witch, he instructed editor Louise Ford to keep the movie’s hircine star — a 210-pound billy goat called Black Phillip — in the margins.

“We were deliberately trying to play Black Phillip down in order to make his importance more surprising,” says Eggers, 32, of the character, a farm animal belonging to a Puritan family having a rough go of it in 1630 New England.

“A trainer showed us some pictures and we chose the goat who looked the Black Phillip-iest,” recalls director Robert Eggers, who tends to emit a faint sigh of exasperation whenever the subject of Charlie comes up.

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That trainer, Anna Kilch, marvels at what an impressive physical specimen he was: “He had the biggest horns,” she says. “Goats just don’t grow bigger horns than that.”

“If we wanted him to be doing something violent, he wanted to go to sleep. If he was supposed to be standing still, he was running around like a madman,” Eggers recalls. He credits Ford, the film’s editor, with piecing together whatever usable footage they had into the acclaimed performance.

No one in the cast had a rougher time with Charlie than Ralph Ineson. A veteran British actor with a bassy voice and large, aristocratic features, Ineson, 46, had to drop 30 pounds to play the family patriarch, a starving farmer. That left him at a distinct disadvantage when he was called upon to wrestle Black Phillip, as dictated by several scenes in the script.

“I didn’t have a lot of gas in the tank, really,” Ineson says of sparring with the beast, who weighed about 50 pounds more than him. “He was horrible. Really, really horrible. From the moment we set eyes on each other it was just kind of hate at first sight. He had two modes: chilling out and doing nothing, or attacking me.”

On the fourth day of filming, Charlie rammed his serrated horns into Ineson’s ribs, dislodging a tendon. “Everything hurt,” Inerson recalls. “I spent the rest of the five-week shoot on painkillers.”

With one particularly violent scene involving William and Black Phillip still left to shoot, Eggers — who was determined not to go the CG route — commissioned a puppet version of the goat.

“There was one puppet half the size of Charlie,” Eggers says of a first failed attempt. Another was commissioned: “Someone had flown from L.A. on a plane sitting next to a giant goat puppet. That one was the size of a cow. Both didn’t look very good and were laying in the dirt by the makeup trailer,” Eggers says.

In the end, several elaborate Black Phillip sequences had to be abandoned, but one key scene in which Black Phillip rears onto its hind legs — distressingly close to two young actors who play creepy twins — was non-negotiable. (The goat was on a leash during the dangerous sequence and the leash was later digitally erased.)

Despite having gotten the shot, Eggers says he would not work with Charlie again. But Anna Kilch, Charlie’s wrangler, insists Charlie did the job and did it well: “It was a difficult shot, but he did it perfectly quite a few times so we were really happy with him.”

Kilch was surprised to hear that Eggers and Ineson had such a negative experience with Charlie. “He was kind of the star of the show so we ended up using him a lot. Maybe that’s why [they found him difficult]. But no, he was fantastic,” Kilch says.

Ineson begs to differ. “It’s wonderful that his fantastic performance is bringing notoriety to the film,” he says, “but there’s a little part of me that’s like, ‘Seriously? That f—er?’”

“There’s an incredible restaurant in London called The Smoking Goat,” Ineson continues. “When Robert was in town, we went there for my wife’s birthday and shared this incredible goat dish. We remembered Charlie. Not so fondly.”

The Witch

Did I just give you the creeps? Greetings, spooky lovers! Today, I’m breaking down The Witch [2015] into sharp, yummy little pieces.

I have to share Rolling Stone’s description of this beast: “Like an unnerving ‘Grimm’s’ fairy tale directed by Stanley Kubrick and tongue-kissed by Satan.”

Yup. Many won’t have the taste or the patience for this kind of horror, which is a real shame. This is a bare bones horror, a bleak horror. A steady dread that builds and wallows within this family and the viewer. This film is black as pitch. And so, so human. This film will not leave you. In the hours and days after you see it, it churns around your head. The Witch just gets it right.

Authenticity

Every prop and stitch in this movie is authentic to the time period. The costumes, the house, the accents, every detail was calibrated to transport the viewer into the sludge of Puritan settlement.

The subtitle to this movie is “A New England Folktale.” I’m a huge occult nerd and appreciate the “accuracy” of the witchcraft in play here; it fits accounts from the witch hunt days, and is using the basics when it comes to black magic – goats, familiars, books, babies, that sort of thing. I read a review that claimed the movie wasn’t breaking open any barriers with its symbolism, but I think that’s actually the point. The point here is authenticity, and these things exist in our culture and our history.

Environment / sound

I’m not sure what the viewing experience was like in theaters, but I can say that the Blu-ray copy I watched bounced wildly in volume. Speech is often a half-whisper before the score comes in shrieking upwards into uncomfortable decibels. Environmental noise creeps into the score. Also present are constant whispered prayers. You feel like every character is struggling with their religion, and how to feel out there on the edge of the world, staring wilderness in the face.

The environment is a character in this film. After being exiled from the village, the family sets up shop on the edge of a forest with no perimeter fence. It’s a stupid detail that shouldn’t bother me but it actually does. Why wouldn’t they set up a fence? At the very least to keep the kids and the goats in? Or keep coyotes/wolves/passing ruffians out? I dunno. Anyway.

Cinematography and successful shots

Oh my gracious me, this is a gorgeously shot film. Wide shots last sometimes for minutes as fog rolls across the trees, or our protagonist just sobs in the dirt before pushing a corpse off of herself. This movie grabs your shoulders and says, “be still, I have something to show you.” There is no relief from this story, or for this family, and you feel that in every second of the film.

Feminism

I’ll get into the ending a little further down the page but wanted to start this conversation here while we work through the film. Question: is this a feminist film? YES. Thomasin is an un-Puritan Puritan. As she matures and questions her family’s decisions and beliefs, her family sees her as a threat. Some have said this film is discussing the demonization of female sexuality, and I don’t disagree, but I don’t see Thomasin as sexualized. She is still devout – she stills prays in private, not just in front of her family, and she seems to only want freedom. I pause at this female sexuality argument because it is insisting that for women to be a threat they must be sexualized, which is something specifically designed for the male gaze. So I don’t see Thomasin as sexualized, but I do see her as empowered, and yes, the two can go hand-in-hand, or they can go side-by-side, or go their separate ways.

If you have the Blu-ray or DVD, I highly recommend checking out the special features. Director Robert Eggers proclaims this proudly and without hesitation to be a feminist film. God bless you, sir.

Characters

This film is both narrative and character driven – whoulda thunk you could do both these days? – so I’m going to dig into the meat of this through the characters.

Thomasin

Thomasin is a body of contradictions, which makes her human and interesting. She is a young lady coming into her own awareness; she is now aware of her environment, her restrictions, her family, and the flaws of Puritan life. The Witch nails this by not telling us this, but by Thomasin’s internal frustrations cracking more in each scene. The film opens with her confessing and ends with her corruption. I’d say Thomasin suffers more than her siblings because of her age. She still remembers England and how much easier life was before they came to this country. Eggers designed her after Elizabeth Knapp, and actual girl from Puritan Massachusetts who was believed to be demonically possessed.

After she kills her mother, Thomasin takes off her Puritan clothing. My biggest question is about Thomasin’s independence. Had her family lived, she would have been sold as a housemaid to a family in town. The witches are directly responsible for the chaos her family suffers and its demise. So is it really her choice to join the witches if she was forced into it?

Caleb

Caleb is the purest of his family. He doesn’t remember England and blindly follows his father anywhere. He hauls around a gun that is twice his size while trying to work through the brush of the forest. Caleb has two scenes that really sting:

• When Caleb and his father set the rabbit trap, Caleb’s small hands work the metal pieces down while William holds the trap in place. They discuss hell, and Caleb is frantic with the fear that his unbaptized brother has been banished to hell. William tries to comfort him, but it’s clear that years of following William’s example and the Puritan life has condemned Caleb’s mind. How can he ever have peace if he believes his infant brother is in hell?
• The possession scene in the attic is a masterclass of writing. Caleb writhes around, speaking coherently, revealing what the witch did to him in the forest. The witch spelled him and took advantage of him, and we wonder if he even understands what she was doing on top of him when he compares the feeling to his religion. The family (with the exception of the demon twins) pray and then cite a Psalm. Caleb comes in clearly with the last line, finishing the family’s efforts. The effect is chilling. His death immediately after is so sweet and so sad, we’re just happy he didn’t die like this baby brother.

William

William has a voice like granite crumbling apart. It wasn’t clear to me why his family was banished from the village. You see William in every detail of the farm; his rotting corn hangs in all corners of the house, and everything is so handmade, you can tell that William has spent the last year building this hell from the ground for his family. He is not a cruel father physically or verbally, or even really emotionally, but his example has led his children and wife into seeing hell around every corner when they cannot even tell that hell is actually out in their barn. William wears his flaws for us to see. In one scene, he stares down at Katherine as she lies in the grave with Caleb. He wants to bury her with the boy.

William’s most powerful scene comes after he boards up the children with the goats and then falls to his knees, fills his mouth with dirt, and begs through earth-muffled tones for mercy. I found it odd that he accepts corruption by Black Phillip a moment before he dies; everyone else’s corruption is perfectly placed and his was just sort of plopped on the viewer. He is buried under the endless pile of wood he chops, which Thomasin says is the only thing he’s good at.

Katherine

Katherine is an oddity. She is cruel to Thomasin for losing baby Sam to the forest (it wouldn’t have been as easy for the witch if they had a perimeter fence). She is in hysterics for most of the movie, and before anyone else. She says to William in one scene that she had a dream when she was younger that Jesus came to her and she was “ravaged by His love,” and could never love another being in that way. I have to bring this up – ravaged is not a delicate term. I read this as a visitation by the devil, and possibly that she might have passed on a witchy gene to Thomasin. Just a thought.

Katherine’s corruption scene was perfect for her character. Her dead children appear and offer her the book, then she imagines she is breastfeeding baby Sam, and instead she is breastfeeding (read: being pecked at) by a familiar, a black crow. In the moment before she sees her sons, she steps one foot out of the bed, similar to how we see the witch step out of the hut, and removes her Puritan bonnet.

The demon twins

Yeah, I guess their names are Jonas and Mercy. Nay. They will be henceforth known as the demon twins. These kids are creepy doll-like monstrosities that are very obviously singing impossible and dark songs about that damn goat. Should have been a red flag to everyone on the farm. The twins are weathervanes that no one in the family is paying attention to. They constantly whisper to Black Phillip, bahhing in his ear, as if they’re telling him how to be a goat. They sing their Black Phillip songs as the tension builds, are hysterical when the family is cracking, are comatose when the family is in shock, and are just gone when the farm goes completely to hell.

Black Phillip

Even as a goat, Black Phillip is terrifying. The song he teaches the demon twins reveals his identity:

Black Phillip, Black Phillip

a crown grows out his head,

Black Phillip, Black Phillip

to nanny queen is wed.

Jump to the fence post,

running in the stall.

Black Phillip, Black Phillip

His black coat contrasts with the subdued palette of the rest of the film, so it’s impossible to not stare at him when he is on screen. It’s just too perfect that the devil is actually outside in their barn from the start. It’s not clear where William bought Black Phillip from, or how he appeared. The family accepts him as part of the reality.

In the climactic last few moments, we finally hear Black Phillip’s voice and see glimpses of his stylin’ boots and coat. The scene is successful because we never see more than a few inches of him at a time.

The witches

I’m going to avoid the obvious discussion of the wolf and Red Riding Hood. One of the witches wears a red cloak, and they are all wolves. Far more interesting is the idea of the hare being a trap, instead of the family’s trap being for the hare. We see the hare around the farm and in the barn.

The witch appears early, and it is revealed early that she is actually a witch doing witchy things. That choice made me happy. The film is completely avoiding the “are they just crazy” discussion.

The young witch who attacks Caleb is more terrifying than beautiful. As she approaches him smiling, we can’t see her teeth. But most of the time, these witches are feral and primal. The film embraces both the ugliness and the beauty of the human body, as celebrated in these witches.

Thomasin’s choice

The ending shots are flooring. Thomasin approaches Black Phillip and asks him to speak to her. We see pieces of Black Phillip but never the whole, his voice melodic, strange, poetic. Then she strips completely down. Is this really her choice? She can’t even write her own name – the devil has to guide her hand. The witches have put her in this situation. They killed her family. Her choice is either to die in the wilderness or try to make it back to town with no horse or supplies, or join the witches ranks. So is it really her decision? I’m not convinced it is. Is Eggers saying that no choice is a good choice for women, that we are often forced to choose the lesser of two evils?

I appreciate the balance at play here, implying that these women would choose the devil over a Puritanical society where they are subjected to men’s desires and religious punishment. While we absorb the weight of Thomasin’s choice, she heads into the trees. The shock of her pale skin in the dark matches the shock of a white birch sticking out of the treeline. Then we see the other witches, and there are a lot of them! Where did these women come from?? Were they all expelled from settlements? This is a newly discovered land, so I read these women as having come from a village. The witches howl and shake, and then float upwards. Thomasin, still covered in her mother’s blood, watches without fear and then rises into the trees. For the first time, we see a look of pure joy on her face.

Heavy stuff. I know this one got some mixed reviews, even from people I know, so I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts on the film. If there’s anything I missed or you want to discuss further, let me know. Until next time!

The witch phillip

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Many believed that entering the forest would result in certain doom. Those who encountered Phillip claimed that she had the ability to manipulate people's minds, bending them to her will. She was said to have a chilling presence, with piercing eyes that could see through the depths of one's soul.

Black Phillip (The Witch)

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It was rumored that her touch would drain the life force from any living being. However, the stories about Phillip were not all filled with fear and horror. Some mentioned that she had a compassionate side and used her powers for good. It was said that she would visit those who were suffering and provide them with healing remedies. She was believed to have cured various ailments that even the most skilled human doctors couldn't treat. Nevertheless, most saw Phillip as a malevolent force to be feared. She was blamed for disappearances that occurred in the nearby villages, with residents convinced that she sacrificed humans to maintain her immortality. The tales of her monstrous actions grew more terrifying with each passing generation. The legend of Phillip continues to captivate the minds and imaginations of people, even in the modern age. Some dismiss her as a mere folktale, while others believe that she still resides in her forest, watching and waiting for her next victim. Regardless of whether or not Phillip was a real witch, her story serves as a cautionary tale about the power of darkness and the consequences of delving into the unknown. It warns against temptations and the dangers of unchecked power. "The Witch Phillip" remains an enigma, living on through the stories and superstitions that have been passed down through time. Whether she was a force of good or evil, one thing is certain - her presence is deeply etched in the minds of those who have dared to utter her name..

Reviews for "The Witch Phillip: Reimagining a Classic Character"

1. John - 2 stars

I found "The Witch Phillip" to be incredibly underwhelming. The storyline felt disjointed and the characters were flat and uninteresting. The pacing of the film was off, with long stretches of boredom followed by rushed and confusing scenes. Additionally, the acting fell flat, with none of the performers able to bring depth or believability to their roles. Overall, I was disappointed with "The Witch Phillip" and do not recommend it to others.

2. Emily - 1 star

"The Witch Phillip" was a complete waste of time. The plot was utterly predictable and lacked any originality. It felt like the filmmakers were trying to cash in on tired horror tropes without adding anything new to the genre. The dialogue was laughably bad, filled with cheesy lines that failed to build any tension or create a spooky atmosphere. The special effects were also poorly executed, taking away from any potentially scary moments. Save yourself the trouble and skip "The Witch Phillip".

3. David - 2 stars

While "The Witch Phillip" had an interesting concept, it ultimately failed to deliver. The film started off promising, but quickly became convoluted and confusing. The pacing was uneven, with too much time spent on unnecessary scenes and not enough development given to important plot points. The characters were also one-dimensional, lacking depth or any real motivation. Overall, "The Witch Phillip" had potential, but fell flat in execution. I would not recommend it to fans of the horror genre.

4. Sarah - 2 stars

I was highly disappointed with "The Witch Phillip". The plot was weak and lacked coherence, leaving me confused and unsatisfied. The acting was subpar and failed to bring any emotion or engagement to the characters. The film also relied too heavily on jump scares and cheap thrills, rather than building a genuine sense of unease. The ending was particularly disappointing, as it felt rushed and left many loose ends unresolved. "The Witch Phillip" failed to live up to its potential and should be avoided.

The Witch Phillip: An Exploration of Witchcraft in Literature