Witchcraft Expert Malcolm Gaskill Breaks Down Famous Witches in Films & TV 

"They fled the devil in England but then they get there and the devil's there too..." Reminded me of the Terry Pratchett Quote: "Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." Love that quote, it's epic and haunting even if you're not spiritual. It would stand to reason that darkness is at least equally as fast as light and that is a kind creepy aspect of reality.

I think we can all respectfully agree that this man is obviously wrong, and that the masterpiece which is Hocus Pocus is in fact a historically accurate documentary manifested through found-footage (yes, including the 17th Century scenes).

I appreciate that he gives as much sincerity in his analysis to Hocus Pocus as The Witch.

Prof Gaskill taught me a module as an undergrad student, it’s so awesome to see him here! Was one of my favourite teachers throughout degree. Lovely man

The Witch is such a good film. definitely a top 5 best film/horror films i’ve ever seen

The Witch: the real fear was being banished from the village. There was safety in numbers to be sent away meant almost certain death from lack of shelter, food, disease, injury, animals, and humans. As a punishment this was much more severe than hanging or burning at the stake would have been.

This is fascinating as two of my ancestors (early settlers in America) , a mother and daughter were tried as witches, luckily they were both declared innocent.

This guy is great. I followed another comment here to a google search and a London Magazine interview with him about his new book, and just as here his words were tremendously thoughtful. This is a very interesting avenue of history that often gets handled badly. I’m glad i clicked on this video, thank you.

He gave the witch a 10/10 on historical accuracy. You heard it here first people. Witches are real.

Sometimes a mole was considered a witch's mark. One of the characteristics of the mole as a witch's mark is that it could change and that's how people would know the person bearing it was a witch. And sometimes they couldn't feel anything there when pricked. This kind of mole is not unheard of today. Today there's another reason to take note of a mole, especially a dark mole or one with an irregular edge or one that changes shape. These symptoms can indicate skin cancer. Funny how, for the wrong reasons, witch accusers stumbled onto clues to a serious and life - threatening ailment. While they did not determine a witch, the symptoms are used in a clinical setting to suspect (and subsequently biopsy) the presence of a most ravaging disease of modern times.

I’ve loved the witches of eastwick since I was a kid. It contains everything that makes witchcraft fun. And the cast is flawless

Oh my gosh! I was just recommending his book to people on another channel! I’ve let my husband borrow it to read; we’re both history nerds. 😅 I love that they got Gaskill to do this!

Malcolm Gaskill is a major league historian. His book "Witchfinders" is a fantastic book!

Ok I need to watch The Witch ASAP

I’m disappointed that you did not review my top favorite witchy movie: Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman 😞

Suddenly the witch scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail makes much more sense, with them equating her with a duck lol, it clicked with the “ducking stool”

I woud love to see break down of Witchhammer (Czech: Kladivo na čarodějnice). Both book and movie depict how witch trails were used to eliminate opposition and acquire wealth.

7:23 I think it's "kindly": "We're just three kindly old spinster ladies."

This was great! I fell for the knowledge TV and film gave us on Witch Trials so it's oddly nice to know it was broader and more contentious than I previously thought.

Was lucky enough to take a class from Malcolm he's a legend

such a great video ty

I think The Love Witch is the best witchcraft film. There’s no actual magic depicted on screen but feels magical. Also love how the film portrays cults in a positive light as opposed to other films.

The Crucible is missing. I know it was originally a play, but it would have been cool to find out where it ranks.

We need part two... and it should include scenes from Charmed...

I fully expected the film of The Crucible to be included! But nope 😭

I was hoping for the witch scene In Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

A wonderful video for the Halloween season! I’ve just realized the Witchfinder General is Brain from Pinky and the Brain and many other childhood cartoons. So doubly wonderful!

''if you die, you're innocent. If you survive, you're a witch'' This seems like a very flawed test..

This man obviously refuses to believe that the idea of witches is based in misogyny.

The Witch was such a good movie. Great video!

Love it 🖤!

Holy shit is this where Miss O'Brien ended up? I thought she was going to be a lady's maid in Scotland!!!

“Lynching, which is a very disorderly and undesirable thing to do” Wow my vocabulary sucks. I would have just said “lynching, which is bad”

I wish you would do The Craft. I read that a witch expert acted as a consultant in it's making though I am not sure if that is true. It seems to be a very highly regarded witch movie..

His book is really good, highly recommend it.

In the last hour, before seeing this upload, I have been catching up with the event of the past 24 hours in UK politics... And I gotta say, I am starting to wonder if maybe there is something to this *"Chaos Magic"* idea... Then this video pops up in my feed because i subscribed to the Penquin Books channel, hardly the source of magical knowlegde. I dunno... as the chaos churns it feels less and less as though coincidence happens by accident.

13:09: nice to see Karl Pilkington getting some quality work !

Yes The Witch was brilliant.

How long did it take the inquisitors to figure out that if the accused were really as powerful as they were accused of being, that they could just use their powers to escape?🤔🤷🏻‍♀️

Blessed be sisters!

Correction to the closed captions at 11:40: "But he's actually been challenged by gentlemen _at the Norwich assizes."_ Assizes were courts in England and Wales.

how is sabrina the teenaged witch not on this list

I lived near Pendle and Pendle Hill xxxx

You missed the hilarity in Hocus Pocus. It seems out of place in this line up where in the other films were more serious.

The Witch is one of the best films of the genre ever.

"Witch Pricker" 🤣 That's going on my CV

I’m surprised he didn’t talk about the crucible 😮

Night of the Eagle,The City of the Dead,The Blood on Satan's Claw,The Witchfinder General,Suspiria,The Seventh Victim,The Witch,Weird WomanBewitched,I Married a Witch.The WitchesJennifer's Body,Hocus Pocus

Decently wrote a thesis paper on gender and the witch trials from 1450 to 1750, and as a nordic pagan myself, I wish he spoke more on modern practice compared to what the media shows

Omg, there is a degree in witchcraft history, I’m in!!

Did Hopkins use a retractable needle? I wish you mentioned that if you accuse a woman of being a witch with no proof you could be tried

I'd love to hear what the extent and limits of witchcraft are.

“Do you know what Salem abhors even more than a witch? A Catholic.”

❤️

Shakespeare's eye of newt business is hilarious - except for a toad, it's PLANTS make the finest medicines and potions.

they should have given him the monty python "a duck!" scene!

The only thing I believe is somewhat inaccurate is the hangings. In what is now proctor's ledge and now gallows hill in salem MA;even being closer to the outskirts of town the so called witches were hung atop the hill. The whole town of salem could see this. I've been there and could see below the houses easily;just imagine what they saw?

THE CRAFT!!

What? No The Name Of The Rose? 😱

Bewitched??? Belle Book & Candle??? The Wizard of Oz??? Elizabeth Montgomery as her Samantha character's cousin would enchant everyone while Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the East & her sister Wicked Witch of the West scared every child for 50 years....What about Dr Bombay????

Big miss not to mention Akelarre, great Spanish film!

The Salem Witch Trials, REALLY went off the rails, when Spectral Evidence was admitted as evidence. That what eventually brought them to an end

I hope you won't be offended by this remark, but you have the vibes of a character who appears in a single episode of Buffy and gets killed off in a grimly humourous manner.

I would watch him commentate the entirety of the VVitch

Witch pricker?! Sounds kinky. Bedknobs and Broomsticks is my favorite "witch" movie.

Professional means that you make money from the trade that you do! Expert means you clam to more than everyone else! X is the unknown and spurt is a drip under pressure. Gerry Fukes!

3:56 "prideful conceit". . . The statement hurts my tiny brain. Conceit is an over abundance of self pride. So he's prideful of his own overflowing pride? I mean I guess it kinda makes sense but idk.

Too bad we didn't get his opinion on Goya's Ghosts.

A female magistrate (the doctor who episode) was rare to non-existent I would say, and yet he doesn't remark on it; odd.

Imagine asking an "expert" on Christianity or Islam to verify the accuracy of depictions of a religion in films, instead of, oh, I don't know, someone who actually practices the religion. Witches are already marginalized, vilified, crucified, misunderstood, and left out of the conversation. That clearly hasn't changed.

10:00 When was the Civil War??

There's actually a witchcraft expert

“The Lord would not allow an innocent woman to stand accused.” I mean, He allowed his innocent Son to stand accused. And don’t even get me started on Job.

What I want to know is how you become an expert in WitchCraft 😄

Scold (Noun)-A woman who disturbs the peace by noisy & quarrelsome or abusive behavior constituting a public nuisance.

Well, obviously, the magistrate would not have been a woman. I'm a bit surprised he didn't point that out. And while he is not a fashion historian and neither am I, I'd like to point out that costuming in 'Jamestown' is ludicrously terrible. Hair down and titties out? Lol, no.

A woman wouldn't be in any kind of authority position at this time. They were lucky if they got to testify in their own defense.

I wonder if we are related my ancestry traces back to England

scarlet witch?

Definitely an expert in witchcraft, but not an expert in Protestantism. The Puritans practiced what we now call consubstantiation rather than plain symbolism. Catholics believe in transubstantiation- the bread and wine fully become the body and blood of Christ. Consubstantiation is the physical actual bread and wine co-existing fully with the body and blood. It’s more than just a symbolic gesture. There are certainly Protestant denominations today where it is pretty much purely symbolic, but it was definitely more than that for Puritan pilgrims in Jamestown.

Wichraft is fun, tell your friends.

women leviate and a talking goat.. 10/10 historical accuracy :D

TIL the UK also had a civil war. 🧐

He gave a movie that had ACTUAL witchcraft 10 out of 10 for historical accuracy? And then gave Hocus Pocus 4 out of 10 as a film in general? For what it was, Hocus Pocus was a great film (not a 10, but maybe 7 or 8 out of 10). I will allow a really low score for historical accuracy tho, as it was a comedy... ;-)

He's saying that witches being murdered and being subjected to instant summary "justice" didn't actually happen? Knowing what I know of humanity, I call bullshit.

Who hasn’t, at some point in their life, wanted somebody else’s goat??!! 😁

Anyone who can give 'The Witch' 10 out of 10 for historical accuracy is sadly lacking in knowledge of their subject. Throughout this entire presentation he at no point addresses the very important fact that _witches were not real_ (at least those of the sort feared by the early protestant church). 'The Witch's' depiction of devil worshiping, baby eating, Satanist witches is therefore entirely inaccurate. And this makes up a large part of the film. But even the non-supernatural, supposedly historical, depiction of how the people in the film acted didn't make sense. As far as I'm aware (though I'm open to persuasion) , there is no historical evidence of people being driven from their community in the way depicted in the film. The early devout settlers had fled from persecution in Europe and I've read that they were therefore averse to allowing such prejudice to grow among them. Even if such things did happen, I doubt if the community would consider sending children to suffer with their parents. So watching this film, I was already finding it hard to suspend disbelief, especially since it is praised for its attempt to portray historical accuracy. Then there is the sheer stupidity of the characters. Despite their expulsion, the family are devout Christians and it's clear that some kind of supernatural activity is at work. Given this, despite the father's 'pride', they would have approached the community for help. And where did this quite large gathering of 'witches' come from? Were they all expelled by local communities of settlers? There can't have been that many of the latter. Or perhaps there was some satanic version of the Mayflower that landed nearby? And, the final mystery of the film; why did the wretched girl join the witches? They'd slaughtered her family and made her life a trial of fear and misery. Given the trouble they caused her, she should have hated them and her most likely action would have been to make her way back to the colony and get help. She was only guilty by association with her father, as I have already pointed out. Given the above, I don't rate 'The Witch' very highly at all, and can only assume that it is people's general ignorance of the subject that makes them think it is so good. Part of my problem with all this is that I find the current popularity of witches as a monster of horror extremely distasteful. Tens of thousands of people were tortured and brutally murdered because the Church encouraged a belief in magically empowered baby eating Satanists, which they then weaponised to enforce their power across the face of Europe. When you really think about it, celebration of this deadly propaganda is like having fun by exploiting Hitler's depiction of the Jews. 'It's just a bit of fun' doesn't really cut it. Unlike the ghosts and un-dead and imaginary monsters, those accused as witches were real people. Of the films mentioned, I think 'The Witchfinder General' is probably most accurate, as I don't remember it pandering to the fantasy of witchcraft and the only monster in the film is Hopkins himself, who sadly didn't die the way he did in the film.

An expert on historical witch trials he may be, but he is not an expert on witchcraft.

Historically this guy was excellent. But true witchcraft, and the practice of magic, and witchcraft had very rarely been accurately depicted. I've been a practising witch for 5 years. As so, I know when a witchcraft scene is accurate or not. Hocus Pocus the first film is a great film. However, it being accurate no way. Yes, we use cauldrons, and we do make potions and spells. But we never ever use deadmans toes. Majority of witches have tremendous respect for the dead and we would never desecrate a grave. The only thing we buy from a grave is dirt. As I said we buy the dirt. We ask the grave owner whether we can take some dirt in exchange for something, such as placing toys on a children's grave, or we pore a bottle of whisky on a grave, or even cleaning and maintaining a grave that is neglected. In Harry Potter there was only 2 lines in the whole franchise that is correct. One is, the wand chooses the wizard it's unsure why. This is very true when it comes to any of our tools, they choose us not us choosing them. The other was with mandrakes. In the old days people didn't realise mandrake were poisonous and to stop a human dying from it, they would tie the plant to a dog and then they force the animal to run. So, that the screams of the mandrake would kill the dog instead of the human. In Hocus Pocus 2 there was 1 5 second scene that actually depicted an accurate spell work. The other thing that is accurate to the craft is the term sisters. That's how we address each other. Another witch can call me sister. If I spoke to a male witch I would call him brother. Not to call one of our own any other way is considered disrespectful. This is only amongst ourselves. Everything else in other witches films are inaccurate. One thing that this expert should have known about Hocus Pocus. This film begins in October 31st 1693 in Salem. It's based around the Salem witch trials. Here's the funny thing the Salem witch trials ended in May 1693. 5 months prior to the beginning of this film. As such the Sanderson sisters would have been pardoned for witchcraft. So, this hanging was a lynching. They should have been tried for murder and the hung. Not hung for witchcraft. Lynching was common in that time period right up to modern times. Lynching would still be occurring today if it wasn't for police intervention. That's why there's a high police presence when a high profile criminal is tried in court. The police are there to protect the criminal from lynching.

Being a self declared witch, I am so here for this! I love the history and lore and always have deep dives in the subject, and re-read material if I get stuck in a rut. History is my favorite subject and seeing this video pop up on my recommendations was great! I am more of a book fan than a movie fan, and havent seen all the movies he talks about, but its so interesting so I'm hooked on the video anyway. I read a lot more than I watch a screen, but this popped up when I was pulling up my witchy music playlist by the composer Peter Gundry. His music is haunting and beautiful and good for reading lol. I have a LOT of books on the history of witchcraft, and a lot on modern. But this video! Im gonna need another! 😂 Edited to say that I dont worship the devil and I live by karma and goodness and compassion and meditate and dont ever want harm to come to someone else. I dont believe in organized religion but I believe in a higher power that is a higher consciousness in a higher density that we dont understand. I dont wish for bad things or want someone hurt. I just focus on my plants and history and try and live positively and quietly in my little green corner of Kentucky. Im more of the manifestation type, where you focus on things you want and work towards it, and growing my herbs and flowers and cleansing my property, using my cards if I feel I need a little help but most of the time I can just sit and think quietly and come up with something on my own. We have our own power, each of us. I have a touch of claircognizance and have dreams that come true sometimes, but its been a while since ive needed to be warned of something, im pretty open to signs and havent had anything crazy from ignoring signs happen in a couple of months.

None of these films are about Witchcraft. They are all about Christian anxiety about other faiths.

i have a button up shirt... should I button it up all the way? tuck it in? OH I have a sweater shirt. i could wear that over the unbuttoned buttonup untucked blue... OH OH OH !!! i have this fugly shit brown button up I could wear? what? no time? frag it ill wear all three at once... bother.

More like Malcolm BUZZkill

The witch, historically accurate? Lolololol

🤣😂🤣

Envy , han …they were so off the rail…how about heath , happiness, love for themselves, nature and their loved ones and accountability, justice for those who crossed or wronged them ! That’s my witch craft ! Guess men really do be terrified of women’s wisdom and power…for some reason ! A whole bunch of mommy issues…sadly for all the innocent people that died cause of those collective patriarchal psychosis !

There is a difference between a "witchcraft expert" and a historian. And that difference is clickbait v information.

If you are not going to talk about The Craft, then what are we even doing here?

😴

There's an actual job called "Witchcraft Expert"?!