Malus Evaluation Question 2

Initially Malus represents the slowly declining social/religious group of Witches and Pagans. The Catholic Church, implying that they are devil/evil worshippers, which is not entirely the case, often portrays the Wicca religion negatively. When researching into Wicca and Paganism I found that the only thing that witches worship is the earth and it’s natural elements (earth, wind, water and fire). They associate themselves with a pentacle because each point represents a different element they worship, the fifth element at the top being the soul. When together the pentagram is actually a symbol of ultimate protection against evil and in actual fact the inverted pentagram is has been taken from Wicca and is now used notoriously in satanic worship. It was important when constructing Malus to remain true to the religion as it should be taken out of the negative light it, has been placed in. This way, the portrayal of witches and the craft cannot offend any witches that could be potential audiences.  

By constantly referring to the pentacle in its correct form allows us to show the coven of witches as they would actually appear in real life and therefore adds a sense of verisimilitude in the film. They wear cloaks in the forest scene which is the sacred garment of choice when completing rituals and practicing the craft.

The secondary social group we are representing in Malus is females. With the constant battles of feminism and equal rights we felt it was important to represent females in a strong and capable way showing independence and strong will, traits that are often overlooked in horror films. In a way this could suggest that we are challenging the typical stereotype of women in horror and not representing a coven of Casey Becker’s.

Lastly, we are representing the teenage social group in Malus as all seven of the witches are in college and age between 16 and 18. Again wanting to infuse verisimilitude in the film, we decided to allow them to use a teenage socialect with taboo/swearing and colloquial language in their dialogue. I felt that it would be appropriate to make sure that the characters seemed normal at the beginning of the film to show how the coven and their lifestyle choice changes them.