Movie Poster: Saw III

Another stop-you-in-your-tracks poster. Not just scary – but creepy.

Maybe go down and look at it (it’s the second image – not the first, but I’ll explain that in a minute) and then come back.

Here’s what I thought when I looked at that poster for the first time:

In the recent Macbeth I saw, with Patrick Stewart, out at BAM, the way the three witches were handled in this particular production was brilliant (which is so strange, because the witches are usually the weak link in any production of that play).

First of all, they were SCARY. So often the witches just aren’t handled right, they seem like cackling hags from a fairy tale, kind of silly, and you get that Macbeth is scared of them – but the audience NEVER is.

These witches? They seriously made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. First of all, they were camouflaged into scenes. You never knew where they would turn up. They worked in Macbeth’s kitchen, they were nurses on the battlefield … they were all young actresses, maybe 21, 22 – all slim and boyish shapes … and wearing uniforms that made them look the same: maid uniforms, nurses uniforms, so you could not tell them apart.

I have goosebumps right now writing this.

The idea was to give the feel of a secret police in a totalitarian society. They are not out on the wild heath. They are in your effing house. They are preparing your food. They huddle over your bed when you are sick.

And so below: please see, first, the image of the first appearance of the witches in that production – only you didn’t know at the time that they were the witches. They had said no lines yet, they were busy and official and seemed like extras, space-fillers, part of the crowd.

The three descended in the elevator, dressed up as nurses, and entered the room, ready to take care of wounded soldiers. They raced around the bed, white nurses caps and dresses gleaming in the darkness, setting up IV drips, passing instruments to one another … In the distance you could hear the sounds of battle. And I was sucked in. I was more focused on the screaming wounded soldier rather than the nurses, who appeared to just be “background”.

And then one of them said to the other, over the operating table:

“When shall we three meet again?”

And I swear to God, gasps went through the audience. It was a truly dangerous moment. They had sucker-punched us. You never ever could trust that they wouldn’t come up right behind you, from that moment on. They were everywhere. You realized that the call was most definitely coming from inside the house.

Brilliant, I thought.

Anyway.

Image from Macbeth below … followed by the movie poster. I know nurses are par for the course in horror movies – but I still think these images are very reminiscent of one another.