Editorials
Where is Tituba? Examining Contemporary Historical Erasure of Race in the Salem Witch Trials
The Halloween season is upon us. Scores of people will soon head to the capital of witchery, eager to take a historical tour of sites and memorials. While most Salem tours are historically accurate and informative, they, and the museums, tend to overlook the significance of race and slavery in 17th-century Salem. According to the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, Salem’s early economic prosperity, being an active port, “was tied to the slave culture of the British Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries. As early as 1638, the first enslaved Africans were brought into the Massachusetts Bay Colony […] Slaves worked as servants and skilled labor in the homes and businesses of Salem until the late 1700s.” They explain that most wealthy households in Salem at the time, including the tourist attraction The House of the Seven Gables, housed enslaved people. The townspeople’s initial scapegoat for alleged witchcraft in Salem was Tituba, a black and indigenous enslaved woman. For historians, this fact is not new. However, it is imperative for people planning a trip to Salem to know this overlooked yet incredibly important piece of the Salem story, one we have a responsibility to think about critically when we enter Witch City.
Since early American history has been recorded mainly by white men, the story of Tituba from those who knew her is practically nonexistent. Historians have scoured town and family records for bits and pieces of Tituba’s life experiences beyond being a catalyst for the Trials. Author Elaine G. Breslaw took it upon herself to dig up Tituba’s origins: Tituba was purchased and enslaved at an unknown age by Samuel Parris, along with her future husband John Indian, while he was visiting a sugar plantation in the Caribbean Island of Barbados that he inherited from his father. He was known to be “rough” with the people he enslaved. Author Diane E. Foulds explains in Death in Salem: The Private Lives behind the 1692 Witch Hunt (2013) that Tituba and John endured whippings “if found idle.” Tituba lived with the Parris family during the time when girls of Salem, including Parris’ daughter and niece, started acting erratic, blaming Tituba and her “magic” for their hysterics.
The Myth of Tituba and Fortune-Telling in Puritan Salem
Throughout the retelling of the Trials, mythic stories formed about Tituba allegedly being instrumental in teaching the young girls of Salem, including Parris’ daughter Betty and niece Abigail, fortune-telling games that led them, in their boredom, to conjure up stories of being bewitched, throw violent fits, and speak in tongues. Initially, all fingers pointed to Tituba for the sake of blaming an outsider whose culture did not align with their own God-fearing Puritan way of life. However, historians have illuminated that Puritans were less averse to perceived-Pagan spiritual practices as legend would have it. Puritan spiritual and fortune-telling activities were, for the most part, widely accepted by Puritan culture, as well as abroad in both the Caribbean and Europe. Salem presented for the first time in America a cultural diffusion of magic. For Salem, the practice used that was in direct relation to the Trials themselves was a fortune-telling game. The shape of an egg white dropped into a glass of water would allegedly reveal your future. When Betty and Abigail played this game, their egg white took the shape of a coffin which spurred their bizarre behavior.
There is no concrete evidence of Tituba partaking in this fortune-telling game with the girls, nor any supporting evidence that she taught them this game. However, Tituba would not be opposed to the game. Breslaw elaborates: “She most certainly accepted the usefulness of such practices because, like most seventeenth-century people, she believed that human action could influence the spiritual realm […] The magical fortune-telling practices were not unusual in Puritan communities […] None of these techniques… was exclusive to English folklore […] The egg as a part of divining and curing ceremonies has an even more ancient history. As different cultures met in the New World, similarities of form or function would permit an easy borrowing of magical techniques by one group from another.” Thus, it was not the presence of spirituality that fed into townspeople’s paranoia, but rather the possibility of dark magic bewitching the young white girls of Salem, a magic supposedly conjured by black and indigenous people.
Tituba as a Scapegoat
The girls of Salem, fainting, sputtering bizarre phrases, contorting their bodies as if possessed, were first to blame Tituba. This must continually be stressed when discussing the Salem Witch Trials, for this is an early example of white people using BIPOC as scapegoats in American society. Puritans associated dark skin with evil and viewed Native Americans as such due to being non-Christian. In Maryse Condé’s historical fiction I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (1996), written to examine Tituba’s life despite the lack of historical data, Tituba states: “she was convinced my color was indicative of my close connections with Satan. I was able to laugh it off, however, as the ramblings of a shrew embittered by solitude and approaching old age. In Salem, such a conviction was shared by all. […] “’You, do good? You’re a Negress, Tituba! You can only do evil. You are evil itself.’” BIPOC folks are still scapegoats in America today; I could even posit that this is one of the foundations of American culture, with links to one of the earliest white communities.
Tituba, after being accused by Betty Parris of witchcraft, eventually testified that yes, it was she who cast a spell on the young girls of Salem, though her admission was a well-thought-out tactic to avoid hanging. Tituba leveraged her testimonial position of being an “expert” in the subject of dark magic to stay alive. Breslaw evaluates Tituba’s testimony during the Trials by presenting the following facts: 1) Tituba was a stranger in a strange land, having to become accustomed to female Puritan life immediately after stepping off the ship from Barbados, 2) she used the Puritan mindset to her advantage during the Trials, in that, she saved herself by appeasing the Puritan idea that she was a witch based on her cultural background and her race, and 3) she used the Puritan fear of Native Americans, with whom several of the girls had past violent encounters, to “prove” her delving into witchcraft, since Puritans believed Native Americans to be involved with the occult. This saved Tituba from death, unlike many of the other alleged witches of Salem. Although Tituba “confessed,” she later recanted and spent thirteen months in prison due to Parris refusing to post her bail. An unknown person paid her bail, speculated to be an enslaved persons’ trader, and Tituba’s fate thereafter is unknown.
The Salem Witch Trials have been inspiring horror cinema for decades, with films such as The City of the Dead (1960), Lords of Salem (2013), and, most importantly, The VVITCH (2015). These films focus on white female trauma while Tituba is nowhere to be seen. Only in The Crucible (1999), with Charlayne Woodard as Tituba, do we see her involved in the narrative. The only horror movie that comes close to alluding to Tituba’s story is Fear Street 1666 (2021), where sexuality takes the place of race in blaming Sarah Fier for the sinister witchcraft befallen in the town.
Reassessing Salem’s Narrative: Balancing History and Tourism
Race and religion are pivotal in the historical discussion of the Salem Witch Trials. Salem’s town narrative, however, favors tourist-friendly history rather than a critical discussion of race in the 17th century. While Tituba is included in the town’s Wax Museum, her importance in the story of the Trials is largely glossed over to tell the stories of bewitched white girls and the subsequent white accused. Salem must find balance between accurate history and aesthetic tourism. Salem, Massachusetts is not in its own spooky little bubble: its history is rooted in the original thirteen colonies which enslaved human beings and used them shamelessly as targets of blame for wrong-doings and happenings. If we are in pursuit of honoring those who were wrongfully detained or murdered during the Salem Witch Trials, we have a responsibility to accurately remember the Trials as not only a wrongdoing by the zealot Puritan men and women of Salem, but as having severely harmed BIPOC lives, the legacy of which permeates current social and political discourse concerning race.
As a horror fan, I tend to think about remakes a lot. Not why they are made, necessarily. That answer is pretty clear: money. But something closer to “if they have to be made, how can they be made well?” It’s rare to find a remake that is generally considered to be better than the original. However, there are plenty that have been deemed to be valuable in a different way. You can find these in basically all subgenres. Sci-fi, for instance (The Thing, The Blob). Zombies (Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead). Even slashers (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, My Bloody Valentine). However, when it comes to haunted house remakes, only The Woman in Black truly stands out, and it is shockingly underrated. Even more intriguingly, it is demonstrably better than the original movie.
The Original Haunted House Movie Is Almost Always Better
Now please note, I’m specifically talking about movies with haunted houses, rather than ghost movies in general. We wouldn’t want to be bringing The Ring into this conversation. That’s not fair to anyone.
Plenty of haunted house movies are minted classics, and as such, the subgenre has gotten its fair share of remakes. These are, almost unilaterally, some of the most-panned movies in a format that attracts bad reviews like honey attracts flies.
You’ve got 2005’s The Amityville Horror (a CGI-heavy slog briefly buoyed by a shirtless, possessed Ryan Reynolds). That same year’s Dark Water (one of many inert remakes of Asian horror films to come from that era). 1999’s The House on Haunted Hill (a manic, incoherent effort that millennial nostalgia has perhaps been too kind to). That same year there was The Haunting (a manic, incoherent effort that didn’t even earn nostalgia in the first place). And 2015’s Poltergeist (Remember this movie? Don’t you wish you didn’t?). And while I could accept arguments about 2001’s THIR13EN Ghosts, it’s hard to compete with a William Castle classic.
The Problem with Haunted House Remakes
Generally, I think haunted house remakes fail so often because of remakes’ compulsive obsession with updating the material. They throw in state-of-the-art special effects, the hottest stars of the era, and big set piece action sequences. Like, did House on Haunted Hill need to open with that weird roller coaster scene? Of course it didn’t.
However, when it comes to haunted house movies, bigger does not always mean better. They tend to be at their best when they are about ordinary people experiencing heightened versions of normal domestic fears. Bumps in the night, unexplained shadows, and the like. Maybe even some glowing eyes or a floating child. That’s all fine and dandy. But once you have a giant stone lion decapitating Owen Wilson, things have perhaps gone a bit off the rails.
The One Big Exception is The Woman in Black
The one undeniable exception to the haunted house remake rule is 2012’s The Woman in Black. If we want to split hairs, it’s technically the second adaptation of the Susan Hill novel of the same name. But The Haunting was technically a Shirley Jackson re-adaptation, and that still counts as a remake, so this does too.
The novel follows a young solicitor being haunted when handling a client’s estate at the secluded Eel Marsh House. The property was first adapted into a 1989 TV movie starring Adrian Rawlings, and it was ripe for a remake. In spite of having at least one majorly eerie scene, the 1989 movie is in fact too simple and small-scale. It is too invested in the humdrum realities of country life to have much time to be scary. Plus, it boasts a small screen budget and a distinctly “British television” sense of production design. Eel Marsh basically looks like any old English house, with whitewashed walls and a bland exterior.
Therefore, the “bigger is better” mentality of horror remakes took The Woman in Black to the exact level it needed.
The Woman in Black 2012 Makes Some Great Choices
2012’s The Woman in Black deserves an enormous amount of credit for carrying the remake mantle superbly well. By following a more sedate original, it reaches the exact pitch it needs in order to craft a perfect haunted house story. Most appropriately, the design of Eel Marsh House and its environs are gloriously excessive. While they don’t stretch the bounds of reality into sheer impossibility, they completely turn the original movie on its head.
Eel Marsh is now, as it should be, a decaying, rambling pile where every corner might hide deadly secrets. It’d be scary even if there wasn’t a ghost inside it, if only because it might contain copious black mold. Then you add the marshy grounds choked in horror movie fog. And then there’s the winding, muddy road that gets lost in the tide and feels downright purgatorial. Finally, you have a proper damn setting for a haunted house movie that plumbs the wicked secrets of the wealthy.
Why The Woman in Black Remake Is an Underrated Horror Gem
While 2012’s The Woman in Black is certainly underrated as a remake, I think it is even more underrated as a haunted house movie. For one thing, it is one of the best examples of the pre-Conjuring jump-scare horror movie done right. And if you’ve read my work for any amount of time, you know how positively I feel about jump scares. The Woman in Black offers a delectable combo platter of shocks designed to keep you on your toes. For example, there are plenty of patient shots that wait for you to notice the creepy thing in the background. But there are also a number of short sharp shocks that remain tremendously effective.
That is not to say that the movie is perfect. They did slightly overstep with their “bigger is better” move to cast Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role. It was a big swing making his first post-Potter role that of a single father with a four-year-old kid. It’s a bit much to have asked 2012 audiences to swallow, though it reads slightly better so many years later.
However, despite its flaws, The Woman in Black remake is demonstrably better than the original. In nearly every conceivable way. It’s pure Hammer Films confection, as opposed to a television drama without an ounce of oomph.
There are only so many times I can get away with burying the lede with an editorial headline before someone throws a rock at me. It may or may not be justified when they do. This article is not an attempt at ragebaiting Scream fans, I promise. Neither was my Scream 3 article, which I’m still completely right about.
I do firmly believe that Scream 2 is, at the very least, the last Scream film I’d want to watch. But what was initially just me complaining about a film that I disregard as the weakest entry in its series has since developed into trying to address what it does right. You’ve heard of the expression “jack of all trades, master of none”, and to me Scream 2 really was the jack of all trades of the franchise for the longest time.
It technically has everything a Scream movie needs. Its opening is great, but it’s not the best of them by a long shot. Its killers are unexpected, but not particularly interesting, feeling flat and one-dimensional compared to the others. It has kills, but only a few of them are particularly shocking or well executed. It pokes fun at the genre but doesn’t say anything particularly bold in terms of commentary. Having everything a Scream movie needs is the bare minimum to me.
But the question is, what does Scream 2 do best exactly? Finding that answer involves highlighting what each of the other sequels are great at, and trying to pick out what Scream 2 has that the others don’t.
Scream 3 Is the Big Finale That Utilizes Its Setting Perfectly
Scream as a series handily dodges the trap most horror franchises fall into: rehashing and retreading the same territory over and over. That’s because every one of its films are in essence trying to do something a little different and a little bolder.
Scream 3 is especially bold because it was conceived, written, and executed as the final installment in the Scream series. And it does that incredibly well. Taking the action away from a locale similar to Woodsboro, Scream 3 tosses our characters into the frying pan of a Hollywood film production. Despite its notorious number of rewrites and script changes (one of which resulted in our first solo Ghostface), it still manages to be a perfect culmination of Sidney Prescott’s story.
I won’t repeat myself too much (go read my previous article on the subject), but 3 is often maligned for as good a film as it turned out to be. And for all of its clunkier reveals, and its ghost mom antics, it understands how to utilize its setting and send its characters off into the sunset right.
Scream 4’s Meta Commentary Wakes Scream from a Deep Sleep
As Wes Craven’s final film, Scream 4 has a very special place in the franchise. It was and still is largely adored for bringing back the franchise from a deep 11-year sleep. With one of the craziest openings in any horror film, let alone a Scream film, it sets the tone for a bombastic return and pays off in spades with the journey it takes us on.
Its primary Ghostface Jill Roberts is a fan favorite, and for some people, she is the best to ever wear the mask. Its script is the source of many memorable moments, not the least of which is Kirby’s iconic rapid-fire response to the horror remakes question. And most importantly, it makes a bold and surprisingly effective return for our main trio of Sidney, Dewey, and Gale, whose return didn’t feel trite or hammy when they ended up coming back to Woodsboro for more.
Craven’s work on 4 truly understands the power its predecessors had exerted on the horror genre, both irreverent in its metacommentary and celebratory of the Scream series as a whole. The film is less of a love letter to the genre and more of a kicking down of the door to remind people what Scream is about. 4’s story re-established that Scream isn’t going away, no matter how long it takes for another film, and no matter how many franchises try to take its place.
Scream 5 & 6 Is Radio Silence’s Brutal and Bloody Attitude Era
Put simply, Scream 5 and 6’s strong suit was not its characters. It was not its clever writing. The Radio Silence duology in the Scream series excelled in one thing: beating the hell out of its characters.
Wrestling fans (of which there is an unsurprising amount of crossover with horror fans) will know why I call it the Attitude Era. Just like WWE’s most infamous stretch of history, Radio Silence brought something especially aggressive to their entries. And it’s because these films were just brutal. Handing the reins to the series, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillet gifted a special kineticism to the classic Scream chase sequences, insane finales, and especially its ruthless killers.
All five of the Ghostfaces present in 5 and 6 are the definition of nasty. They’re unrelenting, and in my humble opinion, the freakiest since the original duo of Stu Macher and Billy Loomis. Getting to hear all the air get sucked out of the room as Dewey is gutted like a fish in 5 was still an incredible moment to experience in theatres, and it’s something I don’t think would have happened if the films were any less mean and any less explosively violent.
So, What Does Scream 2 Do Best Exactly?
So now, after looking at all these entries and all of their greatest qualities, what does Scream 2 have that none of the others do? What must I concede to Scream 2?
Really great character development.
Film is a medium of spectacle most of the time, and this is reflected in how we critique and compliment them. It affects how we look back on them, sometimes treating them more harshly than they deserve because they don’t have that visual flash. But for every ounce of spectacle Scream 2 lacks, I have to admit, it does an incredible job of developing Sidney Prescott as a character.
On a rare rewatch, it’s clear Neve Campbell is carrying the entirety of Scream 2 on her back just because of how compelling she makes Sidney. Watching her slowly fight against a tide of paranoia, fear, and distrust of the people around her once more, watching her be plunged back into the nightmare, is undeniably effective.
It’s also where Dewey and Gale are really cemented as a couple, and where the seeds of them always returning to each other are planted. Going from a mutual simmering disrespect to an affectionate couple to inseparable but awkward and in love is just classic; two people who complete each other in how different they are, but are inevitably pulled back and forth by those differences, their bond is one of the major highlights throughout the series.
Maybe All the Scream Films Are Just Good?
These three characters are the heart of the series, long after they’ve been written out. I talk a big game about how Scream 3 is the perfect ending for the franchise, but I like to gloss over the fact that Scream 2 does a lot of the legwork when it comes to developing the characters of Dewey, Gale, and especially Sidney.
Without 2, 3 just isn’t that effective when it comes to giving Sidney her long deserved peace. Without 2, the way we see Sidney’s return in 4 & 5 doesn’t hit as hard. All of the Scream movies owe something to Scream 2 in the same way they owe something to the original Scream. I think I’ve come to a new point of view when it comes to the Scream franchise: maybe there is no bad entry. Maybe none of them have to be the worst. Each one interlinks with the others in their own unique way.
And even though I doubt I will ever really love Scream 2, it has an undeniable strength in its character writing that permeates throughout the whole franchise. And that at the very least keeps it from being the worst Scream film.
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