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godstielcult · 2 years ago

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How Childhood Abuse and Trauma Affected Dean Winchester in Adulthood in Supernatural

Supernatural was a television series that spanned fifteen years from 2005 to 2020 created by Eric Kripke that premiered on The WB, now known as The CW (“Supernatural”). Kripke took inspiration from his own life by making family the prime aspect of Supernatural since family was a central part in his upbringing while also incorporating elements of classic Americana from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and supernatural lore (Rome). The show, Supernatural, followed the brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) as they continued in their father’s footsteps hunting monsters, creatures, deities, and a multitude of other things that went bump in the night while also attempting to stop the next apocalypse. On top of diving into lore from diverse cultures, religions, and the occult, Supernatural at its heart focused on familial bonds and dynamics. When looking at the central characters of the show, it is evident that Dean Winchester struggles with copious amounts of trauma from his childhood and adolescent years that he still carries onto well into his adulthood (“Supernatural”).

Early Childhood

The first episode of the series is where most of Dean’s trauma stems from. In the flashback from “Pilot,” Dean is around four years old while Sam is six months old. In the flashback, their parents, John and Mary Winchester, put them both down for the night before they themselves head to bed after Dean says goodnight to his little brother. They both part ways with Mary sleeping in what is their bedroom and John sleeping in the easy chair downstairs, which signifies their already strained and far from perfect marriage that Dean mentions in “Dark Side of the Moon.,” before Mary stirs out from her slumber, hearing Sam’s cries from the baby monitor. When she goes to check on him, she notices a tall figure in the room that she assumes is her husband before heading downstairs to turn off the television that is still on. There she finds John fast asleep in the easy chair. After the realization that there is a stranger in Sam’s room, Mary races to the nursery where she is murdered and set aflame by the yellow eyed demon after John enters the nursery from hearing his wife’s screams. After the fire breaks out, John hands Dean his brother and tells him to get out of the house while he attempts to save Mary before leaving the house himself and joining his children as they watch their old life fade away into the flames of the fire.

The death of his mother to Dean is the first traumatic event he vividly experiences. Her death is not only traumatic to him by the close relationship they had, but also with it shattering the sense of safety, security, and love he had felt and experienced before that night. This event is the result of other traumas in his life, such as forcing him to grow up quickly to become a caregiver to his brother, exposing him the harsh realities of poverty, and having to emotionally support his father through his trauma of losing his wife and the horrors that came with the new life John thrusted them into. This event results in Dean experiencing parentification, abuse and neglect, and mental illness.

Parentification is the result of forcing children to take on adult roles that they are not well suited to handle. Children can become parentified if one of their parents were neglected or abused, they abuse different substances, or a traumatic event has happened. There are two types of parentification: instrumental and emotional. Instrumental parentification happens when a child is instructed to do certain tasks, which are not age appropriate for them, by their parent. This includes and is not limited to taking care of younger siblings and providing for the family in some way. Emotional parentification happens when the parent of the child expects them to fulfill their emotional needs. Examples of this behavior can be parents ranting about their marital problems to their children. This form of abuse is constant throughout the entirety of Dean’s childhood (Lewis).

In Supernatural, Dean experienced parentification constantly during his upbringing, even before Mary’s death and John throwing them into the hunting life. The first time the audience sees Dean subject to this is in “Dark Side of the Moon.” After John calls Mary, during the time he moved out for a few days after one of their previous spats, Dean comforts and tends to the emotional needs of his mother after seeing the look on her face after hanging up the phone (“Dark Side of the Moon”). This scene singlehandedly shows the parentification of Dean with him comforting his mother, when she most needed it, after the conversation she had with her husband due to him emotionally tearing her down rather than fulfilling her emotionally. Dean, his son, had to take that place to clean up his mess and provide his mother with the emotional fulfillment she needed (Lewis). Parentification is displayed throughout the episode “Something Wicked.” In “Something Wicked,” Sam and Dean investigate an old case their father had left behind for them, that brings back painful memories from when Dean was a child. When John was hunting the shtriga, a type of witch, Dean was left alone to look after his little brother to make sure nothing would harm him while John was out. This included Dean being responsible for a sawed-off shotgun in case something would attack Sam while his father was gone when he was around eight years old. Being the typical kid, he eventually became bored of just hanging around in the dingy motel room they were staying at and decided to stretch his legs and grab a soda before returning to the room where he finds his father killing the witch before yelling at him and blaming him for not being there to protect his brother when he was only a kid (“Something Wicked”). Despite him being just a child when this occurred, John blames and continues to blame him for this for years for not being there to take care of his brother when it is not his responsibility to be taking care of and parenting a child when he is only a child himself. This brings to light that Dean never really had a childhood or was a kid when he was growing up with having to be there to take care of his brother at a small age as well as both of his parents, which John mentions in the episode “In My Time of Dying.” John states that on the first hunts he went on, he would come back a mess from what he had seen on his most recent hunt. However, Dean was the one that was always there to comfort him and emotionally fulfill him, which gets into more of the emotional parentification from his father that Dean experienced as a small child (“In My Time of Dying”). Through the use of parentification in the show, it is clear that Sam and Dean were neglected as young children.

In the episode “Dead in the Water,” Sam and Dean investigate a series of unnatural drownings from Lake Manitoc in Wisconsin. While investigating what could be the cause of all the drownings, they pose as wildlife officers and ask the sheriff and several other people about what has happened in the town to cause something of this destruction. When asking the sheriff peculiar questions about the drownings, they meet the sheriff’s daughter and grandson. Upon getting acquainted with the two, they find out Andrea’s husband was one of the victims and her mute son Lucas was the one that saw what happened to his father and communicates to others using drawings. By the end of the episode, the brothers find out Andrea’s father and one of the drowned victims kept a secret from them about a boy they knew and had inevitably drowned from their involvement, which resulted in the young boy becoming a vengeful spirit to right wrongs of the past and make them feel what his mother had to go through emotionally with his death. In this episode, Dean opens up about the night his mother died to Lucas to give him someone who understood what he was feeling and thinking that he himself was not granted when his mother passed. Also in this episode, the audience finds out that much like Lucas, Dean also had trouble communicating after the death of his mother, which John documents in his hunting journal. (“Dead in the Water”) Dean’s mutism after the death of his mother could be a result of trying to repress the memory and avoid reliving that night.

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis and talk therapy, is credited with his proposed theory of defense mechanisms. Most of his work is discredited by most psychologists except for defense mechanisms and his three stems of the mind known as the id, ego, and superego, which psychologists that take a psychodynamic approach in their field accept without believing in Freud’s motivational drive caused by aggression and sex. The defense mechanisms include repression, regression, reaction formation, projection, rationalization, displacement, sublimation, and denial. Regression refers retreating to a former stage of development, according to Freud this would be regression of the psychosexual stages (Meyers 557-563). This perspective shifts as the Neo-Freudians believe in different motivational drives compared to Freud’s sexual and aggressive based one. According to Karen Horney, the motivational drive is people’s desires for love and security. Looking at her perspective when looking at the defense mechanisms as a whole can be the result of wanting to be perceived favorably to obtain that love and security (Meyers 565-566). In Supernatural, regression occurs in the episode “Dead in the Water” as a result of Dean regressing in his development by becoming mute after the death of his mother to avoid as much anxiety surrounding the and to avoid becoming a burden to his father by having to take care of his emotional needs. Repression also ties into this with Dean avoiding and repressing what happened to his mother by not talking about it with not having the luxury to talk about this major change in his life due to him having to fulfill those needs for his father (Meyers 557-563).

In the episode “A Very Supernatural Christmas,” Sam and Dean investigate a series of murders that involve people being dragged through the chimney with hardly a trace left behind. In the season this episode is in, Dean sells his soul to save his brother’s life. This causes him to want to celebrate one last Christmas before his soul is dragged all the way to Hell by the hellhounds. Throughout this episode, flashbacks of Sam and Dean celebrating Christmas when they were children occur and contradict the Norman Rockwell Christmas Dean dreams of having as a last hurrah. Due to John’s neglect, both Sam and Dean were never granted the commercialized Christmas, but made do on their own (“A Very Supernatural Christmas”). This is also due to Sam and dean living in poverty. Evidence has proven that poverty is related to child abuse and neglect. The effects of poverty can also be transferred to children in that situation due to it affecting their parents and caretakers. Fathers in families affected by poverty tend to be less emotionally involved in their children’s lives, which can have a drastic effect to be much worse with the greater persistence of poverty (Leverich 72-74) This affects Dean and his brother with their father being more emotionally distant and physically distant from them. This also affects them with not being provided with adequate living conditions with living in ran down motels and the backseat of their father’s car when heading to the next hunt. Their living conditions have also lacked with them being able to access nutritional food and also hardly any food at some times.

Childhood trauma is the result of experiencing either different forms of abuse or living through a traumatic event. Exposure to such things can constitute in the child’s developmental level being affected and cause them to experience problems. Such problems this can cause is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Loggings). PTSD is an anxiety disorder that is triggered by traumatic events reoccurrence in the mind, which can cause people to have nightmares, be socially withdrawn, jumpy, anxious, feel numb, or have insomnia that is recurrent for four weeks or more after the inciting event to the trauma (Meyers 664).

In Supernatural, Dean experiences the loss of his mother due to mysterious causes and circumstances in the episode “Pilot,” but his response to her death and how it affected him is not brought up until “Dead in the Water.” Dean’s response to her passing away was to close himself off from everyone he knew by not communicating in any way with others, including his brother and his father. This lack of social interaction that was unusual compared to before her death signifies a disturbance that causes daily functioning to be more difficult for him. The disturbance of behavior in his daily life then, displays a psychological disorder from the interruption it causes him in his life to experience (Meyers 651). Dean most likely experiences PTSD due to the event and things surrounding it making him irritable and jumpy as seen in “Home.” In “Home,” Sam and Dean visit the place where they grew up and the place where they lost their mother because Sam had a vision in which another woman died in what used to be their home. Dean is reluctant to go back with the events that took place the last time they were there, and he tries to avoid anything he possibly could relating to his mother and the house while still trying to help the woman that could be doomed to face the same fate his mother had. When around the house and when taking about his mother, he is jumpy and wants to move on from the subject and leave the place as soon as he can. This makes it more likely that he has PTSD rather than another anxiety disorder because his trigger is specific and rather than general like most anxiety disorders.

Adolescence

The inadequacy Dean feels from his father’s abuse in his early childhood builds in this stage of his life. In Beyond Bruises: The Truth about Teens and Abuse, children that experience abuse begin to believe the remarks they hear from their parental figures and soon come to feel like they are inadequate. Due to this, children begin to see themselves as their abuser sees them instead of understanding what they are like and how they feel themselves. When this happens children may make up a false persona to distract from what happened to them and to get some fulfillment that they are not receiving at home (Gordon 63). In the episode “After School Special,” Sam and Dean return to Truman High School, one of the many schools mentioned in flashbacks throughout the series with their nomadic lifestyle surrounded by hunting, to work a case after a student drowns another student and claims she was possessed and did not have control over her body when the drowning occurred. The brothers go undercover as school employees to discover the ghost of Sam’s bully at the school has been terrorizing the school. Business as usual, they purify and burn the remains for the spirit to pass on. During the flashbacks from this episode, Dean in his time at that high school portrayed himself as a womanizer and has his fair share of girls while he attends that school, and is even called out by one of the girls he wronged about who he actually is rather that who he portrays himself to be (“After School Special”). This “bad boy” and “Devil may care” attitude of his continues to be present well into his adult years to cover up what he feels and hide his vulnerability from the people he cares about. Due to the nomadic lifestyle Dean and his family lived, the emphasis of school from a parent was not set in place and caused him to not even try, knowing that he would be gone in a couple of weeks or months. Along with the lack of emphasis in education, he was more likely to be concerned about Sam’s wellbeing since he was the one taking care of his needs most of the time when John was preoccupied with a hunt and in general (Gordon 63).

In the episode “Bad Boys,” Dean received a call from an old friend, Sonny, who helped him out during a tough time when he was a teenager. Sonny calls Dean looking for someone to help with his current situation when one of his workers at the boys’ home was mysteriously murdered by a piece of machinery that had not worked in years. When Dean returns to the place he stayed at and called his home for a few months, he begins to remember his time there and how he got there in the first place when he was picked up for shoplifting a loaf of bread and peanut butter at the market. Due to the abuse in Dean’s early childhood, he was more prone to shop lifting and committing a crime later in his juvenile years from the likelihood of children that have experienced abuse committing a crime increasing by fifty-nine percent (Gordon 71).

Adulthood

The trauma and abuse that Dean Winchester experienced in his childhood affected the relationships he formed as an adult, his self-image, and his mental health. Throughout the series Dean is often clingy to those around him, especially his father and brother, from wanting to seek the validation and acceptance he was hardly ever granted as a child and was instead given the opposite from his father. This is also due to Sam and John being the most consistent things in his life because of their nomadic lifestyle and them being the closest representations of a home that he had growing up and into most of his adulthood. When his father, John, would fulfill his emotional needs, it would be to work for his own personal gain while he was off seeking to avenge his wife’s death, but berating Dean the second he made the smallest mistake or attempted to be a kid. The back-and-forth relationship John had with his son caused Dean to not feel secure in any of his romantic or familial relationships from thinking that everyone would eventually leave him once they realized he was damaged goods. This resulted Dean to grow more colder and attempt to push people away from himself before they realized this, so he would no longer be the one ending up hurt anymore. He also kept the womanizer persona he established during his teen years while engaging in high-risk behavior such as drinking copious amounts of alcohol and having unprotected sex with most flings, he has had throughout most of the seasons in the show as a distraction and coping mechanism for the abuse and neglect he received in his childhood. Having experienced abuse and neglect, Dean was more susceptible to engage in high-risk behaviors like this and more prone to have stress, anxiety, and emotional issues throughout his life (“How Childhood Trauma Affects Us as Adults: Mental Health”).

In adulthood, Dean continues to struggle with the trauma, abuse, and neglect from his childhood and adolescent years. There are multiple reasons this occurs with him being parentified at such an early age by his parents to fulfill their own emotional needs and to take care of his brother and coping with the loss of his mother and the effects it her death had on his father in his early childhood. Also, experiencing neglect and abuse from his father that occurred in his early childhood and adolescence caused him to have long lasting effects into his adulthood from the emotional baggage he has had to deal with.

Works Cited

“After School Special.” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 4, episode 13, The CW, 2009.

“A Very Supernatural Christmas” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 4, episode 8, The CW, 2007.

“Bad Boys.” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 9, episode 7, The CW, 2013.

“Dark Side of the Moon.” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 5, episode 16, The CW, 2010.

“Dead in the Water.” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 1, episode 3, The WB, 2005.

“How Childhood Trauma Affects Us as Adults: Mental Health.” Mental Health Center, 3 Apr. 2019, https://www.mentalhealthcenter.org/how-childhood-trauma-affects-adult-relationships/.

Gordon, Sherri Mabry. Beyond Bruises: The Truth about Teens and Abuse. Enslow, 2009.

“Home.” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 1, episode 9, The WB, 2005.

“In My Time of Dying.” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 2, episode 1, The CW, 2006.

Leverich, Jean Marie. Child Abuse. Greenhaven Press, 2008.

Lewis, Rhona. “Parentification: What Is a Parentified Child?” Healthline, Healthline Media, 23 Sept. 2021, https://www.healthline.com/health/parentification#instrumental-vs-emotional.

Loggins, Brittany. “Childhood Trauma in Adults: How to Recognize and Heal from It.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 23 Nov. 2021, https://www.verywellmind.com/signs-of-childhood-trauma-in-adults-5207979.

Myers, David G. Myers’ Psychology for AP. 2nd ed., W.H. Freeman, 2014.

“Pilot.” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 1, episode 1, The WB, 2005.

Rome, Emily. “'Supernatural' and 'Timeless' Creator Eric Kripke Details the Real-Life Inspirations behind His Fantasy Series.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 19 Dec.2018, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-st-eric-kripke-timeless-20181219 story.html#:~:text=He%20cites%20Jack%20Kerouac%20and,chase%20reports%20of%20 paranormal%20occurrences.

“Something Wicked.” Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke, season 1, episode 18, The WB, 2005.

“Supernatural.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 13 Sept. 2005, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460681/?ref_=adv_li_tt.

#supernatural #spn #dean winchester #mental health #mental illness #trauma #verbal abuse #emotional abuse #neglect #parentification #parentified child

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kittenintheden · 6 months ago

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Post 10 gifs from 10 of your favorite shows and tag 10 people

thank you @cinnamontails-ff for the tag, this one is fun!!

Schitt's Creek

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Soul Eater

The Good Place

Roswell

Parks & Rec

The Dragon Prince

Psych

The OA

Scrubs

Ori and Astarion. IMO. (Except Oristarion aren't siblings obviously god).

Formative. Basically how I learned to write dialogue.

Rebirthed me into fandom. Full stop. Literal soul mate shit. Don't touch me.

Truly top-tier comedic television. The cast is absolutely phenomenal and the philosophical questions are crushing.

Less of a well-known WB/CW classic but easily my favorite of the speculative teen drama era. The remake is decent too.

Like. P&R is iconic. It's part of the social narrative. Because it speaks to so many.

Probably the best animated series I've watched since ATLA, because, you know. Same showrunners.

So quotable. So fucking funny. Like. Just. Yeah.

Back when Netflix series were experimental and weird and actually good. And then got cancelled after two of five planned seasons.

I mean... what can you say about Scrubs. A show with such humor, such awkwardness, such heart. Didn't age the best, but like. What does. A lot of it still stands.

I'm... not going to tag ten people I'm sorry lol. But I will tag @brain-rot-central @spacebarbarianweird @atsadi-shenanigans @khaleesimaka

#tag game #television #tv shows #gifs #moving images #this will tell you a lot about who I am as a person

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this-daydream-is-dangerous-13 · 1 year ago

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It has been a DAY in my personal life. I will will sift (ha! That took 3 tries bc autocorrect kept changing it to Swift) through news and asks but first, wanted to share this Emily Henry insta story for those here whose interests overlap with mine there (and with classic WB/CW shows):

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heavenboy09 · 1 year ago

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5 Years Ago On October 14th, 2018

The CW Network Presents

The Rebirth Of The WB Classic Drama

Fantasy Supernatural TV Show Of 1998

A Little Town Known As HillTown

3 Young Women 🤎🤎🤎

With 3 Different Lives But Are Still Connected Through Time & Space

3 Sisters 🖤🖤🖤

With 2 Different Families, Separated By Birth But Are Reunited By The Bloodline of Their Lineage

3 Witches 🧙🏾‍♀️🧙🏿‍♀️🧙🏽‍♀️ Are About To Discover The Power They Possess & Make Some Magic ✨

The Vera Sisters

Born By The Ancestry Bloodline Of Powerful Good Witches

Who Will Fight The Forces Of Darkness & Stop The Coming Days Of Humanity's Last Hours On Earth 🌎

FOR THEY ARE

THE CHARMED ONES 🧙‍♀️🧙🏽‍♀️🧙🏾‍♀️

STRONGER TOGETHER, NOW & FOREVER

THE CW PRESENTS

THE REBIRTH OF THE 1# DRAMA TV SERIES OF THE WB

CHARMED🧙‍♀️🧙🏽‍♀️🧙🏾‍♀️🧹💜🖤🤎✨

HAPPY BELATED 5TH ANNIVERSARY TO THE CW'S CHARMED

#Charmed #Witches #ThePowerOf3 #TheVeraSisters #MelVera #MaggieVera #MacyVaughn #MelonieDiaz #SarahJeffery #MadeleineMantock #TheWitchingHour #Halloween

#Charmed #Witches #The Power of 3 #The Vera Sisters #Mel Vera #Maggie Vera #Macy Vaughn #Melonie Diaz #Sarah Jeffery #Madeleine Mantock #The Witching Hour #Halloween 🎃#SoundCloud

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inkblotsandscribble · 2 months ago

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Halloween Horrors...

So, here's the thing. Every year, me and my sister have started to do a horror movie marathon for Halloween.

We literally start at the beginning of October and go to whenever the Christmas movie watching season starts, usually towards the end of December. We might even pick it up again in January because we love a good scare on these cold autumnal/winter nights. (We've also got an animation marathon on pause while the horror season is going on... we're going backwards through the Disney/Pixar catalogue. We left that on 'Encanto'.)

I place horror movies into three categories: fun movies, scary movies and classic horror. Fun includes such things as 'Beetlejuice', 'Ghostbusters' and 'The Book of Life'. Scary would include 'It', 'Longlegs', 'The Babadook'... anything with darker themes. Classics are older movies, your 'Nightmare on Elm Street', 'Psycho', 'Poltergeist'.

I've been asked about the horror movies I've been watching so I just thought I'd come on here and make a list of the ones we had already watched! So, without further ado and in alphabetical order:

Scary Movies:

1408 (2007)

30 Days of Night (2007)

Alien (1979)

All You Need is Death (2023)

Annabelle (2014)

Carrie (1976)

Christine (1983)

Crimson Peak (2015)

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Ghost Ship (2002)

Ghostwatch (1992)

House on Haunted Hill (1999)

Hush (2016)

Insidious (2010)

It - Chapters One and Two (2017 & 2019)

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Last Shift (2014)

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

Let the Right One In (2008)

Longlegs (2024)

Midsommar (2019)

Nope (2022)

Oculus (2013)

Phantoms (1998)

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

Session 9 (2001)

Shutter Island (2010)

Silent Hill (2006)

Talk to Me (2022)

The Babadook (2014)

The Black Phone (2021)

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Conjuring (2013)

The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

The Devil's Backbone (2001)

The Girl with all the Gifts (2016)

The Mist (2007)

The Moor (2023)

The Others (2001)

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

The Shining (1980)

The Sixth Sense (1999)

The Woman in Black (2012)

Thirteen Ghosts (2001)

Us (2019)

Television:

The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)

Midnight Mass (2021)

The Midnight Club (2022)

The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)

Black Summer (2019 - 2021)

The Burning Girls (2023)

The Strain (2014 - 2017)

Hannibal (2013-2015)

I'd also add 'The Walking Dead' (2010 - 2022) here, and it's spin-offs, though it is a long watch and definitely has it's ups and down...

If I add that, I should probably add 'The Last of Us' (2023 - present) too.

Classic Horror:

Halloween (1978)

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Poltergeist (1982)

Psycho (1960)

The Amityville Horror (1979)

The Fog (1980)

The Haunting (1963)

The Innocents (1961)

Fun movies:

Abigail (2024)

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

Beetlejuice (1988)

Coco (2017)

Coraline (2009)

Corpse Bride (2005)

Fear Street Trilogy - 1994, 1978, 1666 (2021)

Final Destination (2000)

Final Destination 2 (2003)

Fright Night (1985)

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Happy Death Day (2017)

Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

M3GAN (2022)

Renfield (2023)

Scream (1996)

Scream 2 (1997)

Severance (2006)

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Sweeney Todd (2007)

The Book of Life (2014)

The Faculty (1998)

The Lost Boys (1987)

The Menu (2022)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Television:

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (CAOS) (2018-2020)

Dead Boy Detectives (2024)

Lockwood and Co. (2023)

Locke and Key (2020-2022)

---

Honourable mentions, though not ones I've watched for this marathon:

You could add 'Julie and the Phantoms' (2020) here because Ghosts!

'Supernatural' (2005-2009) should also have an honourable mention... I'm aware it carried on past it's fifth season but I didn't.

Oh! And 'Buffy' (1997-2003) and 'Angel' (1999-2004), of course!

{I need to stop myself here before I make this into a whole different list that is just WB/CW shows from the 90's/early 00's, just because that is a whole other rabbit hole I could readily jump into... and it will have nothing to do with horror.}

If you are with littler ones, you can't go wrong with 'Goosebumps' (1995-1998, Revival 2023), or 'Are You Afraid of the Dark' (1992-1996, Revivals 1999, 2019-2022) or 'Eerie Indiana' (1991-1993)... 'Black Hole High' (2002-2006) was also a good one.

---

I'm not sure whether every movie is, strictly speaking, in the correct section but you get the idea!

I might keep updating this as we continue our marathon so keep your eyes peeled and watch along if you like! Hopefully there is something in here you won't have watched before!

Also, I'm planning another post that will go a little deeper into each title but we'll see if I get there...

Happy Hauntings!

#halloween #movies #film #movie marathon #horror movies #horror #horror films

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bythestedeside · 11 months ago

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The pull Supernatural must've had bc there are SO many classic horror/horror adjacent actors that guest starred like it's actually shocking. These were usually big names in the movies/shows they're well known from and they'd come in and do a silly bit part on this weird little WB/CW show. Like how are there so many?

Off the top of my head there's Linda Blair-Regan in The Exorcist, Robert Englund-Freddy in Nightmare on Elm Street, Barry Botswick-Brad in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, James Marsters and Charisma Carpenter-Spike and Cordelia in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Cartwright-Cathy in the Birds and Joan Lambert in Alien,Kevin McNulty-Eddie in Snakes on a Plane, and probably a bunch of others I don't remember/know.

#supernatural #look i know there were some pretty “big” people working in and on the show so it's literally a lot of know a guy who knows a guy but still #also a lot of we worked together once or twice would you do this show with me it's not a big part so it won't take longs too #The Birds actress thing got me bc that movie came out so long ago now&she was on season 14 of 15 so it's not like the show was in it's prime

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j2memories · 11 months ago

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Variety article (November 11th 2024)

‘Supernatural’ at 200: The Road So Far, An Oral History

By Laura Prudom

Nov 11, 2014 10:00am PT

After 200 episodes, “Supernatural,” which bowed in 2005, has been to hell and back (several times), with a few sojourns to heaven, purgatory, Oz, the past, the post-apocalyptic future and even our world along the way. The show weathered the conversion from The WB to The CW, survived the 2007-08 writers’ strike, and transitioned through several showrunners — and there’s no end in sight. Here, the stars and creative team chart the unlikely journey of the “little show that could.”

Eric Kripke (Creator): For me, the core notion behind “Supernatural” was to make a series about urban legends. I think they’re this incredibly rich mythology about the United States, and no one had really tapped into that, so when I started as a writer, one of the first ideas I ever pitched was an urban legend show.

A couple years later I tried to pitch, basically, a “Scooby Doo” rip off of a bunch of kids travelling in a van dealing with these urban legends. It was an idea that I never let go of and kept throwing there every couple years. Finally I had a deal with Warner Bros. and that incarnation was a reporter. Frankly, it was a rip off of “Nightstalker,” but I really fleshed it out and it had mythology.

I took it to Susan Rovner and Len Goldstein at the studio and they said, “We love the idea of doing a horror show,” which no one was really doing on TV at that time, “but we’re not into the reporter, that feels really tired. So no thanks and let’s get another angle.”

So in this moment, when they were basically passing on my idea, as you often do in these kinds of rooms, you start tap dancing. And I said, “forget the reporter, we should do this show as ‘Route 66,’ two cool guys in a classic car cruising the country, chasing down these urban legends,” and literally right on the spot I said “and they’re brothers,” because it popped in my head. “And they’re dealing with their family stuff and they’re fighting evil.” You just start making it up as you go. They were like, “Brothers, wow, that’s a relationship we haven’t seen on TV before.” And from there, “Supernatural” was born… out of a piece of improvisation.

Peter Roth (President, Warner Bros. Television): Eric [had] been with us since about 2002. Sometime in 2004, he came to us with this idea… this extraordinary road show about these two brothers, in which they would be living all of the great urban and rural myths that [we’re all] exposed to as kids. It was a very commercial idea, emotionally driven, which was what I was most concerned about: who are the characters? Why do I relate to them? Why are they worth my while to watch? And once we cast Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, along with Eric’s great idea, along with the script, along with David Nutter, our director on the pilot, the combination of those factors is what made me so excited and I frankly knew, from the moment I saw this pilot, that it was a winner. There wasn’t a person who I work with who didn’t feel the same way. It was a real strong story of young adult siblings that resonated perfectly with The WB audience.

Kripke: When we were casting, you see a lot of people. We hadn’t found our Sam and Dean. David Nutter suggested Jensen because we knew him from “Smallville.” We met with him to play Sam, and we fell in love with [him]. And then Jared came in, and he was a really great Sam too. Looking back, we were such idiots to not see it… We had two great Sams and no Dean and you think it would be obvious to put one into the other role, but it was not obvious. So we [went] to Peter Roth and we said, “We’re not sure what to do,” and Peter was like, “why don’t you make Jensen Dean?” We all looked at each other like, “we’re idiots, of course.” It’s so difficult to find one actor who is charismatic enough to be a breakout character and to support a show. So to find two of them, where there’s only two leads… I didn’t realize what a miracle it was at the time. It’s a miracle.

Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester): They bring us in to the WB lot, and I’m sitting there, and in walks this really pretty dude who I had never seen before. We met and we’re waiting around, and usually in a test situation there are three or four people at least for each character and they’ll do a chemistry read. And so he and I are sitting there waiting for [other] actors to arrive [when] we’re pulled into the room, and it’s 30 big-shots at what was then The WB network and Warner Bros. studio television portion, and it’s daunting. We’re young actors… we’ve got to make our rent payments… We read one of the scenes from the pilot; it takes place at the bottom of a stairwell and Sam says, “when I told Dad there was something in my closet, he gave me a .45.” This great scene between two brothers where we see a lot of love but a lot of pent up anger, and a lot of understanding at its heart. It was a pretty intense scene.

Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester): It was just immediate chemistry. There was an ease to it. There was a familiarity to it. Once we got into it with each other, it just fell in place and it came… not easy, but definitely a little easier than my experiences in the past. I think the importance of that bond and that relationship was verbalized by Kripke when he sat us down and said, “this begins and ends with you,” and not only how we relate to each other on screen, but also off screen. There was an importance stamped into [that bond] very early on.

[...]

Padalecki: Ultimately, “Supernatural” is really a show about two brothers and their relationship and their struggles and their loyalties and their sacrifices, and so I knew in my heart of hearts that even though season eight started out with Sam having gone off to try and live another normal life with the character of Amelia (Liane Balaban), I figured it was a way to remind both the audience and the cast and crew what the show was about. I thought season seven might’ve gone a little off the reservation, but in a strange way, by steering even further off the reservation and having the brothers not even be involved with each other [at the start of season eight], it really reaffirmed for everybody what the bread and butter of the show is, which, in my opinion is the relationship between the two brothers, so it was a nice rekindling and repartnership of Sam and Dean.

Link to the entire article

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fictionalpeter · 1 year ago

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I swear, if WB panders to the whiners(again) and replaces the Flash actor with the TV counterpart, I'm going to be boycotting the Flash sequel.

The CW shows. Were. Not. GOOD. I hated them with a passion. The Flash movie wasn't perfect, but at least that version of Barry didn't need a pit crew telling him how his powers worked, had a decent non-steampunk costume, and didn't replace classic characters with a bunch of OCs.

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thewhyldeone · 3 years ago

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I think I traumatized myself by watching all six seasons of Dawson’s Creek...I hate Dawson and the writing seemed extremely lazy. Joey had more chemistry with the guy that mugged her then she ever had with Dawson. And what’s with all the older people being into teenagers? Feels like I’ve lost IQ points, thanks Kevin Williamson The only bright spots were Kerr Smith, Oliver Hudson, Busy Phillips, and Joshua Jackson.

#dawson's creek #anti dawson leery #anti dawson's creek #classic CW or WB #kerr smith #busy philipps #oliver hudson #joshua jackson #kevin williamson #anti dawson and joey #I thought I would like it since I remember liking it when it aired #netflix

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positivexcellence · 4 years ago

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'Supernatural' stars reflect on CW's series finale and 15-year legacy: 'We gave it everything'

After 15 years of CW’s “Supernatural,” Jensen Ackles admits that he and co-star Jared Padalecki aren’t very good at taking compliments or credit for the horror show’s epic run.

On their final day in Vancouver last September filming the series finale (Thursday, 9 ET/PT), when director Robert Singer called it a wrap and everybody else had walked off the set, the actors did something new: They basked in the moment.

“It was like, ‘We did this.’ That was pretty cool,'" Ackles recalls. “I mean, obviously we know that we didn't do it by ourselves, but it was really the first time that he and I looked at each other and (realized) we should be proud of what we've built here. Because it Is something to be proud of.”

Adds Padalecki: “It wasn't like, ‘Hey, look how awesome we are.’ It was like, ‘Hey, man, remember when we cried and we bled and we broke bones – literally? Remember all the alarm clocks when the sun wasn’t up yet?’ However this turns out, however it's received, we gave it everything.”

The last episode of “Supernatural,” which follows a retrospective special (8 EST/PST), finishes the story of monster-hunting brothers Sam (Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Ackles), who began their long, winding, apocalypse-filled quest after tragedy and have since taken on every foe that heaven, hell and everywhere in between has thrown at them, usually set to a rock tune. (The final episode’s title, “Carry On,” is a riff on the 1970s Kansas hit “Carry On Wayward Son,” which became the show’s unofficial theme song.)

Even without Emmy Awards, "Supernatural" has become a classic show – finding new fans through Netflix binges and TNT reruns – and a survivor, a final holdover from WB (which folded in 2007) that's outlasted many, many shows that have come and gone since its Sept. 13, 2005, premiere. Only a few prime-time network dramas have lasted longer, including "Grey's Anatomy" (which premiered six months earlier), "Law & Order: SVU" (1999) and "NCIS" (2003).

"Not surprisingly, as a 15-year-old show, 'Supernatural' is in some ways a little bit of an artifact of a different age of television," says executive producer Andrew Dabb.

Last week’s penultimate episode wrapped up the larger “Supernatural” mythology of angels and demons, as Sam and Dean outwitted God, aka Chuck (Rob Benedict), and their ally Jack (Alexander Calvert), the son of Lucifer and the new bearer of God’s power, said goodbye to the brothers after the world was saved.

The finale, in contrast, tells “a very personal story” centered on the Winchesters and is “really devoted to the relationship and the journey these guys have traveled,” says Singer, an executive producer on the show since its inception.

Singer adds that they eliminated certain ideas early: No “enigmatic" final shot a la “The Sopranos,” for example, or nothing out of left field like the 1988 "St. Elsewhere" finale, when the audience found out a boy with autism had imagined the entire series, visualized in a snow globe.

“We wanted it to feel like the end of a very long novel," Singer says. "It's pretty bold what we did and quite moving.”

Padalecki, 38, finds it “really powerful. And if you're not already crying by the last five or 10 minutes, then you don't have a soul. You don't have a heart.”

The stars have begun to move on – Padalecki to CW’s coming “Walker, Texas Ranger” reboot, and Ackles to Amazon’s “The Boys” – yet they’ve also brought a large piece of “Supernatural” home: Each got a black 1967 Chevy Impala used in the series as Dean’s beloved car, “Baby.” Ackles, 42, figures it was the second episode of the series “when I was like, ‘I’m getting a car. This car is not going to sit in a Warner Bros. lockup and get forgotten about. This car is coming home with somebody who's going to take care of it.’"

Ackles says he was “floored” by the gift: “And it's cool, because now Jared and I can just drag-race around Austin.”

“If we get pulled over, it'd be like, ‘Don't worry. FBI Agent Robert Plant,’" Padalecki adds.

“We've got FBI badges in the glove box,” Ackles confirms.

Down the road, Ackles would like people to talk about “Supernatural” the way he does about 1980s favorites like “The Goonies” or “Flight of the Navigator.”

“You show somebody a show or a movie like that now with all of the CGI and they're like, ‘Wow, the effects on this suck.’ And for me, I'm like, ‘That was amazing!’ I'm anxious to meet those people in 20 years when they're like, ‘Man, that show was such an epic part of my childhood’ or ‘I grew up with you guys’ or ‘I can't wait to show my kids that show when they're of age.”’

Padalecki says it might sound strange, but “I hope it's not remembered. I hope ‘Supernatural’ is continuously experienced and enjoyed and appreciated by all ages, all demographics, and so I hope it remains present.”

#j2 #Jared Padalecki #Jensen Ackles #Andrew Dabb #robert singer

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1jemmagirl22 · 2 years ago

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Just curious, does anyone remember 7th Heaven? You know that CBS drama from the 90′s and early 2000′s, about the minister’s family, and their many, many additions over the years. Well, this insane drama, that ran for 11 freaking years, is technically the first CW show (And I say technically because it was one of many shows that came over from when the WB combined with UPN, and our good old CW network was born. But my point still stands).

So, because I recently skim watched through the majority of the seasons in a desperate attempt to satisfy my childhood nostalgia for the show (I have similar nostalgia for 70′s dramas too, but this one sticks back to me every few years, without fail), I decided I was going to list some of the more insane things that happened on the show, to prove it really helped with what would become the CW’s favorite toys. (If I ever watch seasons 5 and 6 of One Tree Hill, I might even play this insane game with that show too).

*Claps hands together dramatically* Let us begin!

First off, lets discuss the obvious, found family. And oh dear gods, there is a metric crap ton of found family. The found family ranges from one of the main character’s (Mary’s) ex boyfriend (Robbie) becoming a series regular and moving into her familie’s home, after, I repeat, after, the two break up. These parents seriously consider adopting (and honorarily adopt) their daughter’s ex, and let him live in their home for two years. They then go through a similar process with a complete random guy later in the show for no apparent reason then throwing in a brother figure because all the older boys had left. This section also wouldn’t be complete without mentioning sweet innocent Peter, the neighboring boy who falls in love with Ruthie (The youngest daughter in this shows main family) and becomes her best friend/boyfriend for two seasons, and practically lives with the main family while this occurs. Ya, for a show about a minister’s family the parents are surprisingly lenient with their 12 year olds love interest.

Did I mention the main family is made up of seven siblings? With chaotic relationship levels that far surpass anything going on in Riverdale (Okay, in Riverdale season 1). Ya, this show had 9 main characters on average, sometimes it has more. In fact, the freaking 10th season has about as many non main family main characters as it does biologically related characters, because so many people had left the show. You know, because it was in its 10th season!

Now, rolling back around to CW classics this show pulled, we have the siblings dating other sets of siblings. That’s right folks this happens often, but the flat out funniest instance of it ever occurring is with our two older sisters, Mary and Lucy. Mary, cheats on her fiancé (Who deserves a hilarity trope mention all of his own) by snogging a fire man, who she later kind of dates, and then by pure chance, Lucy, ends up love at first sighting said fireman’s brother, after the brother, Kevin, runs into to the sisters at the airport (Because he’s a cop, and Lucy could not travel to save her life). The love at first sight is so strong, Lucy and Kevin end up engaged, after Kevin uproots his life for her after like three episodes of dating. I’m not kidding, not a half season after first meeting these two are engaged!

And this isn’t even the first love at first sight sibling marriage! In fact, it’s the longest of any of them! Because Lucy’s older brother Matt, love at first sight overnight marries his wife in the shows 6th season. He does this less than 2 seasons after it is implied he married his on again off again semi true love, Heather, who he once crashed the wedding of.

And he still isn’t the worst of them. Remember how I said Mary’s fiancé deserves his own hilarity, well here we are. Said fiancé, Wilson, was her high school boyfriend, who was a teen father and widower Mary first met back in the shows 1st season (When Matt met Heather, funny enough). Well after many a boyfriend mishap (Including that found family member Robbi, see above) and a brief instance of stealing Lucy’s boyfriend, Mary ends up back with Wilson, and even engaged to him. But, see above, cheats and back and forths with Lucy’s future brother in law, Ben. And yet still, the guy she ends up marrying, isn’t in any way shape or form connected to any of the previously mentioned love interests. No no, her future husband, Carlos, shows up out of the blue and she shot gun marries him, briefly considers an annulment, than gives up after falling in love. Her and Carlos, end up with three children by the end of the shows 11th season.

What the heck was this show?

Simon, the sweetest and most clever of the siblings for about 4 seasons before the show forgets how to write him (A CW classic if there ever was one), also has some wedding drama of his own in later seasons, but as I like to pretend his character arc ended with his middle school girlfriend and clever money keeping skills half way through season 4, I won’t try and remember that few seasons of total soap opera crap.

There’s also Ruthie, the youngest daughter, (Who’s character arc might be the absolute worst of the entire show, even worse than Simon’s), almost made it out alive from this seeming sibling curse of stupidity. But she didn’t, and with the brief exception of her frankly sickly sweet relationship with Peter in seasons 7 and 8 (See above); everything seasons 9-11 they do to her is, to put it simply, painful and horrendous. Not only do they ruin a smart, kind, well rounded, and briefly referenced to be highly intelligent (They actual send her to a fancy private school, on scholarship, for a season and a half in season 5, before sending her back to Public school and forgetting this character trait), but they even tried to write her brief few months in a prestigious boarding school in Scotland (They fucking sent her to Scotland, where it is highly implied she got back with Peter at, because he moved there) as being a selfish and snotty choice. She’s selfish for wanting to learn and be educated in a foreign country, ya this show does higher education dirty for Ruthie while trying to push it for Mary and confusingly forcing it through Simon’s and Lucy’s plot lines in later seasons. Inconsistent writing, another CW classic.

To throw in some more, I’m just gonna list some of the craziness. Matt wedding crashes in the shows 3rd season. Annie (The mother of the main Camden family) has twin sons, Sam and David, also in the shows 3rd season (these twins have an 8 year age gap with Ruthie, the previous youngest). Lucy, Mary, and Matt have 7 children between them, including two sets of twins, by the end of the shows 11th season, ya how the heck the writers managed that I have no idea. Lucy’s husband, Kevin, ends up being quite rich, a fact not mentioned until he and Lucy are almost married. Simon at one point ends up hitting and killing a boy with his car (Ya, the later seasons really do his character dirty, has my anger about this been made clear yet?), this results in trauma, him getting sent to college early, and the ultimate downward spiral of his character arc. Oh, and how could I forget that Mary was a basketball star but ended up loosing her scholarship after she was arrested for vandalizing her school in anger over sports drama.

So to recap; relationship drama, check; arrests, check; murder, check; pregnancies, check; boys and girls can’t be friends without falling in love, check; seeming never ending levels of plot convenience, check; common old character returns, check. And, last but certainly not least, sucky character arc decisions because the writers have run out of ideas, check!

I hope this little spiral about a near three decade old TV drama has been educational and entertaining to all those who read it. And, in case it wasn’t clear, I have a personal biased for Ruthie and Simon, and a slight adoration for Ruthie and Peter; and Lucy and Kevin.

#the cw #riverdale #7th heaven #ruthie camden #simon camden #lucy camden #ah the insanity that was this show

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