’Wildwood’: Should Christian kids see this fantasy magic movie?
The Christian creative corner of the internet was buzzing with excitement at the end of October over the release of “Wildwood,” a stop-motion book-to-screen adaptation from LAIKA Studios. Reviewers said the film was dark yet redemptive, and breathtakingly beautiful.
In the midst of being bombarded by AI-generated images on every side, creatives were more than ready to celebrate something so labor-intensive and entirely human. After seeing positive review after positive review over opening weekend, I finally made my way to the theater ready to be swept off my feet.
Instead, I walked out completely perplexed.
“Wildwood” has a lot to offer. Not only did it take 16 years to fully develop such stunning visuals, but the story itself has many elements compatible with Christianity. It shows the beauty of sacrificing yourself for your loved ones, a positive view of the nuclear family, the pain of infertility, and the virtue of confessing grievous sin. Despite that, I was disappointed in the magic system. And I would argue it stands out as an example of the growing New Age being placed in children’s media when there’s nothing fictional about it. Instead of a typical good versus evil story, it was more along the lines of real-world New Age mysticism versus overt Satanic occultism.
Prue, the protagonist, is raised by New Age hippie parents in Portland, Oregon. They’re progressive, mention their past experiences at Burning Man, wear evil eye jewelry, prefer spiritual herbalist treatments to Western medicine, and visit an openly Satanic witch in a moment of desperation. And yes, the word “Satanic” was actually spoken by Prue’s dad.
Meanwhile in the fantastical wilderness realm, the mystics pray to a tree for guidance regarding their war with a Satanic witch. This character is what has earned “Wildwood” its reputation for being somewhat disturbing and not appropriate for young children. The Dowager Governess is overtly pagan, as she practices blood and bone magic with plans for child sacrifice. And it is from this very extreme evil that the mystics must wrest control of their world out of her hands and save Prue’s baby brother from the Dowager’s sacrificial blade.
What is the New Age, and why does it matter?
The New Age is an umbrella term for any form of alternative spirituality accompanied by supernatural phenomena such as mysticism, wicca, manifestation, etc. These practices are growing exponentially and are now recognized as the second wave of the New Age (the first wave having occurred in the 1960s and 70s). Many of the lighter practices are like a diet version of witchcraft — or “cotton candy Luciferianism,” as former New Ager Zachary Jongejan called it. In fact, the most commonly practiced forms of “witchcraft” right now could be labeled “light work,” or forms of supernaturalism that seek to fill the world with light and make it a better place.
In my study of the New Age, I watched 200 “New Age to Jesus” testimony videos. Not one person said the magic wasn’t real or that they’d been hallucinating. Most of the time, they had a history of trauma and a desire to control a life that felt out of control. So, they started using light New Age practices like manifesting or reading tarot cards. But eventually, they went deeper and did more than they had ever intended. What had started as a desire to fix their life turned into a demonic nightmare. And that is exactly what happens to the family in “Wildwood.” Yet their story did not end by rejecting the New Age but using it to fight a darker version of itself.
As an avid reader and writer of fantasy, I’m usually a big fan of projects like “Wildwood”— films that, while secular, aim to tell a good versus evil story and fill us with wonder. Yet I found myself wishing the magic had been less on-the-nose, buried under layers of metaphor as children’s stories with talking animals often are. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis wrote a fantasy so steeped in metaphor, it can be read in public schools despite being a retelling of the Gospel. Had “Wildwood” done likewise, creating a magic system that wasn’t based in reality, it’s possible no one would have known it had been inspired by the New Age.
Discipleship over censorship
Should you and your children see “Wildwood?” Some believers fear that reading Harry Potter or watching things like “Wildwood” may tempt their child into the occult or even “open doors” to Satan. Yet watching a movie or reading a book doesn’t automatically invite demonic oppression. Such things happen through unrepented idolatry (Deut. 18:9-13, Is. 8:19), not watching a movie.
Evidence also doesn’t support the theory that children are tempted into the occult through something like a fantasy story. In the two hundred “New Age to Jesus” testimony videos, I found that only eleven (5.5%) of them mentioned some form of fictional magic being part of their journey into the occult, while 140 (70%) cited trauma as the leading cause. Of those 11 citing fiction, 10 of them also mentioned having trauma, and none of them said fiction was the leading cause.
I believe that, whenever possible, discipleship should be chosen over censorship. This film is already too dark and scary for small children, so I would suggest not taking them regardless of the flaws in the magic system. Yet this could be a wonderful learning experience for kids who are in middle school and high school. There is still so much to love and admire about this film, and the issues with the magic could be something to discuss together.
Children should learn about the New Age and the occult in age-appropriate ways since it can help them understand spiritual warfare and be more discerning with their media choices as they grow older.
Marian A. Jacobs is the author of On Magic & Miracles: A Theological Guide to Discerning Fictional Magic. She's a native Californian living with her husband and three kids in South Carolina.
