Directed by:
Robert EggersScreenplay:
Robert EggersCinematography:
Jarin BlaschkeComposer:
Mark KorvenCast:
Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Julian Richings, Cat SimmonsVOD (5)
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Believing that a witch has cursed them, a family of outcast pilgrims becomes increasingly paranoid amid unsettling phenomena in colonial New England. (Netflix)
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Reviews (13)
When the movie is over and I feel like seeing it again as soon as possible, that's a good thing. What does it matter that the film has an almost unbearably oppressive atmosphere, the fanatical people are portrayed so mercilessly and without turning a blind eye that perhaps only our own Witchhammer has managed to do so far, and that you almost hate to watch it all because it is so full of hopelessness. The Witch is just so engaging that, despite all the horrors, I wondered what would happen next, and I kept hoping that at least some of the characters would come to their senses. The ending, unlike many other users, didn't ruin the experience for me, although I thought for a long time about whether it was a good thing that it was so literal or not. Truth be told, after the intense harrowing experience of the previous eighty minutes, it was enough for me that there was an ending.
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While The Witch isn't quite my cup of tea, it has its qualities and you'll be hard pressed to find a competing horror film set in the same period. I especially praise the setting, the director perfectly captures the early modern era in New England with its strong religious overtones and the strict evolution of Puritan family behaviour. The performances are perfect, especially the psychopathic Kate Dickie as the mother is so believable that you feel the film's suffocating terror. Also worthy of praise are the lovely Anya Taylor-Joy, the disturbing Ralph Ineson, and the devilish goat, after whose performance I’m never petting a goat again at the zoo. The atmosphere is rightly oppressive, and while it's a shame that the film doesn't exude much tension, I didn't get bored, which is essential. I dare not recommend The Witch too highly, as most modern audiences won't get the film, which is understandable given the lack of colour and scares. Story 7/10, Atmosphere 7/10, Gore 3/10, Visuals 6/10, Action 2/10, Suspense 5/10,Humour 0/10. Entertainment 6/10. 70%.
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Unique. It's as if the cameraman had been transported back several centuries in a time machine and filmed the feelings of a family in isolation in the middle of the dark woods. Everything is subordinated to these feelings of the time – the archaic language, the great piety that permeated every individual back then, the fear of the unknown, the fear even of the forest next to you, where evil, evil spirits and witches were believed to reside. Because faith in Christ and fear of the powers of hell was everything at that time, the whole film is permeated with pious talk, prayers and irrational behaviour, which – as it seems from the reviews here – the dull-witted population, without knowledge of the historical context and dumbed down by the mainstream, will not appreciate. The rest of us give it a thumbs up, because such period parables, where the author drew from written sources of the time, bringing to life the witch trials and the mindset of pious people, are a rarity in today's cinemas. It's just a shame about the overly suggestive ending, if the author had had the balls to drive it through the simple "psychosis" of one frightened family, I would applaud even more. And Anna Taylor-Joy? You’ll be hearing a lot about her, trust me!
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Initially, The Witch seems like a spin-off of Shyamalan’s The Village, but it eventually turns out to be a horror movie that goes beyond genre formulas and doesn’t want to be just another An American Haunting. Remarkable for its use of old British English (that perhaps even Brits themselves do not understand without subtitles), the film attempts to portray the mentality of the characters in a period-authentic way, but these characters’ behavior and responses lead to some solutions that the audience might find unsatisfactory. It is very hard to root for characters who are so fanatic in their religion that they spend more time hysterically praying among themselves and screaming confessions at each other than they do normally conversing. Rather, I wished their fates were finally sealed. Especially because in the second half, the film focuses more on their uncontrollable psychosis than the threat of the witch herself. The film is incoherent in its delivery of the events and their justifications, or you could say that it has a strange (witch-like?) logic. But the atmosphere is dense and the young Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays the only normal character in the film, is a promising newcomer.
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After the trailer, I was hoping to be delighted by The Witch. In the end, it is only rather inconspicuously, mildly concerning because of the excess of religion and one established witchcraft cult in New England. The movie actually doesn’t contain anything innovative and so there is only one thing which can entice you. And that is the atmosphere. The atmosphere is definitely brutal, but it doesn’t make up the whole movie. Unfortunately.
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![The Witch - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/160/491/160491822_3fa912.jpg)
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