Witch, The (2015) [Blu-ray]
Horror | Mystery

A devoutly Christian family in 1630's New England, struggles to survive living along the edge of a vast wilderness. When one of their five children goes missing and their life-sustaining crops fail, they fall victim to paranoia and fear as they begin to turn on one another. The decimation of their family unit creates an opportunity for incredible evil to emerge and attempt to destroy them all.

Storyline: New England, 1630: William and Katherine lead a devout Christian life, homesteading on the edge of an impassible wilderness, with five children. When their newborn son mysteriously vanishes and their crops fail, the family begins to turn on one another. 'The Witch' is a chilling portrait of a family unraveling within their own fears and anxieties, leaving them prey for an inescapable evil.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, May 11, 2016 We reviewers have learned the hard way that it's often dangerous to review a film with any religious leanings whatsoever, as it's virtually certain you're going to end up offending or alienating someone who either doesn't agree with the religion being portrayed, or how a particular reviewer reacts to that portrayal. And so let me just begin this review by apologizing to any and all Puritans who may read it and who are probably already taking umbrage that anyone would deign to assess elements of their faith, at least in how it's portrayed in the riveting if intentionally small scale The Witch. This pastoral horror story, given the subtitle A New England Folktale, reminded me in a way of The Wicker Man, with an atavistic, agrarian society attempting to ferret out signs from the Divine in the workings of Nature, not always to felicitous results. The Witch plies a somewhat familiar 17th century environment, albeit with a spooky supernatural air wafting through the misty woods, and that "folktale" element tends to (perhaps ironically) give the film a rare feeling of authenticity, as if some long ago banished history had suddenly sprung to life and been reenacted for the edification of the audience. The Witch doesn't really traffic in standard horror tropes like jump cuts, booming LFE or even outright signs of graphic gore (there are a few disturbing images in the film, but they're relatively restrained, at least within the context of much contemporary horror cinema). Instead, much like The Wicker Man, there's a slow but steady accretion of angst that ultimately creates a very discomfiting mood, one that becomes increasingly hard to shake as the intentionally minimalist story proceeds.

Many if not most of us who grew up in the United States were inundated with probably unrealistic views of the pioneers who initially settled our nation, with the Pilgrims and other initial settlers coming off as freedom fighting revolutionaries who escaped religious persecution to forge a new life in a land that held promise but also immense difficulties. As writer-director Robert Eggers mentions in the commentary included on this Blu-ray as a supplement, it's probably instructive to remember that many of the first settlers to come to the New Land were in fact Puritans. And while, yes, they had sought to escape religious persecution (or at least religion defined by others, which they may have perceived as persecution), they weren't exactly a bunch of free thinking folks, allowing heterodoxy at every turn. In fact, the Puritans were, well, kind of uptight about things, something that plays into the increasingly ominous subtext of The Witch.

There's an overt reference to liturgically towing the line (in a manner of speaking) from the very first moments of The Witch, when William (Ralph Ineson), his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie), daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) and son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) are exiled from a Puritan community (the film is perhaps just a little light in the backstory element in this regard). The family ends up finding a new "nesting" place next to an ominous forest which may remind some of a similar sylvan environment in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. In another elision which is initially a bit dijunctive seeming, there's suddenly a new baby boy named Samuel on the premises, and in a horrifying moment, he disappears while Thomasin has her eyes covered playing hide and seek with the newborn. The Witch doesn't dally around with ambiguities, choosing instead to overtly display a witch snatching the child and then sacrificing it ritually to provide an "unguent" that will transform an everyday branch or stick into a flying object. The "folktale" element obviously plays into this depiction, but since everything is shown more or less "realistically", there doesn't initially seem to be any kind of psychological undertone where what we're seeing might "just" be a vision of sorts.

That said, there is most definitely a psychological element to what plays out after Samuel's disturbing disappearance. The family begins to fray, and suspicions arise, leading to a weird, almost hallucinatory, ambience where Katherine's increasing hysteria may or may not be leading William to assume nefarious activities. Once again, though, The Witch is commendably free of "mind games", with none too subtle but still impeccably powerful symbols like a hare (shades of The Wicker Man again) and (more saliently, given the demonic side of things) a goat being used, both of which suffuse the film with almost Jungian levels of meaning. The "intrusion" of the supernatural, whether perceived or real (not that The Witch is concerned with that aspect), into the everyday is what continually gives the film its almost hypnotic aspect.

More traumas of course accrue around the family, and in the film's final act, William seems about to go Grand Guignol on his (surviving) children. Once again, though, the film is almost weirdly restrained in its depiction of an all enveloping terror subsuming the family. (There are some brief and scattered shots showing things like disemboweled animals, but a surprising overall lack of "blood and guts" in this film.) There's an argument to be made that the film's final "reveal" hints at something duplicitous in one of the major characters, but, again, The Witch seems to be less concerned with any "hidden meanings" than in an almost cold and calculating portrayal of some Early Americans who were confronting something more than simply an unknown land. The film benefits from an austere but seemingly historically accurate production design, along with a generally tamped down performance style that creates mood rather than outright shock.

This is a film where things don't exactly go "bump" in the night, tending to whisper menacingly instead. That means those wanting a gorefest with horrifying imagery, jump cuts and shock LFE are going to be mightily disappointed by what is a remarkably "quiet" feeling horror film. For those attuned to The Witch's almost dreamlike (and/or nightmarish) ambience, though, the film offers a completely unsettling mood, along with fantastic production design and some very naturalistic performances, especially given the built in "folktale" element of the story. Technical merits are strong and The Witch comes Highly recommended.

[CSW] -2.3- Despite fantastic production design, some very naturalistic performances, moody atmosphere, a spooky soundtrack and whispers instead of jump cuts and jump scares (all good things), this just didn't make for a horror film. We are so desperate for a genuinely good horror film that it's easy to seize on the first thing slightly original, slightly well-acted and slightly well-written. That is the reason for the 90% fresh rating this film gets from Rotten Tomatoes and the festival raves. But this is ultimately an unnecessary, forgettable film. Like It Follows, the previous supposed savior of the dead horror genre. Remember that movie? Didn't think so. Came out last year. So too you will not remember this movie next year. I love a good horror movie, but this is still not it. Nor that gook The Babadook. There's another waste of time non exceptional horror film from recent years. The scariest thought from the horror genre these days is the genre may be truly dead. Let's come out with something good people!
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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