By Igmar P. / Café Cinéfilo
The summary.
A Puritan family, of the first settlers of the United States
in the 17 century, is suddenly haunted by supernatural forces which begin to
test their faith and threaten their lives, while one of their daughters
suspects a diabolical presence is hiding deep within the woods, in “The Witch”,
based on New England folktales.
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| The Witch, movie poster |
It's the year 1630, and in a rural community of New England
settlers, which lives under strict religious rules, the family of proud farmer
William (Ralph Inneson), which includes his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie), their
young daughter Thomasin ( Anya Taylor-Joy), her younger brother Caleb (Harvey
Scrimshaw) and three more little children, including a baby, is banished by the
town authorities, for differences regarding the practice of the Christian
doctrine.
After being expelled, William takes his family to live
outside of the community and into the wilderness, in an area very close to an
ominous looking forest where, after a short time, they build their modest home
and begin to perform farming tasks, such as sowing corn crops and milking
goats, in the hopes of living a good and decent life, just like the one they had
back in the town.
Everything appears to be normal, that is until one day, when
the older daughter Thomasin, who has begun to blossom from an adolescent to a
young woman, while she was playing an innocent game of “peekaboo” with baby
Samuel, the child disappears literally in a blink of an eye. Thomasin barely
catches some movement, far in the forest undergrowth.
After searching for Samuel, the family comes to the painful
resignation that the child was taken by some wolf into the woods and is
therefore, lost. But Thomasin is not entirely convinced that the boy was taken
by an animal at all.
From that moment on, a series of strange occurrences begin
to disturb the tranquility of the family, while a diabolical presence appears
to be watching them with malicious intent, from deep within the woods.
The review.
The subject of witchcraft has been explored in numerous
occasions in cinema all over the world, and writer-director Robert Eggers seems
to have taken this fact into account, having created, with “The Witch”, an
excellent horror film that scares quite effectively, firstly because it's
counting precisely in what little or vast knowledge of witch mythology every
audience might have, and secondly, because it really cares in transporting the
spectators to the past, through an involving story, convincing scenery, good
genre music and a very well selected cast.
By the tone of the film, it is safe to say that “The Witch”
sometimes reminds us of Stanley Kubrick's “The Shining”, but when it comes to
evoking a more similar film, at least where the demonic implications in its
content are concerned, “The Witch” is more like Roman Polanski's “Rosemary's
Baby”, or even Dario Argento's “Suspiria”, than that other popular movie about the
old witch in the woods tale that is “The Blair Witch Project”.
Is important to point out that all the dialogues of the film
are articulated in a very 17th century English fashion, but this
must not discourage moviegoers in any way. It's still understandable enough, and also
“The Witch” is one of those rare movies where the actions sometimes speak more
than the words.
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| The Witch, the 'hare' movie poster |
In Robert Egger's “The Witch”, as the unfolding events begin
to make the members of the faithful William family succumb to different sins,
they also start to become more vulnerable to the witch's spells. For instance,
the father, William, his sin is pride, and he doesn't admit he is not a very good
hunter and even allows his young son Caleb to lie for him, when early one
morning both of them ventured into the woods to hunt, and William failed
terribly at the task.
Young Caleb, on the other hand, can't help to start noticing
how his older sister Thomasin is beginning to change into a beautiful young
woman, and inadvertently finds himself giving brief but lustful looks to his
sister's virginal breasts, when they begin to show through her clothes,
whenever she is either sleeping or performing her farming shores.
When baby Samuel is lost, under the care of Thomasin, the
mother, Katherine, starts to succumb into despair and even begins to question
her own faith, while she vents her resentment against William, for failing to
provide for the family as a good husband should. She also complains to him for
making them leave the shelter and protection they had back at the community.
And then there's Anya Taylor-Joy, who, as young Thomasin,
steals practically every scene in the movie she is in. Thomasin is
succumbing to ambition, right from the very beginning, when despite praying
every morning before doing her daily shores, she obviously craves for more than
what that simple yet noble life has to offer. Deep down she would like to live
a richer life, travel the world, visit other places, as it is evidenced by the
way she clings to an old memory of her life back in the old country, before
moving to the United States.
The children, twins Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas (Lucas
Dawson), both innocent to the evils of the world, playfully sing strange words and
phrases they obviously don't fully understand, while they play with and constantly
harass “Black Phillip”, the male goat of the family -they also have a female
goat, which the family uses for milking. The children whisper things to Black
Phillip's ears. When this children become prisoners of fear, during an event
that occurs in the movie, which I will not reveal here, Mercy and Jonnas
succumb to lying and accuse their older sister Thomasin of being a witch,
something that inadvertently stirs up even more division within the already
fragile family.
All this actions and events are slowly thrusting the family
into the witch's clutches and it is precisely there where the genius of Eggers
lies. Eggers is counting in what we, the spectators, know, be it a lot or even
very little, about witch mythology, so that we, the audience, inadvertently begin
to let loose our own imagination, as we start to have notions of what terrible
things can happen to our heroes, if they become very weak of spirit, as the
sinister forces that hide in the dark are stalking them.
In this manner, the scares of “The Witch” are not really
that obvious or sudden as they usually are in other films of this genre. They
don't need to be in this case. Instead, Eggers shows us William and Katherine's
family living their rural lives in apparent calm, as they perform simple tasks
as growing corn and milking goats. But sure enough, tension and suspense begins
to accumulate as danger evidently hides in the woods.
The photography, by Jarin Blaschke, is truly majestic where
all the exterior shots are concerned. Director Eggers, who worked before as a
production designer and art director for short films, most of them period
pieces, effectively used his talent in all the interior sets of “The Witch”,
paying attention to every detail in this his first directed feature film.
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| The Witch, the 'goat' movie poster |
The natural lighting, the big shots of the open country, the
trees, the natural sounds and a creeping soundtrack all serve up to make the
spectator uneasy, tense, to the point where I sometimes found myself tying to
watch attentively even the most simple image of the forest, trying to see if I
could make out the witch hiding among the trees... or something else hiding in
there too.
Although, I should point out that, unlike the overrated
“Blair Witch Project”, in “The Witch” we do get to see the witch in full
detail, even in some of the early scenes, but we see her in a more genuinely
disturbing way, which is a lot more scary. This is how director Eggers shows and
proves to us that in the cinema of present time, you can still scare audiences
by showing the monster on screen with every spooky detail, you just need to
come up with a truly clever and really terrifying story to pull it off.
Rating:
* * * * (4 stars)
Main
cast and details
Title:
'The Witch'
Director:
Robert Eggers
Screenplay:
Robert Eggers
Country:
United States / United Kingdom / Canada / Brazil
Year:
2016
Genre:
Horror
Cast:
Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson
and Kate Dickie
Rated:
R (18 years and older)
Running Time: 1 hour and 32 minutes
