Theatrical Review: The Witch (2016)

"Why yes, we would like to live deliciously."

(aka The Settlers.)
Release Date: February 19th.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Robert Eggers. 
Directed by: Robert Eggers.
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, and Black Philip.

Have you ever seen that DirecTV commercial with the Puritan settlers? The one where they settle for cable, offer their neighbors salted meats and homemade hats, and where taking a lick off of the family lolly every Harvest Moon seems like a genuine treat to them?

Well, The Witch is a lot like that, except in the movie, the Puritan settlers aren't quite so jovial; there's a witch in the nearby woods who wants to eat them; there's a lot more death; and there's this creepy goat named Black Phillip who lurks around and looks at everyone like he wants to kill them... and maybe eat them too. Goats eat anything, you know.

There's no family lolly though.

I went into The Witch knowing as little about it as possible; I'd seen one trailer and a few pictures, but I did my best to avoid reading any plot details or spoilers, especially when it came to the advance reviews from last year's Fantastic Fest. The buzz surrounding the movie was extremely positive, and that's all I needed to know to get me excited to see it.

With this in mind, I've left the plot details below a bit vague; there's a lot that happened in the movie that I'd love to talk about, but The Witch is exactly the kind of quiet, plot-driven movie that deserves to be seen unspoiled.

After a Puritan family is banished from their community because the father is stubborn and prideful, they're forced to move out into the remote countryside. They build their home near a creepy-ass forest that's rumored to be the home of a witch, but their belief in God is unshakable, so they're not afraid of any damned witch!

ARE THEY PRAYING TO THE FOREST?

After a few months of country living, we find eldest daughter Thomasin out by the edge of the forest, playing peek-a-boo with her infant brother, Sam. In the middle of the game, the baby disappears, and we see a black-cloaked figure of a woman taking him deep into the woods, and yes, we do find out why. The family is devastated at the loss of the baby, and even though they decided that it must have been a wolf that carried him off (?!?), mom casts a suspicious eye at Thomasin, because she just knows that it's her fault. We know it's a witch though.

PURITAN PORN?

Soon after the disappearance, their crops begin to die, the animals on the farm begin acting oddly, and the two youngest children, Jonas and Mercy, begin acting in the creepiest of fashions; they claim that the family goat, Black Phillip, talks to them; they claim to know that the witch of the woods has taken baby Sam; and they claim that Thomasin is in league with Satan. All of this sets everyone on edge, causing them to fight amongst themselves. Then, eldest son Caleb disappears.

And that's all you get.

YE OLDE FINAL GIRL.

The Witch is a genuinely scary movie, and a disturbing one as well. Everyone out there won't agree with the "scary" part, and it didn't have us hiding under our seat or anything, but this is one of those movies where the setting, the bleak atmosphere, and the goings-on pulled us into the movie, and allowed us to feel the unease and fear that its characters did.

Even though The Witch is a genuine Horror movie with evil creatures and beasts and all, there's a genuine vein of psychological Horror that runs through it which provides just as much terror as any of the Satanic stuff does. Evil witches aside, this movie is as much about paranoia destroying a family as it is anything.

This is also a gorgeous film which boasts some stunning cinematography, and a fantastic score that almost feels like its own character for all of the creepiness that it brings to the story. The visuals and music absolutely set the mood in this one.

THIS MOVIE EVEN FREAKED THE RABBIT OUT.

Writer/director Robert Eggers spent a lot of time researching 17th Century New England in order to make the movie feel as authentic as possible, and it shows. Witches, folklore, Puritanical beliefs and behaviors, vocabulary and grammar; it's all as authentic as it can be, and his research creates a dark, gloomy world that feels real, and more importantly, dangerous. This is one of those well-crafted movies that feels as if it were a factual account of real events. It's all fiction, of course, but I'll tell you that it sucked us right in and made us believe in its world, its characters, and the danger that they were all facing, in a way that few films do.

The cast is fantastic in this one too. Even though it was hard to make out some of the words that came out of the character's mouths at times, Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie (both Game of Thrones alumni) were compelling as parents who dealt with the tragedies that befell them in very different ways. Newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy knocked it out of the park as the tortured daughter who is hopelessly caught between the religious beliefs of her parents, and the evil that is growing all around them. We're probably going to be seeing a lot more from her.

"I'M NOT A WITCH!"

With the Olde Worlde English that the characters spoke in the movie, it was really hard to tell what the hell they were saying sometimes. Maybe even 40% of the time.

WHAT DID HE EVEN SAY?

This movie needed more Black Phillip.

THAT'S ONE MISCHIEVOUS GOAT.

A witch makes some skin cream out of people, a crow eats away at someone, a kid throws up some nasty stuff, and a few people are stabbed to death with various implements. All of it is shown in a pretty graphic, matter-of-fact kind of way, with no cutting away.

SHE'S SEEN SOME SHIT

Anya Taylor-Joy gets naked, but most of it is obscured by shadows.

WELL, SOMEONE'S GROWING UP AWFUL FAST.

There's always a witch in the woods, so you should really live in the city at all costs. Also, we would really like to live deliciously.

YEAH, PRAYING ISN'T GOING TO SAVE YOU.

Yeah, we're giving The Witch an A+. I don't really hand that grade out very often, because to me, it speaks of a certain level of perfection that most films, even the best of them, seldom attain. This witchy, Satanic masterpiece really deserves the praise though. This is not a perfect film; everyone is going to find different things to love and hate about it. For us though, The Witch is a gorgeous, moody, horrifying film that took plenty of familiar tropes and made them its own, and in doing so, gave us an experience that felt very different and fresh from the norm. This is exactly the kind of Horror movie that we love.

The Witch is the perfect kind of movie to watch on a quiet, dark night, and you definitely should when it hits VOD two weeks from now.

A+

The Witch is in theaters now, and will be hitting VOD in a few short weeks on May 3rd.

The bewitching Anya Taylor-Joy.