[Review] ‘The Witch’ Will Put a Spell on You

Over the course of last year “The Witch” managed to build up a good deal of critical momentum as the film garnered rave reviews and praise from horror fans while it played in festivals.  Now it’s finally out in theaters and it’s time to see if “The Witch” was worth the wait.

In “The Witch” the patriarch of a Puritan family decides to abandon the safety of a New England village when he feels the village has strayed too far from its original religious views.  Taking his family he sets out to start a new life on a remote plot of land.  The family is soon besieged by dark elements that threaten to tear them apart.

“The Witch” is the feature film debut of director/writer Robert Eggers and stars Ralph Ineson as William, Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin, Kate Dickie as Katherine, Harvey Scrimshaw as Caleb, Ellie Grainger as Mercy, and Lucas Dawson as Jonas.

There are a lot of elements at play in “The Witch” and the film manages to juggle several issues at once while never beating you over the head with them.  At the forefront is an examination of the strict religious beliefs that led to atrocities like the Salem Witch trials.

Eggers uses the relationship dynamics of this isolated family to present the hypocrisy and paranoia that led to people turning on loved ones.  Here the daughter, Thomasin, is propped up as a scapegoat for the various misfortunes that befall the family while William is conflicted between his religious convictions and his duty as a father. It’s an intense storyline that leads to some excellent family drama.  And it’s this family drama that gives the horror element of “The Witch” the weight it needs.

What’s interesting about “The Witch” is that it isn’t outright terrifying.  Instead it focuses on being creepy and unsettling throughout by using different tricks to play upon your expectations.  The one that stood out most to me was the use of sound and score.  Sometimes there would be a long tracking shot of the woods and the film would punctuate the ominous nature of this environment by playing a score that could only be described as “nails on a chalkboard.”

Other times the sound would be more focused, like when a character is sitting alone in a barn with an animal and all you can hear is the rapid breathing of the beast.  Just hearing that coarse breathing was enough to get me anxious as I started to anticipate what was going to happen.

But “The Witch” never gives in to the temptation of using jump scares to add intensity.  Instead it focuses on keeping you off balanced.  Often when you fully expect something to happen, the film decides to take another route.  And then, when you least expect it, the film will present some horrifying element without any fanfare or build up.  And there is plenty of grotesque imagery to be found in this film.  There are a couple of scenes where “The Witch” corrupts innocent and beautiful acts with disturbing imagery.  I’ll never look at breastfeeding the same way, I’ll tell you that much.

It’s this unexpected nature of the film that makes it upsetting.  It’s not the kind of thing that’ll give me nightmares, but it is the sort of presentation that causes me to revisit certain scenes over and over again in my head.

But the scenes wouldn’t be as effective if it weren’t for the impressive talent of the cast involved.  Especially the kids in the film. It’s hard enough to get decent child actors, but these kids not only had to do dramatic scenes, but they had to do it in a 17th century English dialect.  I was blown away by how  natural they sounded.  Caleb, the oldest boy, does a great job as a youngman confused by the complexity of religion and he delivers the craziest sermon that I’ve ever seen a child give.

Meanwhile, Jonas and Mercy (the youngest kids in the family), do an amazing job giving performances as both comedic relief and creepy twins.  Especially Mercy.  I’m not entirely convinced that she was a child, I’m fairly certain they got a small woman to play her part.  And it’s clear they knew she was quite talented because they gave her some challenging scenes and she delivered on them. And when I say comedic relief, I don’t mean slapstick comedy.  I mean that these kids are creepy throughout, but sometimes the creepiness borders on humorous.  And that’s really the closest the film gets to being funny.

“The Witch” is going to be a tough sell to audiences that expect a traditional horror film, but for many horror fans this will be the film they’ve been waiting for.  Seek this one out, go see “The Witch.”