Review by Bob Ignizio
A Puritan family is expelled from their colony over a
difference of religious opinion. Making a new home for themselves in the nearby
woods, they soon find themselves faced with the terrible loss of their youngest
member, who was in the care of his sister Thomasin (Anna Taylor-Joy) at the
time. Father William (Ralph Ineson) blames wolves, but the real culprit is a
supernatural evil. As things go from bad to worse for the family, they look to
faith as a tool to bind them together, but it seems just as likely to tear them
apart. But is it really the family’s religious beliefs that are to blame for
their troubles, or is it the hubris and hypocrisy of its patriarch? This is the
premise of Robert Eggers THE WITCH, a
subtle, intelligent, and disturbing period horror film that has largely pleased
critics, while faring considerably worse with the general movie-going public.
Like writer/director Robert Eggers, I was interested in
tales of early American witchcraft as a child, and likely read many of the same
accounts that inspired him in making this film. More than anything I’ve seen, THE WITCH captures the essence of those
tales and brings them to appropriately unsettling and ambiguous life. Whether
you believe those accounts to be true, write them off as pure superstition, or
come down somewhere in the middle, what you see here is an accurate depiction
of what our ancestors believed. As such, the film may seem odd and off-putting
as it goes decidedly outside the standard tropes of modern horror.
Thomasin’s sexual coming of age, which she herself seems
largely unaware of, also factors in. Removed from the larger society, it’s not
entirely surprising that her younger brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) would have
some inappropriate thoughts about his sister. William is too consumed with his
own pride and the need to find sustenance to last his family through the winter
to notice. However, mother Katherine (Kate Dickle), though grief stricken at
the loss of her youngest child, is very much aware. This doesn’t help
Thomasin’s case when her young twin siblings Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas
(Lucas Dawson) repeat as fact Thomasin’s teasing claims of being a witch just
as events take an even worse turn for the family.
THE WITCH is
utterly committed to its particular aesthetic, and on its own terms achieves
exactly what it sets out to do. The performances are first rate, the direction
assured and economical, the setting and costumes authentic, and the themes well
thought out and clearly communicated. And yet it should hardly be surprising
that audiences have had mixed opinions of the film.
I don’t know if I’d go as far as writer Brian Keene, who wrote on social media that, “90% of the people in the theater with you will be too stupid to
understand,” but it sure felt like that when my wife and I caught the film this
past weekend. Most of the audience were either laughing at inappropriate moments
or grumbling about the olde English language and accents, and I heard more than
one person apologize to their date on the way out for having chosen this as the
evening’s entertainment. It was frustrating, but I do get it, and it’s not as
simple as everyone else in the theater being stupid.
After decades of Hollywood focusing almost entirely on
blockbuster tentpole franchise popcorn movies, audiences have been conditioned
to view films strictly as passive entertainment. They don’t expect subtext or
complexity, and certainly not from a horror movie. Give them something that
genuinely tries to use the horror genre to get at deeper truths and ideas
instead of merely delivering jump scares and/or gore, and they don’t know what
to make of it. This is a movie that some reviewers have compared to arthouse
director Ingmar Bergman’s darker fare, and if you’ve seen THE VIRGIN SPRING, HOUR OF
THE WOLF, or THE MAGICIAN, that
doesn’t seem like an unfair comparison.
Now throw something like that to a weekend crowd expecting
the next PARANORMAL ACTIVITY or THE CONJURING, and you get a theater
mostly full of angry and befuddled moviegoers. And so they laugh or make
comments, and the few people who actually wanted to see a movie like this get
annoyed and decide to wait for home video next time, creating a vicious circle
that insures we get fewer serious, intelligent films of any kind.
It would be nice if it were playing at The Cedar Lee, but
the film’s distributor intentionally opted not to put it in arthouse theaters
in hopes of reaching a wide audience. I guess I can understand that, but at the
same time it all but insures that the audience most receptive to a film like
this will have to put up with the kind of movie-going experience I had. Which
is too bad, because like any great film, this deserves to be seen on the big
screen. So if this does sound like your kind of movie, try to go see it on a
weekday matinee. And if it sounds a little too weird or boring or whatever,
then do everyone a favor and just wait until the next Blumhouse spookshow hits
theaters, probably in a week or so. We’ll all be happier that way. 4 out of 4
stars.
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