After the events of Shark Week, I needed something of a palate cleanser. So here we have the first of two films that in the first case I had been meaning to see for a while and in the next case just pushes my buttons for being just plain fun. So, here we have a film that I've been meaning to watch since pretty much the beginning of the year - Robert Eggers' The Witch.
The year is 1630 and the place is New England. English puritan and white settler William decides to take his wife Katherine and their children away from the plantation they and other puritans had settled in because he has a bad case of the holier than thous. They make their new home on a farm on the edge of some isolated woods and set about growing corn and raising their family is as godly a way as possibly. But their crop turns bad and then baby Samuel disappears mysteriously while being taken care of by eldest child Thomasin, and the family soon starts to tear itself apart. Thomasin is resented by her mother and accused of being a witch by two of her younger siblings, who also run around singing sinister nursery rhymes about the family's billy goat Black Phillip. Is there really a supernatural force oppressing the family, or are their troubles all down to natural and psychological occurrences and obsessions?
The Witch (or to give it its Middle English spelling, The VVitch) is a very clever film that keeps its cards very close to its chest throughout most of its running time. It works very hard to keep the audience guessing as to the true cause of all the misfortunes befalling the family - while you can and are supposed to take the film literally, as the filmmakers have themselves said, there are still some non-supernatural reasons peppered throughout the film that could be equally to blame for what is going on. For example, the corn crop is ruined because it has become infested with a poisonous and hallucinogenic fungus called ergot - which, incidentally, was suggested as a possible cause of events in Children of the Corn 2 - and many of the other events could be explained away as the results of grief and other forms of psychological torment.
The Witch is, therefore, equal parts psychological and supernatural horror, and it's done so very well. One reason for this is that just about all the characters are actually likable and sympathetic - except for maybe the young twins Jonas and Mercy, and even then they're more bratty than actually nasty. Thomasin is our primary protagonist and we really feel for her as she goes through the various torments heaped upon her - guilt over Samuel's disappearance; her feeling that her mother hates and resents her and wants her gone; and the constant accusations of being a witch from her younger siblings. Her mother's resentment is probably related to the fact that we're told that Thomasin has recently started menstruating, marking her as a woman and now a sexual being (and, if you remember from films like Carrie, menstruation was seen by some religious fanatics as a sign of sin in itself), and things like the stolen glance at her cleavage while she sleeps that her brother Caleb takes at one point seems to emphasize that idea. On the other hand, I was expecting to dislike the character of William due to how ridiculously pious he is at the start of the film, but he turns out to be a very sympathetic character as well. He genuinely loves his wife and children and does his best to look after them all, even refusing to believe the accusations of witchcraft when they start flying around. His failures to make his farm work and keep his children safe obviously weigh heavier and heavier on him as the film progresses, and this struggle inevitably brings him down as well.
Director Robert Eggers' background in in theatre, and it shows through in The Witch. He makes great use of natural light and sound, with very little incidental music to set or enhance a scene, except in a few places where you don't even notice it at first, so well it seems to just slip naturally into the background of the scene. He uses practically no special effects either, except in maybe one or two scenes where it is pretty much necessary, and even then they are used sparingly and with as little pomp and circumstance as possible. It all comes together to give the film a very subtle and disturbing feeling.
Personally, I noticed what might have been little nods and connections to other movies throughout The Witch as well. There's The Crucible (rather obviously); Children of the Corn 2 (as I mentioned above); The Blair Witch Project; The Company of Wolves; and The Amityville Horror (and points may be given to anyone who can make the connections to the last two movies themselves). And while I wouldn't call The Witch scary in the "normal", jumpscare-filled screamfest that many horrors are, it is a very disturbing and atmospheric film, and one that's going to stay with me for a good while after I've seen it. It's a very good movie that holds your attention and keeps you thinking about what you've just seen, even to the point of second-guessing yourself, and intelligent films like that feel few and far between.
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