The Witch

The Witch (2015)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Robert Eggers

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Granger

From: A24... and several other companies

I am pressed for time so let me just say that this deserves the hype. My Letterboxd review is below: 

I had known of this movie since last year, when I heard some people in a messageboard thread talk about it (I think they saw it at random film festivals) and they gave it very strong praise, and wish that it would have come out around Halloween time instead of all the way until this month. I patiently waited for it; I then heard a lot of praise once it did come out; mainly, it was from people like us, although there were some dissenters. The general public had a more mixed opinion; the C- score on Cinemascore says a lot, although that is a flawed system and movies that “aren't for everyone” (which is definitely is) will get punished. I do understand those that did not care for this, as it's an atypical horror film. Plus, I am a rare person who rated both It Follows and The Babadook as “average”, mainly for story reasons that I won't get into here.

Thankfully, this is a hyped horror movie that I can get behind and I say it does deserve the hype. To be honest, I never saw any advertisements for it on the big screen or on television, and I did not even know what the plot was besides that there was at least one witch involved, it was set in 17th century New England (1630, to be exact) and as the current Letterboxd poster for the film shows, there is a black goat. That was it. I won't reveal much in case anyone else prefers to be as spoiler-free as possible. I'll just say that it involves a family with several children and things slowly but surely get worse for them.

The movie is not a goofy jump scare filled “loud noises” piece of hogwash. Rather, the movie is methodical in its pacing as it takes its time telling its story. Practically all of it is set in the rural woods (rural Ontario substituting for Massachusetts) and that alone provides a lot of atmosphere, but the movie is successful as you see a Puritan family ostracized and living on their own dealing with various bad things happen and it progressively gets worse and worse; it does escalate and some of them handle it better than others. The unnerving feeling and general dread intensifies and by the end it does become quite chilling.

Besides an intriguing story that is never boring and a unique setting you don't often see in film, the cast and crew all deliver. The director Robert Eggers, this is his first feature film... which is astonishing to me. The score is from someone who almost exclusively did the music for various documentaries, and the cinematographer has done a lot of shorts. All of them were exemplary here. I understand it wasn't the easiest shoot due to weather issues and the typical difficulty in dealing with both children and animals. Yet it doesn't hamper this in any way. The cast of unfamiliar-to me-faces all deliver at least good performances; even the little kids are included in that tally for me. Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin was spectacular.

I had heard here and elsewhere horror stories about people having bad experiences watching this; like I said it's not for everyone and yet it's unfortunate that crowds would jeer it and crap on it while the movie is playing. At least with me, I did not hear any complaining until after the film was over with. The only thing I heard about it was negativity. Yet, while it was showing I did not hear any jeering or catcalls. There were some chuckles-but at not inopportune moments-and a shocking moment got an audible reaction; I will hope that they at least thought it was “fine”.


I am not sure if I'll consider it a 2015 or a 2016 picture, but either way it'll be on one of those Top 10 lists done by me in the future, as it's more than a great horror film, it's great in general. It is worthy of revisit from me, not only to use subtitles (not all of the old-time dialogue was clear to me) but to see the subtext, allegories and metaphors... along with subtle things I missed the first time.