Review: The VVitch

For the past couple of years there's been one horror film that stood out for that year, 2014 had The Babadook, 2015 had It Follows and now 2016 seems to have it with The Witch. What's also noteworthy was that while critically acclaimed, these movies also share a very divisive approach when it come to audience reactions, with both hate and acclaim approaching them. The Witch will probably be the most divisive of all of them, with those expecting a mainstream horror sadly disappointed by its slow-burning and Ye Olde English dialogue and those who understand it's Art-House nature impressed by its subtle and challenging approach to religion, paranoia and fear in the 17th Century.

Me? I fall in the latter category.

After being excommunicated from their New England Plantation, a Christian family composed of father William, mother Katherine and their four children travel away, setting up a home on the outskirts of a forest where they hope to start anew as farmers, after several months they're prospered with a corn harvest, a few goats and a new arrival in the face of baby Samuel.

However things soon start to go wrong, Samuel mysteriously vanishes out of nowhere, devastating the family, and not long afterwards the corn harvest is beset by rot, with no other option, William takes his eldest son Caleb hunting, with no luck. With their luck seemingly turning against them, the family start tearing apart with William questioning why God is challenging them, Katherine slowly losing her mind as her children suffer and Caleb's own faith and humanity tested against the fear of a very real hell. And in the middle of it all, eldest daughter Thomasin, a young girl on the verge of womanhood who finds herself wondering if God has really abandoned them or if something far more sinister is afoot, and if so, is she to blame?

I'm being deliberately vague so as not to go into too much detail about what happens but the gist is that this is a film where things go from bad to worse every minute and the strain it puts over this family becomes the driving force of the whole film with Thomasin's questioning faith and fear of witchcraft giving foundation to what comes next. It's a film about paranoia and faith and how this time period brought both to head, but brilliantly it keeps things very low-key to the point where you're not sure how much of the pain and suffering caused is actually witchcraft and how much of it was just natural bad luck. Witches are present but only briefly adding to the ambiguous nature because while it is clear that there's something very sinister and possibly even satanic involved, it's not clear just how involved but it's the fear and anger that the family come face-to-face with against each other that helps this story become a much deeper and more intense ride than you would imagine.

It's also got a hell of an ending that does not go the way you think it will and will most likely cause the biggest discussion of the whole film about what it means. No spoilers but keep an eye on the goat, the damn thing nearly steals the whole film.

With the acting centred around this one family it allowed the focus to remain entirely on this one location and how the people involved handled what was happening to them. Youngest children and twins, Jonas and Mercy ended up having a little more to do with the story than initially seen, due to their childish naivety and proneness to playing games they turned out to be the instigators for the second act of the film when blame and paranoia start getting thrown around because of what the twins heard and how they interoperated it.

Caleb turns out be a very surprisingly young boy, being the first born son he has a duty to join his father and learn from him, but at the same time his young age and lack of full understanding of the world has him question his faith over what has happened to them since leaving the plantation. Caleb's mixture of maturity and youth made for an interesting character build but his best work came after a second act reveal that puts actor Harvey Scrimshaw into a very vulnerable but exceedingly disturbing place and showed an acting talent that needs to be seen to be believed, I can't go into further details but you'll not it when you seen it.

Parents William and Katherine (played by Game Of Thrones alum Ralph Ineson and Katie Dickie respectively) bring two very different approaches in their reactions to this new life. Katherine had the emotional role has the distraught mother forced to watch her children suffer, and what's worse believing that her own daughter is responsible. It's a strong piece from Dickie who showcases a very real form of madness brought on from desperation and grief culminating in one of the strangest sequences of the film involving a crow. William does get the more subdued but arguably deeper role playing the man of the house who has to come to terms with his own mistakes before he can save his family. It was William's pride that exiled the family from their plantation and for the longest time his hypocrisy slowly eats away at them all, adding fuel to an already dangerous Hellfire. Ineson allows William to feel like a genuine product of his time, fearing the power of witches over the word of his own daughter, his faith is part of who he is but when that fails him he's lost over how to protect the people he loves from this impending evil.

Star of the film and a breakout talent to keep an out on is Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin, being the eldest child, she's had to grow up much faster than her siblings, but in doing so she's been imbued with a cynical edge, she believes in Christ but has found herself lacking in her faith, questioning the path God has set out for them since leaving the plantation. After Samuel's disappearance - to which Thomasin was the last to see him - she finds herself put under a spotlight with her mother blaming her and her father starting to worry about her as well, with the prospect of witchcraft and satanism befalling them, Thomasin becomes a prime target and it's Joy's ability to mix hard-earned fear with a venomous anger over being ignored that brings the character to the forefront, stuck in a world that is either questioning her worth or ready to pawn her off to someone else, something Thomasin has a few words to say about.

There is a slight feminist edge to this film played out through Thomasin, what she does and where she goes will easily become some of the biggest talking points.

The film is the debut feature from director Robert Egger and you would not think it to see it, this is an exceedingly well-crafted movie that you'd expect to see from someone a lot more established and refined. Perhaps though it's his lack of name recognition that allows Egger to go to some very disturbing and unorthodox places, being set in the 17th Century, Eggers not only travels back in time through a seamless production design, creating a dreary, lonely and sinister world set almost exclusively on this farm in the middle of nowhere, with naturally low lighting and a permanently grey mood hanging over the beautifully shot sequences, but also in the dialogue. Now the dialogue is probably going to be one of the biggest detractors of the film because it is taken from the source material (not any story in particular but just general folklore of the time period) and it is difficult at times to understand, utilising a lot of Ye Olde Christian Proclamations with Bible Verses and prayers taking a majority of the script, it's incredibly helpful in setting the time period and the lifestyle of the time back then but to those same people willing to dismiss the film, the dialogue will probably be one of their main reasons for hating it because of how deep it goes at times.

Eggers main point of praise is how unsettling he makes the film, to go against the film for a moment, this is not the most terrifying movie ever made, it's a bad piece of marketing that is putting the wrong hype in people's minds expecting another Paranormal Activity or Insidious. Rather the film's horror comes from the ever growing dread and fear that something is about to happen that will finally crack this family apart. It's a film that creeps in, slowly but surely wrapping it's finger round your neck but never telling you why. To go back to earlier, because there's always a question over how much is through fault of the witch and how much is natural, the family is always on edge, particularly William and Thomasin who end up fighting against each other towards the film's finale.

Part of what makes things so unsettling is the films use of Christianity, it's William's old testament faith that sends the family into exile and that same faith that almost kills them. The film never explains the presence or denial of God but He plays a vital part, the 17th Century setting is key for helping but into perspective how important God is to the lives of these people and how easy it was for them to fall into paranoia when they believe God has abandoned them. The more things worsen the easier it is to blame their troubles on witchcraft and Satanism, which of course puts the blossoming Thomasin in the middle of it all. It's one of the few film to not actually mock religion but actively include it as part of the film's narrative, its realistic approach works in its favour by allowing Eggers to showcase a devout family thrust into a world where the God and the Devil are behind every tree, waiting to see what path they take in life.

If The Witch ends up being 2016's stand out horror film then I'm fine with that, it's a slow-burning tale filled with dread and fear leading to a very visceral and surprising ending. The acting is solid with Thomasin and her journey being one of the film's strongest elements and a hell of a starting effort from Eggers who takes us on an atmospheric and relentless journey back in time to a very different and very religious time of the world. There are sadly going to be people that hate this film, there already are, and it's not hard to see why, all the praise I've given it will be seen as slow and boring by those expecting more. But to those willing to give it a chance, there's very little like it out there.

9/10