The Witch (2016)

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Acting, dialogue, sets, cinematography, and editing were all great. One star given for each of those, so 5/10, but the entire plot is awful, and i cant go any higher than that.I was not expecting or hoping for a super scary horror movie, so thats not why I dont like it. It is very intense, but its really stupid and by the end, just became goofy.So as we all know, witches arent real, and the religious persecution of women believed to be witches is a result of cult-like think and fear and possibly mental illness of those who chose to claim they were witches. This movie, however, asserts that witches are 100% real. Okay.. so lets suspend our disbelief. It is no longer the real world but a world where actual satanic witches who act through satan with magical evil powers exist. Even once you accept that, the behavior of Thomassin is still completely illogical. It turns out she was right that the goat was satan. She sees her whole family possessed and killed and kills her own mother in self defense. So she then decides to join the witches. What??? She wasn't a witch the whole movie. We saw that. We see it through Thomassin's own eyes. We saw that she didn't harm the baby - an actual witch did. She didn't harm Caleb - an actual witch did. She was an innocent party, not possessed, and instead was trying to help her family. Then suddenly at the recognition that her whole family was dead, she decides to join them and they all float in the air naked around a fire.I dont think that this young girl who was very plainly asserted to us to be a loving, faithful daughter who was wrongly blamed for someone else's wrongdoings would suddenly join the witches at the end.So if she actually was a witch throughout the whole movie, as it sometimes is suggested, then they shouldve made it more clear to Thomassin herself. If she noticed herself becoming evil, tried to fight it, but eventually embraced it, then thatd explain her actions. But that didnt happen. She felt innocent, she was innocent and knew it of herself, but she still became evil. Dumb.Also i would've liked more backstory on the witches themselves and a deeper insight into who they are, where they came from, and why they followed this path. Personally I think a movie with a similar tone but instead set in the real world wouldve been better. Instead of actual real witches, the family descends into madness and accuses each other of evil until they are all dead from paranoia and anger. Not some floating naked women and a goat. Or at LEAST if theyre going to choose the supernatural path, make it where Thomassin's actions fit within normal human behavior and not just random. It seemed like they didnt know how to end it any other way.It just felt silly to me.

A24 is fast becoming my go to studio for intruiging, and often under-rated horror movies, and The Witch fits the bill. This movie was really quite impressive in it's realism to the time it was set, so much so, you could honestly believe this story did happen. The characters were expertly portrayed, and all tragic but fascinating, so you actually are invested in what happens to them. The scares in this film are sparse but well-earned. Eggers spends most of this movie building tension so that the few scenes in which he wishes to terrify, he succeeds exceptionally. I went into this with high expectations and was not disappointed. The Witch is a dense, complex, and deeply unsettling movie, but because of that, it is truly brilliant.

At its roots, the horror genre attract us because it forces us to face our personal demons: this kind of terror coming from facing unknown monsters that are metaphors of our daily life struggles or fears strangely intrigues us. When horrors deal with religion though, they usually just use it as an excuse to make horned demons appear pretty much everywhere but The Witch is extremely different: we barely see any monster, violence is kept at a minimum and the terror usually comes in form of a terrible sense of unease. When this New England family is banished and forced to live in exile amidst the woods, we immediately see that their journey is doomed. The younger child, Samuel, disappears and it doesn't take long before each family member starts blaming each other until accusations of witchcraft and demonic possession arise. Not too differently from Carpenter's The Thing, The Witch focuses on the personal relationship between the cast members and their feeling of un trust that the father tries to sedate through prayers and sermons. The Witch rarely gives some answers, it keeps the viewer constantly wondering why some things happen, whether someone in the family has signed a path with the Devil or some evil force has simply decided to put its hands on the Abbot family. The more we watch, the more we're inclined to think someone in particular attracted the Witch of the Woods and we're left wondering until the bodies start piling up. The Witch isn't a movie for everyone though: the slow pace doesn't always help building up the suspense and more in general the screenplay asks the viewers to be patient and wait for the final climax. Those who are up to it though, will enjoy one of the creepiest and amazing horror movies of the past years.

This movie sucked. It had so much potential and then wasted it. I hate movies that ruin it with the ending. I hate loose ends and this movie had quite a few. Yuck.