Writer/director Robert Eggers astonishing, harrowing film barely qualifies for inclusion in this article, having been completed in 2014, shown around the world at film festivals throughout 2015, and receiving its DirecTV Cinema premiere weeks before its February 2016 wide release in theatres. On the edge of an ominous wilderness, a Puritan family banished from polite society due to their beliefs struggles to carve a living out of the soil. When William and Katherines newborn baby goes missing and their crops begin to wither, their inflexible, superstitious faith causes the family unit to begin to disintegrate as they turn on one another. And all the while, as a desperate, ordinary drama plays out on this barren, remote landscape, a real, genuine evil squats within spitting distance of their homestead, reaching out to muddy their spirits with blackened fingertips... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFrIWUdZz5E The first thing you notice about the movie is what a colossal achievement this production is: this is authentic seventeenth century dialogue, costume and manners, a portrait of a splintering family set four centuries ago that feels as real as if it were happening yesterday. The twenty-first century audience is used to dramatisations of overbearing religious mania in households, so theres no disconnect in seeing William and Katherines dour, devout devotion sour into irrational blame and anxiety. Its this familiarity that proves the most telling weapon in Eggers arsenal. We dont so much view The Witch as bear witness to a family tearing itself apart to leave the pieces as easy prey for the thing that lurks on their threshold. The protagonists are on the ragged edge, hopeless, on the brink of spiritual and emotional collapse. The remoteness of the location adds an odd element of claustrophobia to the sustained dread that permeates every word, every glance, every long shot of the impassable, primal forest. Every single actor here - including and especially the children - delivers a bravura, mesmerising performance, raw and gut-wrenching. This is a story born from nightmare, and Eggers never lets you forget it, malevolence pulsing from every frame until the final, unforgettable shot. The Witch doesnt just stick in your head it lives there, taking up residence in your reptile brain, stroking idly at the fight or flight instincts that keep us alive. Its a gruelling tour-de-force, foreboding and traumatic.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
