The Witch is a movie about an English family living in New England that leaves their plantation due to a disagreement about religious beliefs. The father, William, and his wife, Katherine and four kids: Thomasin, Caleb, and twins Mercy and Jonas move to the edge of a forest to start a new life. While living near the forest, they build a cabin and start a farm and have a fifth child, Samuel. One day Thomasin, the eldest daughter, is watching Samuel. While playing peek-a-boo, Samuel suddenly vanishes. Thomasin briefly sees some grass and branches move so she can only assume that whatever took Samuel, went into the forest. Once Samuel goes missing, strange things start happening around the family farm, including Caleb suddenly going missing. As time goes on tension starts to mount among the family members because they don't know what happened to Samuel or Caleb. Were they taken by a wolf or something much, much worse?
What really worked for me with The Witch was the way the director built up the tension. Some times it would be the intense film score that would just get under your skin with its haunting strings. Other times it was just the way the scenes were shot. The camera would just linger on one thing and you never knew what was going to happen. While watching the movie my body would just get tighter and tighter during scenes and then they would just end only to have it start all over again with the next scene.
The performances and dialog were also spectacular in The Witch. The twins, Mercy and Jonas, were exactly what you thought two little kids on a farm would be like, cute and curious about all things but also absolutely annoying at times. They also may have been the creepiest twins in a movie since The Shining. The father, William, struggles with trying to keep his families faith up while their farm struggles to survive as well as the disappearance of his kids. In every scene you can see the anguish on his face and you can tell it is weighing him down. The true star of the film though is Thomasin. She constantly sees her parents struggling to deal with the loss of their youngest child while trying to manage four other kids. At night she hears her parents arguing and contemplating selling her to help on another farm. She also has to deal with the burden of being the one who was last with Samuel before he disappeared. Another standout performance is Black Philip the goat. When you watch the movie you just feel that something is not quite right with that goat. The dialog in the film was Old English and really helped bring you into the atmosphere of life on a farm in 17th Century New England.
If I had to find one thing to complain about with The Witch, it would have to be the ending. I feel like the movie should have ended about 5 minutes sooner and it would have left the audience discussing what they think actually happened to this family. The ending shows just a bit too much and kind of takes away from the tone of the film up until that point.
Overall I thought The Witch was fantastic. My body was constantly tightening up in anticipation of what was going to happen. There were multiple times where I wanted to look away from the screen in fear but couldn't because I wanted to see what was going to happen. The film score, the performances, and the direction were all spectacular and helped create one of the most stressful movie experiences I have ever had. If you like horror movies that don't need gore and jump scares to cause the audience to be afraid, then The Witch is for you.
4 Stars
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