As a child, I hated horror movies. This should be expected of a child, but compared to other children, I was a real chicken. As I would grow up however, I started to become pretty fond of horror movies. It became fun to get scared and I’ve developed an appreciation for how horror movies are made, specifically to frighten the living daylights out of their audience. I absolutely adore films like The Shining, The Babadook and The Conjuring. Recently however, I feel that horror films are becoming stale. Don’t get me wrong, there are still great films out there that bring the word of “horror” to justice, like 2017 It. But I feel like horror movies nowadays are trying too hard to scare the audience. A popular trope that shows that and is in about every horror flick out there, would be the overuse of jumpscares. I find them to be a cheap way to scare the audience, when a much better way would be to keep tensions high for the audience, letting the dread and fear crawl right up their skin. A good recent example of doing horror films like this, and the review for today, is 2016 The Witch, (or The VVITCH as seen in the marketing material) directed by Robert Eggers. Huh . . . fitting that my first movie review for October is a horror movie.
Story
The story takes place in 1630 and follows a pilgrim family who has been banished from their village, on suspicion of being cursed. As the family retreats to their new home in the woods, they soon become stalked by a witch living in said woods. Over the course of the film, this extremely religious family and their relationship slowly falls apart. Because of this, The Witch could also be considered a drama. You are experiencing this family that is being torn apart and eventually turns against each other, all because of this supernatural force that they themselves cannot fully explain. It’s honestly hard to watch this fall out occur, and I love it.
Horror movies usually do not have this kind of family drama. In horror movies where a group is being stalked by a monster, that group is usually just a group of friends. However, this is not to say that there were never horror movies that focused on a family. Popular examples are Poltergeist and the aforementioned The Conjuring. But here in The Witch, this focus on the family is the best I’ve seen in a while. There is also this unrelenting sense of dread throughout the film. I fell the film was also very well researched, at least to my knowledge. The characters speak in an Old English language and their clothing, along with the house they are living in, looks authentic for the time period.
Characters
At first glance, the characters in The Witch, can seem a bit basic. But as you get to know them and begin to piece things together during the movie, they turn out to be much more complex characters. Out of the main cast, the characters that stick out the most are Thomasin the eldest daughter, Caleb the middle son, and William the father. Not only are they the most interesting characters in the whole film, but the actors that portray these characters provide an amazing performance. Especially Caleb’s actor Harvey Scrimshaw, who is an amazing child actor and there is one scene that he is in that chilled me to the core. William and Thomasin, however, are probably the most complex characters in terms of writing. The actions they take during the events of the film, although questionable, makes sense when real thought is put into it. The film does not explain everything however, which may be a good thing or a bad thing to some. I’m not saying there are any plot holes concerning characters, but you probably will have to give this film a second viewing to get the full picture. Especially since the characters speak in Old English, which although it is historically accurate, it can be hard to follow at some points, so I recommend subtitles. Additionally, I do like how the director does not spoon feed the audience all the information needed to understand the film because it is so satisfying to learn everything on our own. However, even if you watch The Witch in a single viewing, you’ll still find it a delightfully horrifying movie.
Sound Design
The score in The Witch is perfect for a horror film. You may of notice that I changed the title of the section from “Music” to “Sound Design.” This is because there really aren’t any songs in the film, besides for one during the credits. But oh my goodness, the score is so tense. In some scenes, the music does a terrific job of building tension, it just builds, and builds, and builds. Not only is the score good at building tension, but also at keeping the audience on edge.
Final Thoughts
The Witch is an utterly terrifying, yet well made horror film. It is well researched and tells a simple story, yet it weaves together such deep characters with the theme of religion. All of this, coupled with a strong score, creates a horror film that will keep people awake at night. I should add, if you are a very religious person, you’re most likely not going to like this film. I myself am religious, and there were some scenes that were hard to watch. But, if you also love horror films like I do, definitely give The Witch a watch. This film is available for streaming on Netflix.
Ramblings and Reviews 