Summary:
Puritans, banished from their village, are beset by a witch.
My Thoughts:
It’s between this film and “Hereditary”; the two horror films that I consider to be the best of the decade (thus far, Eggers’ “The Lighthouse” is not far off).
What makes “The Witch” such a powerful horror film? In my opinion, it’s that the scariest thing to happen in the whole of the film happens in the last few minutes, leaving the viewer with a shocking image that has such dark and grim meaning behind it, that it’s nigh impossible not to be shaken and disturbed. I remember the first time I saw this film I thought it was great, and then I walked out of the theater and went about my day, but that final image kept creeping into my mind, infecting the dark corners of my room as I lay waiting for sleep. The implications of those last images are truly, in every sense of the word, horrifying, but more on that later; the rest of the film does an almost perfect job of building a world that feels infringed upon by evil on all sides, creating a place of apparent solace that is still rife with corruption. “The Witch” is about the infectious, parasitic, and sumptuous powers and allures of evil, and there’s nothing more horrifying than that.
“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously? Wouldst thou like to see the world?”
After William (Ralph Ineson, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”) accuses the fellow Puritans of his village of being false Christians for their unwillingness to spread the gospel beyond their walls, the Governor of the settlement banishes William and his family, which is comprised of William’s wife Katherine (Kate Dickie, “Prometheus”); his eldest daughter, whom is now of the age to marry, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy, “Thoroughbreds”); his preteen son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw); their two young children (if I’m correct, I think they’re twins) Mercy and Jonas; and a baby named Samuel. As the family tries to settle into the land, the baby Samuel goes mysteriously missing, and soon paranormal event begin to happen around them.
First and foremost, lets talk about the dialogue. There’s a title card that comes right after the end of the film which states something about how Eggers did a ton of research before writing this film, reading many letters and court transcriptions concerning witches in Puritan colonies (think the Salem Witch Trials- that sort of thing), and the card says that much of the dialogue was actually lifted from letters and transcriptions. That level of work that Eggers is willing to put into the realism elevates this film immensely. The dialogue rolls like poetry off the tongues of our actors, and, sure, the old English dialect might take a minute to get used to (maybe not, if you’re used to reading Dickens or Hawthorne or things from that lot), but it’s worth it in the end.
There are layers upon layers of horror in this movie, and Eggers does his best to make us feel all of those layers of horror. Not only has this family traveled to this land across an ocean from England, they’re banished by the only ones they know to go out further into the wilderness, where they have only a little time to sow crops for winter unless they starve. At the same time, they don’t know the land; the forest surrounding them is a labyrinth filled with creatures- wolves, they think, but perhaps something worse- and the ground beneath them is stony and unyielding. Hunting, which seems to be the only option for food, means venturing into that labyrinth, perhaps never to come out again, and when every member of the family is depended on for the sake of the family unit’s survival, venturing off into the wood doesn’t seem the best option. To make things worse, William is stubborn in refusing to return to the village to beg forgiveness, which could provide help if he could overcome his pride; Thomasin is of the age to marry and is being robbed of her chance for a better life. All of this is working against the family before the supernatural elements start to creep in, and when the witch starts her magic, that’s really when things start to get bad.
I love the insidious nature of the evil in this film. Almost immediately the accusations start to fly about what happened with Samuel. Was he really taken by something, or, perhaps did Thomasin do something to the child, after all, it was she who had watch over him when he went missing. Katherine sinks into despair; the rest of the family tries to find a way to cope and keep living, lest they don’t have enough food and die during the winter. The family unit starts to corrode and the only thing they have to cling to is their faith, which, as it turns out, is not enough to save them. Though we’re shown that the initial evil comes from outside the family unit (the witch stealing Samuel) are we really sure that we’re being shown an accurate picture of what happened; or, is Thomasin a reliable narrator? After all, when Thomasin and the other children are near the stream, Thomasin confesses that she brought Samuel into the wood and made covenant with the devil; but then, she soon recants. The unsettled, uncertain nature of even the grounds on which we base our presumptions again helps to elevate the horror of the film; we don’t know who is doing this or why or to what end or if it’s all just some horrible dream… until the end of the film. I know I’ve sort of speckled in spoilers throughout, but here I’m going to have to throw up a huge spoiler warning because I intend to discuss the last scenes.
SPOILERS!
In the end, Thomasin’s family lies dead, either by witchcraft, freak accident (attacked by the goat and then buried by firewood), or her own hand (she murders her mother with a trowel), and she remains alive. She walks into the house where Black Phillip begins speaking to her, firming the viewer’s belief that, indeed, there is witchcraft going on; indeed, the devil is after this family; and indeed, Thomasin has sold them all out for her benefit. Black Phillip asks her if she ”Wouldst like to live deliciously?” and Thomasin responds yes. The final scene is of Thomasin going out to the woods to join a satanic mass, and as she joins them she begins floating into the air, laughing gleefully, joyously, as if she’s never felt greater pleasure. THIS is what I’m talking about when I say that the last scene is the most horrifying part: Thomasin has been raised to be pure and know only goodness and God her whole life, and yet, she still feels the allure of evil, and when she finally gives into that allure she finds it satisfying. Is there anything more horrible than to have someone that is full of the purity and innocence of youth cast aside as all that if it were naught, and plunge headlong, gleefully into evil, corruption, and darkness? It’s not just that Thomasin goes over to the darkness; it’s the fact that Thomasin finds more joy in the darkness than she ever did in the light. That, to me, is a horrifying concept. The final shot, of Thomasin high in the trees, the camera pointing up at her, gives us a hint of the power she now feels.
Verdict:
This is a fantastic horror film with amazing direction, writing, themes, and acting. I’m not at all being hyperbolic when I say that this is easily one of the best horror films of the decade, even the millennium, thus far.
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