The Witch (2015) - Eggers' unsettling period-set debut creep-out

♥♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Horror of the Year

+ Best Debut Movie of the Year

 

This poster for Robert Eggers' The Witch lingers at the creepy qualities of a goat

 

17th century New England: An English immigrant family struggles to scrape together enough food and stick together, as a terrible event threatens to drive them apart.

The Witch is the feature debut of great writer-director Robert Eggers (The Tell-Tale Heart (2008), short), stylized on posters and its title credit as The VVitch and subtitled 'A New-England Folktale'. It is a handsomely shot (by Jarin Blaschke (I Believe in Unicorns (2014))), rich on atmosphere and thoroughly unsettling film about a Puritan family who take sin-awareness and self-blame one or two steps too far. It features powerful acting in all the major parts, SPOILER with young Harvey Scrimshaw (Oranges and Sunshine (2010)) as Caleb particularly incredible in his agonizing scenes leading up to his death. Measured in sheer negative power, these scenes are right up there with what Linda Blair went through for The Exorcist (1973), - and so I deeply hope that Scrimshaw is okay today.

Non-Westerners and people with little knowledge of Christianity will inevitably lose meanings and nuances in The Witch. My only criticism of it is about its incessantly oppressive tone, which is as heavy as to make the film at times near the outlandish. SPOILER But in light of its completely occult ending, this may also be fitting.

In any case The Witch is an original and excellent horror.

 

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Anya Taylor-Joy (Split (2016)) in Robert Eggers' The Witch

Watch an official trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 3 - 3.5 mil. $

Box office: 40.4 mil. $

= Huge hit

[The Witch premiered January 27 (Sundance) and runs 93 minutes. For lack of tax incentives there, the film had to be shot in Canada instead of New England, and a remote area of Ontario was chosen. Filming was accomplished only using natural light outside and candle lights inside. The film opened #4, behind holdover hits Deadpool and Kung Fu Panda 3 and newcomer Risen, to an 8.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its second week and grossed 25.1 mil. $ (62.1 % of the total gross.) The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Mexico with 3.4 mil. $ (8.4 %) and Brazil with 2.5 mil. $ (6.2 %). The film won the Directing Award at Sundance. The Witch is certified fresh at 91 % with a 7.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Witch?