Usually, even when you’re dealing with a really talented young writer/director, their debut feature film only serves as an indication of their potential—a promise of what they might achieve once they get a little more seasoning and the support of the film industry. Then there’s Robert Eggers’ first feature film, The Witch, which arrives on the scene fully-formed, fully-realized, and completely confident about what it is and what it’s trying to do. This movie is well-made, authentic to the period in which it’s set, and dark and creepy as hell.
The Witch is about a family from 1600s New England who get ejected from their community because their father questions the local church’s authority and won’t back down when he’s brought in front of the townsfolk. Given their banishment, they set up a small farm on the edge of the woods—a perfect place to live if you want to draw the attention of the devil-worshipping witch who lives in the wilderness just beyond. First their baby gets abducted and sacrificed, and then, once they all start pointing fingers at each other over that, an escalating series of creepy events take place that eventually culminate in the members of the family being at each other’s throats to the degree of murderous insanity. To make matters worse, the younger siblings have started talking to the family’s goat, Black Phillip, who may or may not be the Earthly form of Satan.
One of the big reasons that the film is such a success is its focus. There are only a handful of characters here—basically the family of 7, the goat, and what brief glimpses we get of the witch—and nearly all of the action takes place on the small farm, so every character gets an appropriate amount of spotlight and every performer gets an appropriate amount of time to show off their talents. There’s no discernible fat in the story either. The film is just a hair over an hour and a half long, and every scene informs us about the characters and pushes their conflicts forward in some way. The narrative builds up to a climax, it deals with the consequences of that climax, and then it ends. It doesn’t give you the time to get bored, to shift in your seat, to think about what you might have done differently, and in that respect it becomes a completely immersive experience.
The fact that the filmmaking is top-notch also adds to the immersion. The scenery here is stark, the landscape cold and unforgiving, and it’s all shot with an old Hollywood aesthetic involving enough long takes and dolly shots to bring to mind the work of Steven Spielberg. There are things done with shadows and fire here that are just beautiful to look at, images that will stick with you. The Witch’s cinematography is the sort that should be awarded. Mostly, you get sucked in by its writing though. Immediately a tone of horror is set by a scene of disturbing nudity and baby mutilation, and then we pull completely back from the film’s supernatural elements and dive head-long into family drama, only getting back into the crazy stuff after a slow-burn build. Without those first disturbing scenes a lot of the family stuff we sit through might have played as slow, period-drama, but with them everything takes on a color of tension and dread, allowing the film to captivate as it goes on.
Thematically there’s a lot for viewers to chew on here. The Witch digs into matters of sin and temptation, and the constant struggle of trying to be a good person in the face of the destructive urges that constantly bubble up in our minds thanks to our baser impulses. This movie really digs into sexual shame. Here bodies exist solely to make us uncomfortable, to engage us in inappropriate titillation that ultimately paints human sexuality as being a dirty, deviant thing. Early on in this film the father of the family remarks, “We will conquer this wilderness. It will not consume us,” and this bold declaration is ultimately used to reinforce what small specks men are in regards to nature, as well as how it was his pride and ego that ultimately led to all of his suffering. The Witch does what every great horror movie should. It sets a mood, establishes feelings of tension, dread, and eventually complete despair, and it does so while completely rooting itself in the quagmire of human wickedness.
Even given all that good stuff, the real reason this movie works so well is that Eggers found the perfect group of actors to bring the world he created to life and to deliver the emotionally-charged material he put on the page. Ralph Ineson is so good and brings so much weight and authority to his role as the father that you’ll believe he’s not an actor but a time-traveling early American Puritan who doesn’t even know he’s in a movie. Relatively, Kate Dickie gets little to do as the mother, but she does get one huge scene where her character reaches the limits of what she can endure and melts down, and she’s so committed in the moment that you look her in the eyes and you believe that she’s completely lost it. This woman is scary.
The real standouts of the film are the middle children played by Anya Taylor-Joy and Harvey Scrimshaw though. Taylor-Joy anchors the film as the eyes that we see everything through and she does a great job, even with the pressure of having to emote as Eggers’ camera is continually shoved into her wonderfully unique face for closeups. Scrimshaw shows great range for his age, really shining in scenes where he has to play being seduced, or possessed. The kids who play the younger siblings (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson) should be recognized too, as they’re super annoying and super creepy when they’re on screen, chanting and singing satanic gibberish, and they really add to how much you believe in that evil goat. Black Phillip steals the movie. Just look into that goat’s smug eyes and try to deny that he’s the ultimate manipulator. Everyone in this movie is completely committed to making everything they do seem believable, and everyone is wildly successful as far as that goal is concerned, even as they’re asked to deliver mouths full of complex, period dialogue.
Probably the coolest thing about The Witch is that it’s so goddamned disturbing. The late scene where a crow pecks at the mom’s boob as she cackles hysterically while hallucinating that she’s suckling her dead baby is the best scene of 2016 so far. Something pretty damned crazy is going to have to come along to top it. Honestly, if you appreciate artfully made movies, then you’re going to love The Witch. If you’re expecting the typical kind of horror movie that usually gets played in the multiplexes you’re going to hate it though, and seeing as it was nonsensically given a wide release in suburban multiplexes all over the country, this weird movie is going to be on the receiving end of a lot of hate from basics who bought a ticket for it not expecting anything so astoundingly awesome. Don’t believe the mundane when they start talking bad about this one. Those people don’t know what they’re talking about.
