By Brett Blake THE WITCH is nearly a masterpiece. That’s not a word I use lightly, and I think it’s thrown around all too often in this age where many people are too quick to anoint a new movie the GREATEST(or WORST) OF ALL TIME. However, in this case, I’m comfortable embracing hyperbole; THE WITCH is an instant horror classic, a cerebral and enigmatic adult thriller that is beautifully constructed, shot, and acted, and which offers an intensity of mood and tone that is almost unparalleled in recent genre fare. The film chronicles a pious, devout family in 1630s New England who are cast out of their town - for reasons which remain mysterious - and are forced to settle in the wilderness. The family consists of the parents - William and Katherine (Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie) - and their five children: Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), young twins Jonas and Mercy, and newborn Samuel. When Samuel is abducted by a malevolent force in the woods, the family slowly begins to believe that witchcraft may be responsible. Writer/director Robert Eggers has crafted a masterful and frightening tale of the occult and familial breakdown. It is a classically shot and edited film, boasting gorgeously evocative and moody cinematography, and Eggers’ staging is precise, controlled, and effective. There is not a single wasted or superfluous moment to be found in here; everything is on screen for a reason, and just as a technical work, THE WITCH is superb cinema, the sort of film that begs you to just soak in its atmosphere. Eggers’ screenplay, though, is equally part of the reason the movie is so effective. The threat of something truly awful hangs over every interaction from the very start, and the script puts the fears of its characters in the foreground, fears that - in some ways - are still with us today: the fear of not being able to fully trust your own family, and the fear of something unknowably evil entering your life and causing extreme harm. The screenplay also doesn’t attempt to play coy - like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT did, for example - on the existence of the titular character. It’s no spoiler to say that she is introduced very early on in the story in such a shocking sequence that her presence then seeps into all of the movie’s dark corners and creates a palpable, pervasive feeling of dread. The movie’s four principal lead actors all deliver convincing and committed performances. The dialogue they are given by Eggers, surely period correct, is almost at a Shakespearean level of possible impenetrability, but the actors handle the difficult dialogue in ways that are always emotionally direct, which is key. Taylor-Joy, as the audience identification character, does a particularly great job of making us invest in her - and her family’s - situation. Pulling together the writing, photography, and acting is the absolutely phenomenal musical score by Mark Korven. It is a spectacular horror score, one filled with high, dissonant strings, effective moments of strange percussion, disturbing choral work, and an overall air of eeriness that perfectly complements the events transpiring on screen. One other point that needs to be hammered home is that THE WITCH is truly a frightening film, but perhaps not for the reasons one might think. It contains visceral, visual terrors, to be sure (including an early sequence that is one of the most disturbing and unnerving things I’ve seen in a long time), but where it is truly frightening is on an intellectual level. The movie - very wisely - understands that the fears we can conjure up in our minds are often far more potent and terrifying than anything that a film could ever explicitly show us. The movie is far more interested in putting you (the audience) in an uncomfortable headspace than it is in having things pop out of the screen to make you jolt. We, who supposedly live in a more enlightened age, look back upon the witchcraft scare in 17th century New England as a case of irrational superstition run amok, where zealotry and folklore combined to terrify the populace. That, in itself, is a frightening concept; the idea of people genuinely believing in the existence of hateful, disgusting old crones who consort with the Devil, who snatch babies into the night to be sacrificed, who brew sinister potions and cast malicious spells… that people could actually believe that was possible suggests a state of mind willing to go to great lengths to protect themselves against that perceived menace, and from that sprang a great amount of murder and atrocity. However, what makes THE WITCH a brilliant film is that it not only puts us fully inside that mindset of belief, and makes no apologies for it, but it also asks a question: what if the fears of these people are actually not unfounded in this case and the idea of witchcraft that terrifies them so much is actually real? Now a word of warning - THE WITCH is not packed with jump scares, it does not build to a bombastic, effects-heavy climax, and it is far more concerned with the psychological implications of what it’s showing you. All of that is to say that if you’re expecting some kind of roller coaster ride of a horror movie, this is not that. It is infinitely more complex, and it has genuine artistic and intellectual merit and ambition. It is a dark, dramatic period piece, first and foremost. So what keeps THE WITCH simply at near-masterpiece status instead of full-on masterpiece status? Perhaps only one additional sequence involving the titular character would have done it; short of that, I can think of nothing about the film that warrants a change. I was floored by the movie, and found it deeply troubling… though in the very best ways. It’s a primal, striking experience that is - as of this writing, anyway - the definitive cinematic depiction of witchcraft and those who live in fear of it.
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