THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
The scariest thing about adulthood is that your family won’t recognize you like they used to.
PLOT
The Witch takes place in 1630s New England and follows a family banished from a Puritan settlement over a religious dispute and must build a farm near a secluded forest. The family includes: The patriarch William, his wife Katherine, teenage daughter Thomasin, preteen son Caleb, fraternal twins Mercy & Jonas, and infant son Samuel. During a period of settling into what must be their new home, Samuel goes missing under Thomasin’s care, being killed by a witch that uses his body for ointment. When the time passing since that incident, Katherine weeps for her loss. During a hunt, Caleb questions if his brother will go to Heaven despite not being baptized, only for his father to change the conversation by revealing he traded Katherine’s silver cup for hunting supplies. Since he didn’t tell his wife, she chooses to blame Thomasin for misplacing it, as an excuse to lash out for Samuel’s disappearance. Every other day, the twins play with their black goat Billy who they believe talks to them. One night, they overhear their parents possibly starving with the minimum amount of cash to fend for themselves, making William consider sending Thomasin to serve for another family. When Thomasin & Caleb check on an animal trap in the forest the next morning, their dog Fowler chases a hare and the eldest son follows. But the presence of the hate causes the horse to panic in which Thomasin is knocked out upon landing on the ground. When she wakes up, she finds her way back home by following her father’s voice. Katherine would berate her for losing another brother under her watch, but Williams defends her daughter by admitting he sold the cup. As he’s lost in the woods, Caleb does find Fowler disemboweled, only to then encounter a witch disguised as a seductive young woman who emerges from her novel and kisses him. By the time he finds his back home, he comes back naked, delirious & ill. As William tries to help him recover, Katherine immediately suspects it to be witchcraft. Caleb would then die after having a violent convulsion, vomiting an apple and proclaim his love for Jesus Christ. The twins accuse Thomasin of practicing witchcraft due to how she taunted them for talking them to talk to Black Philip. This only paved the way for the eldest child to accuse them since they were the ones talking to the goat. Angered of all the children’s behavior, Williams decides to lock all three in the goat house. In the middle of the following night, the children wake up to the witch eating the blood of a nanny goat. As they panic of what they’re witnessing, Katherine hallucinates of her sons coming home, only for reality to reveal her breasts are being pecked by a raven. By the next morning, William finds the twins are missing, the goat house destroyed and all goats except Philip eviscerated. He blames Thomasin for all that’s happened due to finding blood in her hands. He tries attacking her until Philip gores him to death. Katherine wakes up unhinged and blames Thomasin as well for all that’s happened and tries strangling her. In self defense, she kills her mother with a bill hook. Alone, she urges Philip to speak to her and he does, asking her if she wants to live deliciously. Promising to give her a desired life, he convinces her to follow him into the woods, remove her clothes and signs her name in a book. The film ends with her doing all this and joining a coven’s bonfire, and ascend above the trees to embrace the darkness.
THOUGHTS
If there is anything right about horror, they always find a way to make a new experience for every generation of audiences. Writer Robert Eggers understood this and in his directorial debut, he delivers in making another one that’s becoming unforgettable for everyone who discovers it. When you get put in an unfamiliar time period where Linda Muir’s costume design puts us in a time warp, Jarin Blaschke creating cinematography where the terror can come in any direction in any direction possible and Mark Korven providing an eery score, it’s hard to not get creeped out of what’s gonna occur. Witches are not a joke when we talk about their cultural impact and this film backs it up in showing how terrifying. They’re so deadly to encounter because their actions are done out of selfishness rather than the gods they pray to since they kill to maintain youthful beauty. So seeing it false hope when poor Caleb dies after already killing a baby for ointment. The fact that the witch is hardly seen to the point where the whole family is doubtful on the origin of their crisis, it creates this powerless atmosphere, setting up the theme and wondering if loving God is worth it when you go through so much physical and mental punishment almost daily. This is what the central family is going through and sadly, we see them fall apart like a Roman Empire. Ralph Ineson shows William as one who wants act humble, but it is his extremism that gets the best of him and results in him & his family being isolated from the world. Time after time, he tries to be headstrong but each setback he’s not prepared for gives him doubt on if being religious was worth it. In his case, it honestly wasn’t because he couldn’t save himself or anyone else when trying his absolute best. As for Kim Dickens, she too does a great job in making Katherine as a matriarch thinking with logic. She wants to support her husband and his beliefs, but wants to think of the long haul in order to support the kids, which is very realistic to consider in their predicament. And once the infant Samuel was taken from her, it set things in motion for her all hope would be lost. She didn’t hesitate blaming Thomasin even though it wasn’t her fault because you can’t expect losing a baby in seconds playing Peekaboo; Her action to guilt trip and to confront her daughter the way she did is relatable because she doesn’t know what to believe and there isn’t enough proof of her daughter’s innocence. It can be a joke that Jonas & Mercy were the true villains, but the pair of Lucas Dawson & Ellie Grainger make it as if they’re at fault since they choose to play with something they don’t understand. Despite their youth clarifying they don’t know better, it’s still their decision to instigate with Thomasin really put the family in more tension than any of them can barely tolerate. So when they are swept away by the witch by night, it’s hard to feel remorse for those poor children. Harvey Schrimshaw does a great job showing Caleb as a child who actually tries to be cautious with curiosity. Since he’s growing up with his dad’s beliefs, he wants to make sure he can live with content instead of regret. I honestly felt bad for him the most when he dies because he walks into danger without knowing it and his dying words being only proclamation of love for Jesus Christ, you just wish it would save him rather than kill him. While each family member fell so hard from Grace, it’s hard or deny the only one that was able to gain something out of it was Thomasin. Anya Taylor Joy gave a stunning breakout performance as Thomasin for presenting her as one who wants to live good but is surrounded by so much bad she’s not sure how long she can maintain those morals. Add the fact she’s at the age of puberty, similar to her brother Caleb who couldn’t resist staring at her cleavage, it leaves her very conflicted on what she wants deep down. Her definition of living deliciously was to live with control since she barely had enough to defend herself from her mother. We want to be happy for her to have a new lease on life she can enjoy, but you just wish the dark side wasn’t the solution. This movie is fantastic in its own right, but even good stuff like this had some confusing moments story wise. Like in all honesty, Thomasin is cleaning her dad’s stained clothes, yet Caleb chooses to get water from the same downstream for his mom. If witchcraft didn’t kill this family, germs would. William’s a good dad in wanting to search for Caleb immediately when he’s missing, but he’s not gonna have enough candlelight to do it overnight based on how poor they are. And it wasn’t a smart move for him to keep Philip alive either. If the kids are talking to the goat and isn’t sure if it’s true, he should’ve just eliminated the threat by killing the goat. Other than that, it’s still fascinating to get through. In short, The Witch will live on as a horror classic for having you question morality & reality from beginning to end. If folklore is up your alley, this film will be worth your while.
Comentarios