August 14th 2018
Written by: Robert Eggers
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie
Budget: $3,500,000
Quote: "Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? A pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"
Trivia: The premise is based on America's first witch hysteria in colonial New England, set 62 years before the infamous "Salem Witch Trials" which occurred in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Witch is a beautiful film set in the late 1600s New England area. The film looks at seventh century witchcraft both real and imagined and the fears of the early Puritan New England settlers. The film does a great job of emphasizing the paranoia that existed at the time while including some truly disgusting scenes. The film is expertly crafted to both portray the 1600s while also emphasizing the fear and menacing aspects of the film. Shot using natural light and candles and with a score of discordant instruments the film has both a minimalist and surreal feel to it. The viewer is never quite sure what is real and what is an illusion. Perhaps, oxymoronically, both are correct.
The film begins with a family of seven being banished from their community for going against the religious rules and moral code of their community. While the father insist that he was standing up for the true religion, we never find out what the family's supposed crime was. This is one of many mysteries throughout the film. The family then moves to a cabin near woods and one day while their eldest daughter is playing peek-a-boo with their youngest, the baby is snatched up by someone in the woods. Later we see the baby cut and the innards smeared onto an older woman's body. The film moves forward a bit in time and the mother, played by Kate Dickie (Catherine Stark's sister in Game of Thrones... the one from the Eyre who was breast feeder he waaayyy to old son... yeah, she's crazy in this one too) spends her days crying while the father is in denial claiming it was a wolf that stole his child. The eldest daughter, Thomasin, is wracked with guilt and the two youngest twins spend their days being annoying little kids and talking to a goat named Black Phillip.
One day, Thomasin, the eldest son (Caleb), and their dog stole off to the woods to check traps in the forest. While their dog chases a rabbit, Thomasin falls off her horse knocking herself unconscious and Caleb follows the rabbit to a hut in the woods where he finds a really sexy witch lady who kisses him and brings him into the house. He returns to the house later bruised up and confused and found by Thomasin. Shortly thereafter he goes into a deep sleep. Later he wakes up screaming about "her" and the father pries an entire apple that has been inserted into his mouth. The youngest siblings, the twins (who look like little demons) claim that Thomasin is a witch and that it was her the has put a spell on Caleb and then they fall to the ground writhing. Caleb wakes up seeing a vision of God and immediately dies.
It is at this point that the film comes into its own. Most of us are familiar with the Salem Witch Trials and this film eerily has echos of that, although set almost a hundred years before that. Knowing how it ended for the twenty people determined to be withes in Salem, the future looks grave for Thomasin. How does one prove that oneself is not a witch? The mother's anger and grief are directed at Thomasin and even the father comes to believe that she has colluded with the devil. Thomasin, searching for an out, accuses the twins of conspiring with the devil the form of the farm goat. It's a reach, but confuses the father enough to where he locks them all up together with the goat at night. In the middle of the night, Thomasin wakes up to find the old witch who took her youngest brother drinking milk from the goat. She turns around laughing and the scene smash cuts to the next morning where there is blood everywhere and a hole has been torn into where the children were being jailed. Black Phillip, the goat then kills the father and afterwards Thomasin kills the mother in self-defense.
Alone, confused and desperate, Thomasin tries talking to Black Phillip who answers her. I won't go into what he says or what happens next, but it takes the film in a direction I never thought it would go at the beginning of the film. The trivia said they wanted to build on this part of the film more but didn't for other reasons. I'm glad they didn't otherwise I worry it would have become silly. It is perfect as it is. Weird enough but it doesn't cross the line into comical.
The film is a slow burn with nearly half the movie set to developing the characters and building on the mood of the film. However, the ending makes the wait all the more worth it. The scene where Caleb is dying is an especially intense scene. The characters emotions of fear, disgust, and sadness create an atmosphere where small coincidences have huge repercussions. Thomasin was the last with both boys before they were taken, she was the one who found Caleb, it is her that everyone looks to when Caleb says "her," also the twins being too young to know the full weight of their accusations makes the situation all the worse for Thomasin. To make matters worse, Thomasin has recently become a woman and we have the Puritanical fears of womanhood. The belief that women were more susceptible to the devil's is evidenced for them by Eve's seduction in the Garden of Eden making the apple that was in Thomasin's mouth all the more telling for her hyper religious parents.
There are other scenes that are just bizarre. While the children are locked away during the night, the mother is letting a crow bite at one of her nipples. I do not know the significance of this act or if she was under the spell of Satan or if the director just knew it was be intensely creepy, but it certainly made for an uncomfortable and confusing plot point.
Great acting all around. If you've seen Game of Thrones, you know Kate Dickie can do crazy, but the father also does a great job playing a man nearly ripped apart by his desire yet inability to keep his family safe. The Puritan focus on Satan in this world makes his task nearly impossible and it shows in the fear on his face and the anger in his voice. Then there's Anya Taylor-Joy who plays Thomasin. This is one of her first movie acting roles and she did a dynamite job as a young lady being attacked by everyone she loves showing the pain, betrayal, and fear that her character felt.
The film also hints at non-supernatural elements that might explain what happened. The corn is covered in Ergot, a bacteria that has effects similar to LSD and was thought to be a big reason during the Salem Witch Trials. Additionally, what the film really shows as a non-supernatural cause is simply the intense religious beliefs of the Puritans, their fear of others, and their constant worries that their pure country and religion would be spoiled by Satan and his followers. The movie is a case study in fanaticism as much as it is a look at seventeenth century witchcraft.
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