A+

Modern horror classic.

I thought this was great and incredibly unnerving - the sense of atmosphere and dread that builds is incredibly impressive and the last half hour is terrifying. The cinematography is gorgeous and the score is haunting, and all of the performances are great. Anya Taylor Joy is particularly fantastic - delivering a breakout performance. A-

Exiled from a plantation because of his particularly strict understanding of Puritanism, English pilgrim William (Ralph Ineson), his severe wife Katherine (Kate Dickie), and their five children, including eldest daughter Thomasin (a luminous Anya Taylor-Joy), set out into the wild to find a new home. They build a farmstead adjacent to a vast forest, but their optimism rapidly disintegrates, particularly after infant Samuel mysteriously vanishes while in the care of Thomasin. Wavering patriarch William insists a wolf is the culprit, but an early scene contradicts him and provides no space for uncertainty: we glimpse a witch in a red cape spiriting through the wood with the babe, then covering herself with his blood and crushed bone before floating toward the moon.

It is a bold, frightening, and grotesque scene characteristic of the austere, expectation-defying power of The Witch, a masterful film imbued with Washington Irving-esque flair for early American nightmares. It conjures an incredible sense of doom and dread by removing any safety net for its characters, particularly Thomasin, coming of age, discovering her sexuality, and ideal for scapegoating. Between the otherworldly evil obscured by the trees and the entirely human cauldron of suspicion on the farm (where any deceit, doubt, or resentment is instantly magnified by isolation and piety), there is no safe harbor, and the small plantation, let alone England, is a lengthy journey away. In untamed 1630 New England, no one can hear you scream, and this dynamic is bolstered by a cacophonous non-melodic score and an intense attention to realism extending to art direction, costume design, and intricately antiquated dialogue partly drawn from seventeenth-century textual sources. The resulting illusion is a vivid one: it is as if we are staring through a portal into the actual (elemental, tormented) past rather than just watching a skillful reenactment. The audience is deeply conscious of how alien this 386-year-old environment is, yet also entirely immersed in the characters' superstitious worldview and day-to-day strife. The film then registers as a fright-film variation on the sobering epilogue of Barry Lyndon: "It was in the time of Cotton Mather the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; man or woman, Puritan or Satanist, they are all equal now. In damnation."

A

Just came back from the theater. This film is the definition of unsettling. I need to collect my thoughts, but this was very, very good.

Definitely deserves the praise. Great score music, great cinematography, and fantastic performances (including a breakout turn by Anya Taylor-Joy). Great atmosphere and mood. I probably only understood 60% of what was spoken due to the old English dialect (it was mostly hard to understand the parents at times, I understood the kids better) but I got the gist of what was said. This movie is refreshingly different and feels so organic. The attention to detail in the time and setting is superb. I didn't find it very scary but there are some tense scenes for sure. I found one scene in particular quite unsettling to watch. Loved the ending, which just cinched the deal for me. This is a fascinating and uncompromising descent into madness that I haven't been able to get out of my head.

Grade: 9/10 (A-)

Might go up to an A on another viewing.

THE WITCH

It wasn't exactly a true horror film for me. It was some form of historical slightly scary drama film. I actually did like it overall even though it was a very dreary film to watch. I did like the costume design. Caleb's white jacket was pretty cool. Probably make for some nice cosplay. I enjoyed the authentic feel they gave the film with the dialogue and the old New England presentation in terms of the village they left and the land they built on. I think the film was a bit too long and not scary enough for my taste but I did like it for what it was.

Grade - B

Too long? At an hour and a half? I personally thought the time flew by and it could have been longer.

Okay, it felt long for me.

I didn't feel its running time at all. Completely absorbing. Every shot is intriguing and unsettling. The acting is top notch. I was at first struggling with the dialogue but it worked for me. It made me feel like I was actually transported to that time and place and was watching something I shouldn't be watching. I'm surprised it had the balls to go through with its premise and deliver those incredible final 15 or so minutes, which were just breathtaking and chilling. A-

black phillip 4 prez

I love The Witch's commitment to full-on period stylings. I usually can't be botthered with the supernatural nonsense, but this was the exact right way to sell it. I also liked that the film was presented as (almost) a locked-room mystery and that the actors were essentially unknowns. It all had a very Shakespearean feel to it. A gloriously uncharacteristic horror movie that must have had the scream queen fans pulling out their hair with callow boredom. Maybe they'll like the cash-in sequel better:
The VVitch 2: Thomasin Returns to the Colony. *A*

I actually quite liked it, glad I decided to see it as the trailers didn't interest me. I found the performances very good and as opposed to cheap scares the movie gets under your skin from the actual story and atmosphere. I don't really know if I liked the ending though.

I need to see this...

Like, tomorrow.

Best sentence in the thread.

Six minutes in we see a witch murder a baby and use his blood to grease her broom. The film is never once trying to be ambiguous about it.

Agreed, except that it's not that fine of a distinction. I absolutely could have believed it was just some mad old woman of the woods.

As to the ending, I went for something along the lines of your explanation of it being a hallucination brought on by PTSD.

Yeah, we only got up to the abduction/killing scene before my friend wanted to bail.

Seeing that filled me w/ such dread (and being over-tired) -- I didn't object.

Will have another go at it w/ someone else this weekend.

This.

Some believe the twins are burning in the fire at the end, causing them all to levitate. Which makes sense as we never see what happens to them.

I'm planning to see this again Tuesday and I'm very excited about that.

Now this is what Crimson Peak should have been. A creepy, atmospheric, horror/period piece. I might not have loved as much as most do, but I can't deny that alot of it is very well done. I really dug the moody score here which only added to the overall dreary atmosphere of the film. The performances are good, although I did find the twins pretty annoying. The last 15 minutes was quite effective and easily the best part of the movie.

This was relatively interesting, but I did not love it. It was a very small and self contained story, which I appreciated. And the language was not hard to understand at all. There was something about it that seemed to lack momentum. And it suffered from typical "really unintelligent protagonist syndrome" which made it hard to identify with any of the characters. I really wanted to slap the little sister. Not very scary either. But it held my attention and was relatively interesting, I guess it is just not my cup of tea.

C+

P.S. Kate Dickie has been typecast. Can't believe she's only 44, she looks 60.

The Witch sets up a great atmosphere. The imagery is striking, the music is haunting, the scenes are always lonely and isolating. A young boy acts as the responsible one in the family to combat his father's stubbornness and his mother's grief. Everybody except Tomlinson puts on a brave face and goes head on into this struggle against nature and whatever else may be lurking in the woods.

But there's a big problem when your 90 minute movie feels half an hour too long. The movie runs in circles forever before delivering an unsatisfying and somewhat silly ending. The accents are so rough that I could have definitely used subtitles in some parts, but what I did hear was always a variation of "lord praise be to thee, keep thy devil out" "youre a witch! Im not a witch!" "more praying blah blah blah" "yeee a witch!!!". Killing off Caleb was a big mistake as he was the only one keeping the story moving along. The father takes responsibility for the situation eventually, but only after half of his kids are dead. Tomlinson is a scapegoat, but she certainly does herself no favors and does side with the devil in the end, proving her accusers right in a way. And then she flys! Lord help us all, yee are the only to save us from the deevil which really does lurk in our back yard.

The Witch

It is a very well made, spooky film. The atmosphere is gripping. The attention to detail and commitment to dialogue, make-up, production design and so on, is sensational and like no other period film I've seen. Very well researched and compiled, looking very much like a passion project for Eggers. The performances by all are just brilliant, particularly Anya Taylor-Joy. And I loved what it says about the people of that time with regards to their beliefs. But despite a simmering eeriness and uncertainty, it does not quite hit the mark in terms of laying on the fear, and although it is already a lean 90 minutes, it does ever so slightly dawdle when haste is required. In one of the first scenes, a witch steals Jacob and mashes him up, which is shockingly terrifying, and later when the witch is drinking the goat's blood, it is very scary. But while the intervening scenes are intriguing for their sheer authenticity and circumstance, they don't quite satisfy and/or live up to the film's already quite high reputation. The Witch deserves a lot of accolades, but a lack of scares convinces me that "best film of the year" is not one of them.

B+

Wow, great writing! Who do you have writing your reviews now?

You really think so? Aww. You sweetie. Thanks.