Sundance Shocker The Witch an Early Breakout

There's plenty of excitement at Sundance this year and there are always some surprise films that no one was expecting that seem destined to bust loose and become full fledged pop culture phenoms. It's becoming more and more dependable that a good percentage of Sundance discoveries are in the horror genre, with this year proving to be no exception. One of the first films to generate real heat is The Witch.

Directed by Robert Eggers, The Witch evokes both Kubrick and Bergman, with a setting of Puritan New England, prior to the infamous 1692 Salem trials, with a colonial family living on a remote forest farm. Dark forces gather as food grows scarce, a disappearance occurs and a sinister presence grows near.

Here's the skinny from Variety:

"A fiercely committed ensemble and an exquisite sense of historical detail conspire to cast a highly atmospheric spell in 'The Witch,' a strikingly achieved tale of a mid-17th-century New England family’s steady descent into religious hysteria and madness. Laying an imaginative foundation for the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials that would follow decades later, writer-director Robert Eggers’ impressive debut feature walks a tricky line between disquieting ambiguity and full-bore supernatural horror, but leaves no doubt about the dangerously oppressive hold that Christianity exerted on some dark corners of the Puritan psyche. With its formal, stylized diction and austere approach to genre, this accomplished feat of low-budget period filmmaking will have to work considerable marketing magic to translate appreciative reviews into specialty box-office success, but clearly marks Eggers as a storyteller of unusual rigor and ambition."

Count me in.

More news as it breaks!