We’ve been looking forward to The Witch for more than a year, and the dark Puritan horror film has finally been released and it’s definitely worth your time.
Filmed for about $3.5 million, The Witch has made almost $24 million in the five weeks it’s been in theaters.
The debut film of writer-director Robert Eggers, the story focuses on a Puritan family that’s banished from their community, thanks to the father’s stubborn refusal to obey the will of the plantation elders. Uprooted, the parents and their five children try to make a fresh start on an isolated farm near a dark, foreboding forest. Things go wrong very quickly. When their infant son vanishes under the care of eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya-Taylor Joy), the family caves in upon itself. Religion and fear haunt their every move, and despite her proclamations of innocence, Thomasin becomes the crucible of blame, especially from her bereft mother. Consumed with grief, the mother is played by the excellent Kate Dickie (Lysa Arryn on Game of Thrones), and when prayer fails to bring either restoration or comfort, she quickly looks to more immediate sources of accountability.
The Witch explores the thorny terrain between faith and fact, between delusion and spirituality.
Then there's Black Phillip.
I would have liked The Witch even more if it kept the question of the actual vs. the imagined a bit more in the unanswered shadows of the audience's imagination, and spent more time in psychologically murky middle ground. As it is, the film makes it pretty clear what's tangibly occurred.
But I loved The Witch, and it's a beautifully shot, almost Bergmanesque horror film of incredibly convincing and severe Puritan mood. As Thomasin, Joy carries the film on her narrow shoulders with tremendous skill as a young girl poised between the innocence of childhood and the pull of genuine darkness. If you like atmospheric horror that truly unnerves, Black Phillip cordially invites you to take a stroll in the woods.
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