The Witch Review

"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"

Back in 1999, I recall seeing The Blair Witch Project and shortly after witnessing it I went away with my family to our family cabin immersed in the deep woods of northern Wisconsin. The environment I would have normally considered to be peaceful instead felt alive as I went near it. Not only alive, but evil. I could hear movement in every direction, as if something was lurking in the shadows. I would stare into the darkness and something sinister would stare back. The week was uneventful, but I never felt comfortable.

Seventeen years later and on the very same day I witnessed the new film The Witch, I get a text from my mother talking about that cabin and the land that surrounds it. It has been many years since I have been there, over a decade since the property was sold. I was transported back to the way the wind whipped through the trees, the way you could practically feel the crunch of the leaves as someone or something walked on them nearby. It was like I could hear the movement all over again, even from the comfort of my suburban home. I am staring into the darkness again. Something sinister is staring back.

I am not comfortable.

The Blair Witch Project was so real to people that part of the allure of the film upon its release was the notion that it may have actually been found footage. This is before the sub-genre had become so widespread to the point of being numb to the technique, when you could actually sell an audience on the realism of a hand held camera and raw, low budget filmmaking. I try to not let the found footage flood that I have since drowned in over the years bother me and remember a time when I, too, was horrified by just how real that film felt. When the terror dripped down onto me like the tears of Heather Donahue. I was aware from the beginning that the movie was fiction, but I knew people who truly were convinced that what they were seeing was fact. 

I'm not comparing the two films, they are completely different in style and absolutely unrelated in substance. I am merely reminded so deeply and profoundly of the way I felt all those years ago. The Witch takes place in the 1600's and at the very start of the film we see a family of Puritans that are being banished from their community. They must pack their things and live their lives away from the other settlers, outside the safety of the erected walls. With their devout faith and love for each other, they start life anew on their own, a home and a farm surrounded by the eerie calm of the woods. 

The craziest thing about the film is that it shouldn't feel so real. Not on paper at least. A story taking place 400 years ago involving the supernatural and yet I was affected by the realism in a way I never could have expected. The aspect ratio of The Witch is 1.66:1, which makes the image slightly more boxed in than full widescreen and the result is just a bit more claustrophobic, a bit more intimate. The imagery and the atmosphere created by director Robert Eggers is already designed to make you feel a little pressure in your chest and quite literally tightening up the frame only enhances the effect. The performances are incredible and their execution of Old English dialogue feels so spot on, and the lighting and musical score work together to fill every inch of your body with dread and unnerve the audience until we can't take anymore. The string instruments slice through our ears with a high pitch shrill and the flickering light of the candles is enough to make what we are seeing feel wrong, like we are flies on their wall and we shouldn't be allowed into their world. I could barely blink because every frame carried so much attention to detail with it, and I would imagine that revisits will be vastly rewarding and only enhance the experience, which is hard to believe because the first time through I am left believing The Witch is one of the finest horror films in a long, long time.

I have a complicated, sometimes ugly relationship with religion and my brief experience dealing with Catholicism first hand is something that lingers with me years later. I was blown away by the way The Witch transcended being merely a "scary movie" and served as an exploration into the history of religion and the obsessive dedication from those leading a life driven by it. This film is darker than dark, bleaker than bleak, and you can practically feel Satan's breath on every frame, even the moments that are seemingly inconsequential, though the brilliance of The Witch is that nothing is. Every shot, every camera angle, every word spoken and everything not said but felt is essential. This picture, a horror film released in the middle of February, is an absolutely astonishing masterpiece that feels destined for classic status.

I can't stop thinking about the way pure evil hangs over every second of The Witch. The way it preys on the fears and weaknesses or each member of the family makes my soul ache. Robert Eggers hasn't merely arrived with this shockingly ingenious debut film, he has kicked the door in and announced himself as the ultimate hope for taking the horror genre in new, jaw dropping ways that feel especially invigorating given the current landscape of what audiences have come to expect. Another Saw sequel or a lazy Purge effort. A beat up basket full of tropes that are sprinkled upon so many films each year, resulting in a constant stream of recycled and uninspired storytelling. The Witch knows how to build tension by being terrifyingly patient and wait for just the right moment to break you, how to cast a spell on you and make you wonder about the motivations of God or the overwhelming power of the Devil.

The shadows of the trees dance ever so gently across the windows tonight, and while I can't look out at the density of those woods I used to visit, I can still picture the never ending darkness and hear the piercing sound of silence being shattered by one branch breaking in the distance. I see nothing but at the same time, everything. Something is out there, watching. A chill flutters down my spine. I am not comfortable. 

The Witch is a meticulously crafted work of art, like an intoxicating blend of the themes of a Bergman classic through the lens of Tarkovsky delivering horrors like those Kubrick unleashed in The Shining. Seriously, it's that good. 

It's fucking delicious, and I want to live deliciously. 

5/5