Movie Review: “The Witch” is unnerving, atmospheric horror at its finest!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-yD_smDu7Q

MOVIE REVIEW: THE WITCH (R)

“The Witch” isn’t the kind of horror picture that’s interested in jolting you by way of the old “cat-jumping-on the window-sill” scare tactic. No, this frightening period piece is more along the lines of something like “The Babadook.” Don’t misconstrue that statement. Storywise, “The Witch” and “The Babadook” couldn’t be any more different from one another.

So where’s the connection? Pure style and rich subtext. Both films have an outer horror shell, but at their essence, they are really stories about a family in crisis. Granted, “The Witch” appears to dwell more in the realm of the actual horror genre than “The Babadook” does and when you see it, you’ll understand why.

“The Witch” opens in New England in 1630 and centers around a Christian family struggling to survive after relocating to a farm just outside a dense forest following banishment from their previous community. With very little money and very few possessions to call their own, all this family really has is each other, and even their unity is put to the test after an infant goes missing while under the supervision of Thomasin (Ana Taylor-Joy.) Katherine (Kate Dickie) harbors resentment towards her teenage daughter after the disappearance of her youngest child while patriarch William (Ralph Ineson) believes there has to be a rational explanation. Meanwhile, preteen Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) is eager to help provide for his family under harsh conditions while precocious — bordering on obnoxious — young twins Jonas (Lucas Dawson) and Mercy (Ellie Grainger) spend their time trying to convince the rest of the family that Thomasin is actually a witch.

This creepy, atmospheric movie is methodically paced, but appropriately so. “The Witch” truly gets under your skin, and writer/director Robert Eggers does a tremendous job in building an ominous sense of dread. The comparisons to “The Shining” and other works of the great Stanley Kubrick are completely warranted as Eggers proves to be quite a master of tone.

From the pitch-perfect performance to the authentic dialects, the detailed sets, the atmospheric score, the profoundly unsettling images, a scene-stealing goat called Black Phillip, and the creepy-as-hell ending, “The Witch” is a movie that sticks with you. And again, this isn’t a surface-level, jump-scare kind of a film. This one cuts much deeper.

At the heart of “The Witch” is a tale of a man desperately trying (and in many cases, failing) to provide for his family. On a whole other level, though, there are clearly things of a very sinister nature going on here. Eggers opts to take the ambiguous route with certain aspects of the “The Witch,” and that only aids in making for a horror show of the highest caliber.

Eggers is certainly a storyteller to keep your eye on. With “The Witch,” he’s created an unnerving cinematic experience that never sacrifices character (if you’ll pardon the pun) for the sake of a processed scare. “The Witch” represents the most effective kind of horror where the cat mysteriously vanishes without a trace before it ever has a chance to jump on the window sill. “The Witch” is a horror classic!