GYFF 2016 Film Review - The Witch (2016)

Sundance 2015 Review - The Witch (2015)

Genre:
Horror
Distributor:
A24
Rating: TBC
Venue:
Suncance 2015
Director:
Rober Eggers
Cast:
Kate Dickie, Julian Richings, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson
Robert Eggers debut feature as writer/director, The Witch, is the kind of abstract horror feature that can either flounder in monotony or champion a kind of folk-tale methodology rarely seen.

Announcing itself ‘A New England Folk Tale’ the feature goes on to tell the story of a colonial family who, upon exile from plantation life, take up residence on the edge of a New England forest, to live the Godly life. Tensions climb and emotions blaze after the youngest of the family disappears from the would-be idyllic farm, eyes fall on and from there…it doesn’t get much better.

Eggers has carefully built an incredibly uncomfortable piece of film that effortlessly strolls through horror drama with the skill and acute control of an intimate theatre production. Carefully chosen iconography from the history of witchcraft, along with a kind of infectious condemnation borrowed from The Crucible, keeps the atmosphere grim as Hell. Select images, sporadically introduced, induce an air of panic and mystery in the viewer, planting us in the position of horrified onlooker. Dark caves, bloody apples, towering trees of charcoal black, dark and degrading monstrous doings. It’s a treasure trove of Gothic imagery.

Jarin Blaschke’s palette of miserable greys does much of the films work, ensuring that whenever dull sticky reds appear, they make you feel nauseous. Every shot is loaded, every performance pitch-perfect. Particularly Kate Dickie and Ralph Ineson who threaten to steal the show at every turn with a chemistry as tangible as the atmosphere itself. Seriously, Dickie is fantastic as the puritanical grieving mother, delivering a matronly performance that parallels her fantastic work in For Those in Peril, whilst Ineson’s overbearing turn becomes bolder and bolder with every scene that passes.

Incredibly evocative filmmaking, dark, mystic, horrifying, stunning, The Witch is a feature all by itself. Dickie and Ineson impress with towering performances, Egger promises a talent to look out for, and Blaschke just about instigates a nervous breakdown with intense visual control. And that’s without mentioning the invasively boisterous score.

★★★★★
Scott Clark