Review of The Witch and How to Make it Better

​The Witch has garnered a lot of hype lately with the Master of Horror, Stephen King, saying, “The Witch scared the hell out of me. And it’s a real movie, tense and thought-provoking as well as visceral.” Ever since I saw the trailer last year, I’ve been interested in seeing it. Then with King dropping that bomb on Twitter and other sites giving it rave reviews, it was set in stone, I was going to see it.
I saw it Friday, the day of release in an almost empty theater (I guess movies about witchcraft endorsed by the Church of Satan don’t do well in Utah, go figure). As I watched it, I came to three conclusions: first, it’s well shot; the cinematography is amazing and the visuals are stunning. Director, Robert Eggers did an excellent job in that department. It felt like the family was in a remote part of the wilderness, detached from society and trying to make it on their own. The border of the trees representing the forest, and the savage wilds was great, and I felt like it was a barrier not to be passed. I also thought the wardrobe choices, tools and structures were true to the time-period (at least for an uneducated person like me). On top of that, the acting was superb. Dialogue choices, use of old-school language, and situation were spot on. My hat is off to the two small children, Mercy and Jonas played by Ellie Grainer and Lucas Dawson respectively. They did an amazing job for being so young, and really had a hand in some of the creepier parts of the movie.

​Second, I saw that the real story and the real horror if you will, was not about the witch at all, more about the family and its descent into darkness. Eggers showcases the mindset of the people during this setting, and their reliance on religion over everything. The scariest part of this whole story was that this mindset and belief was real and that people acted in such a manner. There is a statement at the end of the film that a lot of what was depicted was lifted from actual accounts from journals, court documents and witness testimony. To watch a family fall apart under the stress of being banished, and the terrible experience of losing a small child is the true horror of the film. It starts early (in fact the beginning of the movie is the family being banished from the town) and doesn’t let up. Don’t get me wrong though, even though the madness starts early, it definitely puts the creep in creepy. It’s a slow burn throughout the film, building into a crescendo that loses steam at the end (more on that in a minute).

​Before I get into the third part of my observation, I want to leave you spoiler free, because the third part requires me to get into spoilers. Overall, the movie as it is, is good. It isn’t great, it isn’t amazing, and it definitely isn’t terrifying in the traditional sense. If you peel away what we think modern horror should be, and look beneath the skin, you can find the real horror in the family losing its shit and falling apart. Don’t go to this movie expecting tons of gore, jump scares, and crazy special effects, because you’ll be disappointed. However, if you are interested in a period piece with some disturbing story content, beautiful visuals and excellent acting, then by all means go for it. One final note before we get to the third portion, is the music. The music was a little heavy handed on the discordant string instruments. I felt like the director was trying to force unease on me in certain scenes by blasting the score. It didn’t feel right, and I don’t think it fit. More so, it became a distraction as the movie went on. 
​Now, on to the third part of my observations. There be spoilers here, so veer off if you don’t want to be spoiled. 

​Still here? Okay, I warned you. So this part deals with why the movie didn’t work in my opinion. As I mentioned before, the real horror of the story isn’t the witch, but in how the family deals with what the witch does. First off, we have the disappearance of Samuel, the infant. He disappears while the main character, the young Thomasin, played by Anya Taylor-Joy (excellent job by the way) is playing peek-a-boo with the child. This is depicted in the trailer, and is pretty creepy. What ruins this scene, is the following one where we see the witch walking through the woods with the baby. We then see her kill the child and bath in its blood. Creepy, sure, but it felt like it was there more as shock factor and maybe to show us why the witch would steal the kid. However, it would be even creepier if we never see this, if all we saw was the baby missing and never know for sure what happened. In fact, it would be best if the witch scenes were stripped from this movie altogether. Then we have a real thought-provoking piece—is there really a witch, or is the family just going insane under all the stress? In fact, think about it, the scene where the boy, Caleb, is out in the woods by himself and he gets drawn to the witch’s hut, only to be seduced by a voluptuous vixen (the witch) and in-turn possessed. It would work so much better if we just see a scene with him seeing something with horror on his face, then the next time we see him is the scene where’s he naked out in the rain outside of the farmhouse. 

All of the scenes involving the witch were destroyed by actually seeing her. That’s a basic rule of horror; don’t show your monster, because it’s no longer scary at that point. How much cooler would it have been if the scene where Thomasin, Mercy and Jonas were locked in the barn, and instead of seeing the witch near the goat, all we have are the noises of something outside, then next scene is where the barn is destroyed and Thomasin is the only one left? Finally, the ending of all the witches dancing in the woods naked fell really flat and was unnecessary. Eggers could have ended the movie with Black Philip (the billy goat) whispering to Thomasin. We still would have been left with questions, such as did the goat really talk, or was Thomasin just insane at that point because she killed her mother with a knife? Leave us in the dark and let us figure it out for ourselves.