REVIEW: The Witch

If you are a fan of period movies that take great effort to create a truly detailed and immersive experience, you can't do much better than The Witch.  Apparently it was filmed a stone's throw away from my old stomping grounds in North Bay after quite a search to find the right forest for what writer and director Robert Eggers had in mind.  A great amount of research was invested to make sure the colonial New England town in the story was as authentic as possible.  The effort put into The Witch is a great accomplishment, and it is difficult to watch it and not feel like were are right there with the characters.

The story is around a family of British settlers that head off into the woods to create a life of their own after some type of argument with the church.  We aren't told what exactly the issue was, but the main thing is that we learn that spirituality is of high importance to this family.  The father, William (Ralph Ineson), is the reason behind this relocation.  The film revolves around the eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), and her relationship with her siblings and parents as their faith is put to the ultimate test.

Life goes sideways for this family with the sudden disappearance of their baby boy.  From there, items disappear, crops die, and the thoughts that witchcraft is behind these misfortunes slowly starts making its way into the mind and mouth of the mother, Katherine (Kate Dickie).  She is emotionally destroyed from the loss of her infant, and claims from her young twin children point the finger at Thomasin being a witch.  From there, well, things devolve pretty quickly.

Eggers seems to know that the scariest part of this movie may not be the creepy events that happen, but rather what happens amongst the characters.  Suspicion and judgement grow to a horrifying height, and there is a true sense of having no idea just how things are going to play out.  It is this that really makes the experience haunting as we see how people react when the foundations of their faith are tested in the darkest of ways.

The audience is shown in the first act that there is indeed some sort of malevolent force that inhabits the forest at the edge of the family's land.  Eggers doesn't shy away from eliminating the whole 'is it real' aspect from the viewing experience.  Many other directors would love to play with their audience, making them question if there is indeed some sort of supernatural explanation.  With The Witch, we know right away something evil exists.  This knowledge enhances the movie when we see the family implode and knowing that the problem isn't Thomasin.

The existence of the witch, and in what form it would take, is played with through the film with the young twins.  They are probably around ten, and they like spending time following a goat around that they call Black Phillip.  They sing songs about him, and some of the lyrics hint that something isn't right.  One of the twins claims to Thomasin that Black Phillip talks to them, giving us a sense that there is some sort of wicked manifestation in the goat.

Up there with the set design as a monumental achievement is the dialogue.  I really couldn't tell you if this was indeed how people would have talked in the 1600s, but it is so much more interesting and engaging than just having people with a British accent speaking normally and only adding 'hath,' 'thee', and 'doest.'  The unique form of speech did cause an issue for me when I had first seen this movie in theatres.  Being able to see it again on Netflix with subtitles aided me a lot.  It also gave be a greater appreciation for the work put into the dialogue.

The acting in the film is great across the board, but with two standout performances.  Ralph Ineson (who I knew from The Office) is commanding as a patriarch that seems to feel that he must be the backbone of strength for his family.  It could be that motivation comes from him taking the family away from the plantation where they were living, bringing them to a location that was secluded and brought many problems with it.  Ineson really dives into the character of William, which adds much to the tension that takes place in the final act.

The other outstanding role was that of Anya Taylor-Joy.  I hadn't seen her previous to The Witch, but it took next to no time to understand that this young talent was someone to pay attention to.  Since The Witch, I have seen her in three movies, and she never disappoints.  The skill that she brings to Thomasin is very nuanced.  This is a character that we attach to, that we side with, and that we end up getting scared for.  We don't know what end her father may bring upon her, and we don't know what the supernatural evil will have in store for her.  Her panic and her isolation transfer onto us, making this movie extremely scary for numerous reasons.

For some reason I had only given this movie three and a half stars when I originally saw it.  The Witch had some more to reveal to me on the second viewing.  When movies can still live as vibrantly on repeat viewings there is something special about it.  The Witch is set in a spooky location with a downward spiral of a family, all of it was just as terrifying as when I had seen it in a dark theatre.  No, scratch that.  It was much more scary the second time.

Rating - 4 out of 4 stars

Weekend Box Office Predictions: 'The Light Between Oceans' and 'Morgan'

This week has not been the most exciting for me.  Instead of plowing forward with projects, I took some down time for myself.  I was ordered by my wife to play some video games and to not think about writing for a bit, so that's what Wednesday and Thursday were for me.  As much as I tried to stay away, I still found myself getting a lot of proofreading done on a manuscript.  So much for being able to walk away from it completely.

So, that is why this weekend's predictions are getting posted today instead of on Thursday.  That and the fact that there was little to become excited about with the offerings in store for movie goers.  Pondering over the numbers, it is doubtful that either The Light Between Oceans or Morgan is going to be able to make over ten million in their debut.

The Light Between Oceans

For some people, hearing the name Derek Cianfrance attached to a movie is enough to get them excited and out to theatres.  He made his name off of 2010's critical darling, Blue Valentine.  It was his first feature film, and one that earned an Oscar nomination for Michelle Williams' performance.  Cianfrance followed it up with The Place Beyond the Pines, his first movie to make it into wide release after spending three weeks in limited release.  With two solid films behind his name, the problem is that the crowd that knows who he is and follows him is still a small one.

This time around he is teaming with Buena Vista, and The Light Between Oceans is beginning in wide release instead of having to work its way towards it.  When The Place Beyond the Pines was in its first weekend of wide release, it made $4.9 million.  I see The Light Between Oceans doing a bit better than that, but not by much.  While it has the marketing power of Disney behind it, there is very little social awareness of the product.

The other thing that is going to hurt the movie are the critical reviews.  At the time of writing this, it is sitting at sixty percent on Rotten Tomatoes.  That's not awful, but it is low enough to possibly dissuade the type of mature movie goer that would be thinking about seeing this movie.

Prediction - $7.5 million

Morgan

Opening up opposite is Fox's Morgan, starring Kate Mara and Anya Taylor-Joy.  Both of them are extremely talented actors, but the issue is their drawing power.  Taylor-Joy is still a relative unknown, and Mara has not been in key starring roles before.  Most of her mainstream works come from supporting positions, such as in The Martian and Fantastic Four.

But, as last month's Don't Breathe showed us, you don't need to have marquee names as leads to propel a horror-rooted film into a good position in the box office.  The difference here is the social media factor.  There was a lot of awareness for Don't Breathe, while Morgan doesn't even show up in the top ten most tweeted films, a death blow to a movie that is opening this weekend and has a target demographic that is fuelled by social media.

Prediction - $5.5 million

REVIEW: The Witch

Be ye willing to lend ear to old English?  I pray thee, that thine do be just and willing to do so, so that ye shall harvest thine fruit of enchantment and fear from The Witch.  I am rubbish at pretending to have the skills to use a dated tongue, but the scriptwriter for The Witch (Robert Eggers, who also directed it) nails it perfectly.  I bring up the dialogue style because I know that it has been the source of some confusion for some movie goers.  It takes an attentive ear to follow the conversations in the film, and it takes an equal amount of patience.  However, if you are able and willing to work through that you are in for the year's best psychological horror film so far.

It is easy to give it that praise based off of two reasons.  Reason the first, there have been few decent movies hitting the theatres so far in 2016.  Reason the second, it is a really good horror flick.  Based in the 1600's, it is about a family that gets exiled from their community after the father has been accused of heresy.

The location of the film is around the farm that they create, roughly a day's ride from the village.  They live in isolation, surrounded by the dark woods.  It is the perfect place for the imagination to take you for walks through the dark creations of the mind.  Robert Eggers makes the most of the stunning isolation, turning it into an incubator for the suspicions and desires of the characters in the film.  With this being Eggers' first feature film, he shows an understanding of how to transpose the vision he has onto the screen, making great use of pauses in the film, cinematography, dialogue, and music to create the tension.

The Witch is a definitive slow burn horror.  That is not me saying that it is boring or a slog.  Not by any means am I inferring that.  It is a captivating tale that focuses on the religious leanings of the family and how superstition about witchcraft is granted birth after some very serious instances happen.  Eggers uses wonderful pacing to unravel the tale in which a secluded family begins turning on each other over stresses from catastrophe.

Yes, I am being vague about the plot points of this film, but I think it is best if there is very little known going into it.  It is all about how it develops and unfolds that feeds the beast of intrigue and suspense.  Some things are best experienced first hand.

It would be impossible to write about this review and not to mention the impressive performance for the feature film debuting actress Anya Taylor-Joy.  She leads the charge as the main character, the teenage daughter Thomasin, whom the majority of the story revolves around.  Anya delivers a well rounded performance that keeps the audience invested emotionally in the tale.  She shows through her skills that she will be a talent that is going to be around in films for a long time to come.

The one negative that I can give about this movie is that perhaps it could have ended a few minutes earlier.  This is not a comment on the run time, but more about what Eggers chooses to expose in the final moments of the film.  Some things are best left to the imagination, and a little too much gets exposed when the rest of the film is a lot more cryptic.  I was left with a similar feeling as when I saw The Last Exorcism, a great film that built a lot on mystery and doubt only to show the answer to all of the questions in the final moments.

Let that criticism not be enough to keep you from seeing the film.  It is just something that took away the whooshing of the wind in my sails and killed the adrenaline that had been built up over the prior hour and an half.  This is a must see for horror fans, but also serves as a good gate-way into the genre.  It is a wonderful microcosm of human nature's need to pin reason the the unexplained and the division that can quickly appear when despair is rampant.

Rating - 3.5 out of 4 stars