Review of The Witch (2016) by Freddie K — 07 Aug 2016

"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?".

When I first got up from my seat and left the cinema, I wasn't really sure what to think of the witch. It was a peculiar blend of hate and admiration. I feel like I just got recruited into a fucking cult!

First things first, this film is acted and shot excellently. Especially the children in this flick, such raw and real talent. Fear exudes from them.

I actually respected the witches old fashioned talk, it reflected well on the context and time period, it didn't take anything away from my enjoyment and in fact added more. I think the best way to describe the moral of the witch is that the recruitment of evil goes decades back into the past.

I also really enjoyed the religious aspect of the film, when stuff bleeds, it bleeds. You can tell when this creature is consuming her environment and plotting to prey on this poor family. My biggest flaws with the witch is that it isn't that scary. It's core is mainly creepy, the atmosphere created in the cinema was something I have not seen before, a campfire story film. Something you could show around the campfire with your friends. There was just nothing significantly tense about it, but It made me feel uncomfortable.

I'll put it like this, The Witch is a feature length version of one of those 'top 10 online urban legend' videos you find on YouTube. Except with the witch, it is much more fairytale like. I felt like I could read the screen, you could pin point the chapters in this movie. It was interesting, not white-knuckling scary, but interesting nonetheless.

My final nit-pick is that there was no real explanation or reason as to who this witch was. No reveal, but it's ending was knowingly cyclical and evil. Purely evil.

So I recommend the witch, not because it is a scary movie. But because it upset me, this was an upsetting and drearily grey film which I respected for it's amazing film making craft and it's unfiltered religious absorption. A arguably dated, old-fashioned but respectably uneasy folk-tale.

B+.

75/100.