The Witch

A horror that can create a dreadful atmosphere for its entire runtime are the ones that I constantly find myself loving. I remember when I had first watched this and not understanding it. On numerous watches throughout the years, I’ve come to love this movie so much. The feeling of the visuals is something I can’t stop thinking, the camera stays with scenes far too long than expected. It could be the forest, animals or characters. Eggers had two pathways in making a film like this, go for a realistic approach or a fantastical approach. He chose the former and I believe it added to the nature of the film. The language, setting and mood are all imbedded in historical accuracy to make a film that immerses you in the actual time. A stubborn father’s interpretation of faith has left his family isolated on a farm. His actions to provide and protect his family are failures which bring paranoia to the family as their farm cultivates rotten crops. A mother who is adamantly blames her daughter for the misfortunes that are being inflicted upon the family. She cannot seem to see past the circumstances, grief and paranoia consuming her completely. Pride, paranoia and scapegoating are what is left in these two characters, they cannot seem to accept their failings and that becomes their own demise. They villainise their own daughter, circumstances help their accusations against her.  There’s two ways you can view the film’s overall message. These terrible things happened and are real or they aren’t real and that the rotten crops had infected their minds into believing that these things had occurred. I find the latter to be a more interesting ending. It makes everything seem much more eviler. To know it could’ve been stopped and it was for nothing sends a chill down my spine. Eggers cooked up this beast with a box of scraps, truly insane motion.