It's not that The Witch was bad, it was set up for failure. There has been a lot of hullabaloo regarding The Witch, that it was over-hyped and over-praised. Critics are praising it's slow burn horror and some fans are saying it's boring. In a ridiculous PR stunt, the producers gave a screening to the Satanic Temple who went on to host several screenings and praise it with their normal gobbledygook saying, "an impressive presentation of Satanic insight that will inform contemporary discussion of religious experience," whatever the hell that means. But what is the movie, really. Is it a diamond in the rough masterpiece as Stephen King said "it scared the hell out of" him, or is it a flash in the pan? Is first time director/screenwriter Robert Eggars a genius or a hack?
The film opens in colonial New England, circa 1630. A very religious family is expelled from their town for religious pride and sent into the wilderness. One day, the eldest girl Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy who is the best thing about this film) is playing peekaboo with her infant brother. The infant is stolen right under her nose by a witch living in the forest. As the movie progresses, Thomasin's mother Katherine (played to William Shatner-esque levels of unhinged scenery chewing) is convinced Thomasin is possessed by the devil. Her father William (Ralph Ineson), a very devout man tries to defend her. Weirder and weirder things happen to the family with increasingly disastrous results until the whole family besides Thomasin is killed by malevolent forces. Thomasin then talks to their goat, who is really the devil of course, and becomes a full-fledged witch, her soul damned to eternity.
This movie takes place almost 70 years before the Salem Witch Trials, an unlike movies that focus on that, this movie is sort of pro-witch. But unlike today's Wicca-endorsed crap that witches were just misunderstood feminists and the trials were a patriarchal reaction against women standing up for themselves, this movie goes the full nine biblically; that witches are malevolent beings with Satanic powers and will do anything to increase their power. The story is totally based supposedly on true accounts that happened during that time. Considering the hysteria of the witch trials, this movie sort of plays like a greatest hits of crazy crap that happened in the 15th century, so much so that it almost becomes a self-parody. Robert Eggers had tried to get this movie made for years to no avail. As a child, he was obsessed with witches and this movie is a result of that obsession. But this movie is exhibit A on why it is not always a good idea to let the writer be the director or vice-versa. The movie feels like a mishmash of several stories (which it is) with no logical connectors. The only point to the movie is like Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem, to out-devil The Exorcist.
To be fair, though, the movie is beautifully shot with natural light, giving it a otherworldly ethereal feeling. The story pace, while boring to younger horror fans who expect a Boo! film, is actually quite good. The slow burn of paranoia that builds to a fever pitch at the end is captivating. But the problem is that we have heard all this before with stories of witches and the ending is hackneyed when Thomasin joins the coven naked and howling in the forest around a fire at night. The film essentially plays out like a hysterical melodrama with an unsatisfying payoff. In the end, it rings hollow. It feels as if the judges of Salem have come to the present to recall their most unbelievable accounts in lurid detail. And what ultimately killed it, in my opinion, was the hype that surrounded it. Essentially, it suffered the from the same issues that surrounded The Blair Witch Project. Watch only if you are morbidly curious, but I would say skip this one.
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