Every once and awhile it’s nice to step away from the trashy and profane to take a look at the cerebral side of horror. But is it as much fun?
Every year, it seems that there is a critically acclaimed horror movie that splits the fan-base into two camps. In 2015, It Follows was either brilliant and nuanced or tedious and boring depending on which side you were on. 2014’s The Babadook was the same way. I tend to side with the folks who don’t necessarily see a quick pace, excessive gore and a high body-count as prerequisites to an enjoyable horror experience, so going into last year’s most divisive film, The Witch, I was already favorably disposed. The film is set in 17th-century New England, where a family has just been banished from their community over a disagreement about theology. Essentially, they were too devout for 17th-century Puritans. Naturally, they are a barrel of laughs. After establishing themselves in their new secluded home, tragedy strikes, and the baby Samuel (youngest of five) disappears while under the watch of oldest sibling, Thomasin. Her mother is in hysterics, blaming coyotes and Thomasin’s negligence in equal parts, but we know the truth – Samuel was spirited away by a witch and sacrificed in the film’s most chilling sequence. The family is beset again by calamity when Thomasin’s brother, Caleb, goes out for a secret hunt and encounters the witch, returning with a terrible illness. The heartbreak over their misfortune, coupled with the family’s palpable fear of God, eat away at their bonds and, lacking any external support structure, they begin to unravel.
The Witch echoes many of the themes found in John Carpenter’s The Thing, where an external threat acts as a catalyst for distrust and paranoia among a group of isolated characters. The severity of Thomasin’s parents, particularly her mother, is unsettling, and the siblings are quick to turn on each other under the duress that she exerts upon them. The idea that faith will bring about good things in your life is hardly a foreign concept, and exists as a core tenant of most religions, but the film seeks to explore how damaging and unproductive that belief is when it is taken to its most extreme lengths. Very few modern Christians believe that every circumstance of your life is tied directly to God’s rewards or punishment, but that is essentially the position of the family (or at least the parents) that makes their existence unbearably harrowing. Bad harvest? Not praying enough. Got sick? You must have been sinning. Baby disappeared? Someone in the family is in league with Satan. It’s a disheartening view that shuns all of the positives of believing and belonging to a faith community, and doubles down on all the negatives that can arise through guilt-based, fire and brimstone theology.
It should be clear already why The Witch garnered critical acclaim but left some horror fans cold. I appreciate the first-rate performances and the thought-provoking themes that the film introduces, but I have to be honest… I could have used a quicker pace, some more gore and a higher body count. The real challenge is that these are not pleasant characters to be around, and they are the only characters. The threat of the witch is omnipresent, but actual scenes with her are fleeting, so we are left wallowing in this family’s misery as they turn on each other in the face of their challenges. In many ways, the titular witch is extraneous to the film, because the family is prepared to ascribe any misfortune at Satan’s feet, no matter how mundane. The ending is abrupt, but I find that it is well-earned, and though I didn’t appreciate it as much immediately afterwards, it has grown on me as the natural conclusion to the story being told. Overall, I wouldn’t discourage anyone from seeking out The Witch, but it isn’t likely that I’ll be returning to it any time soon.
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