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| The Witch |
What makes Robert Eggers' directorial debut a top-notch horror movie? The very fact that it's barely a horror movie. Yet there is something disturbing, evil, sinister, and unnerving about what unfolds that you will find yourself second-guessing everything you've just witnessed.
The Witch, in that sense, is not only freakish, psychologically traumatising and formally audacious, but also one truly horrifying tale of sexual awakening and about embracing the dark, which, instead of opting for cheap spooky jolts, settles for a far more atmospheric, mid-1600 New-England backdrop, where a deeply puritanical couple William and Katherine, banished from the plantation on religious grounds, must find solace in an isolated clearing on the edge of a dense forest to raise their family of five children. But just as they begin to get on with their newfound life, disaster strikes when their youngest infant mysteriously vanishes while being watched over by his sister. William, being the family patriarch, desperately tries to steer their thoughts towards God, but Katherine fears that their son was taken away to punish for their sins and transgressions, and this is only the beginning, before Eggers slowly, but steadily, dials up the tension with giddying, nerve-racking results, as you watch, paralysed with fear, the family's subversive descent into complete psychological madness. Abound in Satanic symbolism and rich in folklore,
The Witch is an imaginative, period creepfest, stunningly mining our dread for the unknown.
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