The Witch

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

I wasn't big on Kill List, it's fine. I can see why some didn't like High-Rise, it did often feel like the story was a platform for experimentation but I liked the dreamy transitions. I love A Field In England a great deal though.

Sonics- - YouTube

Francisco Goya, Witches Sabbath (1798)

[marioneta]

One thing most of you fail to mention. The film is subtitled "A New England Folktale", so it must be taken as one would process any folktale. Does that mean that it was a cautionary folktale, told to reinforce the religious dogma of the Puritan Calvinists-of which it presents the best example of what predestination meant in Calvinist doctrine when the boy asks the father about the after-life destiny of his "missing" baby brother- or was it told for some other intent.
As a horror film it has its flaws, a little more ambiguity would have made it better. And did anyone notice the homage to Kubrick's "The Shining"?

I've seen it twice since I last posted. Still a very good film (astounding for a horror film), but I would have omitted showing the witch explicitly early on and think the film would have been much better for it.

[marioneta]

Showing the witch early on and the ending make what could have been an excellent horror film into a good horror film. I liked the attention to detail of the historical period, dialog, clothes, setting. The film reaches a peak of terror in the final disintegration of the family after the boy suddenly appears naked and delirious. Then it sank into the commonplace trope of Satanic temptation.

[Michael]

I agree with PJZ. Think that nailed it. I wouldn't put The Witch in the same category as Antichrist (that was like nihilism from concentrate, beautiful) but it's above and beyond the standard Paranormal Activity crap that's getting mass produced like Micky D's burgers. Every now and then I want a Big Mac but the theaters are inundated with primarily that stuff. So The Witch was a nice change of pace, and I put it above what has been out there for the most part (just waiting for The Conjuring 9: We're Running Out of Ideas) but couldn't articulate why I wouldn't put it in a higher level. That nailed it though. It's atmosphere was great but could've been better and I agree that they compromised hoping it would've gotten a larger audience. Where I live it got such a small audience that when I saw it on week 4 it was out I literally had the whole theater to myself Kinda awesome but reflective of the turn out.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

How do you know it's a compromise? Personally I found the film very refreshing.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

If the central mystery is whether or not there are witches, it's not an interesting one, so I don't think that resolution really costs it anything.

Eh, the mystery could have been much deeper than whether there were witches or not. A few narrative shifts would have made the outer and inner threats to the family richer and less traditional. The potential was all there on screen, so I didn't get why it stifled itself in being so explicit so early on by being about fear of a specific finite external threat explicitly shown, rather than the mysterious and unknowable forces within and without ourselves.