The Witch Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

The Witch

The Witch is a horror movie following a family in the 1600's who are being stalked by a witch. The film is directed by Robert Eggers, and it's his debut as a director. It stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Kate Dickie, and Ralph Ineson. The Witch has won a lot of awards at various film festivals, most prominently Sundance, so the real question is could this be the years best horror movie?

Here's the thing about The Witch. If you're going into this movie expecting a terrifying horror movie, you are going to be disappointed. Yes, this movie is scary. Yes, I had a lot of trouble sleeping after I watched it. However, this movie is more about the family who are being haunted by the witch, and in that sense, it's kind of like The Shining. The acting is all really good, especially from the lead actress, she's got a great career ahead of her. The direction is fantastic, and it's one of the most well shot horror movies I've seen since Oculus, if not the most. But if you're expecting Paranormal Activity, you may find this movie a bit boring.

However, that's not to say it's not scary. Again, it's a very different kind of scary, but still pretty horrific. This is more of a disturbing imagery kind of horror movie, and again, like The Shining, it relies more on music and building up of tension rather than actually showing scary stuff on screen. Now, if I'm reviewing this as a horror movie (which it is, and I feel like a lot of critics are ignoring that), this movie doesn't work in some aspects. This is more of a disturbing imagery period piece, and less of a horror movie. Now, the imagery is really disturbing, to the point where I just felt unclean afterwards, like I needed a shower or something.

My deal with The Witch is that, as a horror fan, I feel like it's a bit of missed potential. This could have been a new horror classic, and while it's a good movie, it's not as memorably scary as I would've liked. It uses great methods for building tension, but there's very little payoff. The Witch itself isn't particularly scary (probably thanks to the fact that you see the witch within the first 10 minutes, and it's not a particularly creative looking witch). And this movie could've used a lot more colour, I feel like what made some of my favorite recent horror films (Oculus and It Follows) great was the amount of colour, which would contrast to the demonic tone and make it more jarring when demonic things happen. Here, everything looks grey-ish brown, so there's rarely much surprise when something scary happens.

The Score
I feel kind of torn about The Witch. On the one hand, it's a well executed and very disturbing film, so if you're an indie movie fan like I am, you'll probably enjoy it. However, if you're also like me and you're a horror fan who was eagerly waiting the next great horror movie, this isn't much of a horror movie as it is a disturbing period piece. So all in all, The Witch is good, but due to it's limited audience I can only recommend it for certain types of people.