The Witch, or The VVitch as it appears on the opening credits, is an impeccably crafted piece of work that falls just short of being and outright hit in its own regard. A unique and terrifying horror film that mixes puritanical colony drama with supernatural scares but is sadly somewhat poorly paced and, as a result suffers for it as a whole.
With painstaking historical detail the film presents a fanatically puritan family leaving their New England colony believing the local government to be religiously impure. Out in the forest they hope to live closer to God, foraging and growing their own food. Quickly thought things go devastatingly wrong when the family's newborn is straight up abducted and killed by a witch. There's no playing around here, no overstretched ambiguity, the family is plagued immediately by a wrinkled hook-nosed crone who snatches babies.
Admittedly the actual encounters with the witch itself are nicely spaced apart in favour of the gradual disintegration of the family. It's kind of amazing how the film can more or less start with them encountering devastation and go downhill from there. A major part is the interplay between the family, reeling from a tragedy while still struggling to eke out a living in a seemingly barren land. You can read all manner of allegory on the failings of fundamentalist religion that inform the dynamics. From the virtual absence of compassion from the mother to the utter incompetence of the father as a provider.
It's an ensemble work but Anya Taylor-Joy occupies the nominal lead role as Thomasin, the eldest daughter on the cusp of womanhood (albeit womanhood in the 1630s). She plays the whole thing with something I can only describe as determined uncertainty. Thomas has no idea what's going on as much as the rest of them but she refuses to be phased by the tragedy that befalls her. Only reaching breaking point at the end of the film where everything goes full-on bonkers. There's the sense that she is the grounded centre keeping the family together and when that fails she succumbs to temptation.
However the actual 'scary sequences', the part everyone's here to see prove something of a letdown. Little in the build-up of tension despite the looming dark forest and unnerving score. At the moment of release the film favours surreal imagery over anything that would be considered chilling. On the whole a well-realised concept somewhat lacking in execution.
