Most of the fiction I've been exposed to involving Puritanism and witchcraft has revolved around the idea that the hysteria surrounding witchcraft in the New World birthed a greater evil than any actual witchcraft ever did. What Robert Eggers' debut film does so masterfully is blend the human frailties that come to the fore when witchcraft-related hysteria emerges with a palpable, thick and dread-filled evil that soaks into the entire film.
Much has been written of the lengths Eggers and his crew went to to ensure historical accuracy and they certainly do a magnificent job of creating an ambiance that never allowed me to relax while watching. The characters speak in quasi-Biblical tongues, their hair lank, their countenances sullen. It's a hard life they've chosen for themselves and it's made all the harder when Samuel, a baby, disappears.
The titular witch is used sparingly and two of her three appearances are images that will stay with me for a long, long time. Eggers does well to find a balance between not showing too much and showing enough to suggest a horror beyond what's shown directly: blood and fat, pale moonlight on gnarled skin, a weathered hand.
The cast are all extraordinarily committed and I admired just about every performance in the film. I was especially impressed by Harvey Scrimshaw - he perfectly plays a young man on the cusp of adolescence, questioning himself, his religion and the environment around him. The ensemble scene around him while he suffers from possession is the high point of the film and this is in no small part because of his staggering performance, veering from thrashing in the throes of a fit to religious ecstasy.
There was one point in the film where I was given a fright outright but what's so effective is the atmosphere of dread that's slowly and carefully increased throughout. I've been thinking about the film for days, and I'm sure I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come. Many commentators, on the site and others, were sorely disappointed that it didn't reflect the more prevalent trends in horror at the moment but I'm glad that this film has carried on a tradition of horror that seeps its way into your consciousness and stays.
There was not a single moment in this movie that made me care about what was happening or made me believe the characters could do any of that. By the way, the romance is incredibly silly and rushed. I read about a 100 pages before deciding to drop it. Oh boy, was I right.
okay, i have read some reviews and i can just not believe that you can 'like' this movie.
I make it short: This movie is really, really bad in terms of acting and story, but especially in acting.
I don't know, how you can not see this. The 'actors' just overact like hell. The story structure and the main characters are so weird and mixed up like a bad child-story.
Are the CGI and special effects good? Yeah, they are, but this does not help with the big cheesiness you get.
And the last 20 minutes are really cool. No really, they really are. But that's it.
I really like Short Circuit with Johnny Five. But this movie is just the dumped version of that. No charme, no structure, no sense.
District 9 was a milestone, Elysium a little disappointment, but this movie shows: Neil Blomkamp can not write good scripts with drama structure anymore.
2/10
