Here's why we need more movies like The Witch
And why good horror movies are an endangered species
Almost two weeks ago I saw a new released film; a small, low budget, art house film from an upcoming director who's chosen the horror genre to splash on to the big screen for his first outing; a little film called The Witch (or The VVITCH as the posters kindly suggest); and in the near two weeks since I've seen it, I can't for the life of me shake this film from my memory. Unlike most horror (and for the last two decades or so, inexcusably terrible horror), The Witch doesn't rely on jump scares, loaded gore or grotesque imagery to earn its scares (slightly grotesque imagery but it's still tame for this generation); No, The Witch presents a much quieter, much slower build of tension in the way Rosemary's Baby did so brilliantly more than four decades ago, and because of it, the end result of this film has left me in a way that most horror movies never usually accomplish; it genuinely creeped me out, and for that, The Witch is arguably one of the best horror films I've seen in literal years.
Now before I really dive into it, allow me to start from the beginning because the beginning really is the best place to start.
It all started fairly recently but I noticed a lot of buzz surrounding the movie's release and critics appeared to be RAVING about this movie; "It scared up Sundance," said the critics; "It scared the hell out of me," said Stephen King (he really said that); people literally couldn't stop talking about it. One critic even said he had ranked The Revenant as his number one film of the year until he saw The Witch. It was official; I couldn't pass it up. The film released and naturally it happened; negative audience reviews came flooding in; people were HATING on this movie hard; "boring;" "hard to follow;" "my husband fell asleep!" and the fan-favorite "worst movie I've ever seen!" (You know, the usual idiots who go to the movies) and perhaps I'm becoming cynical in my old age but the genuinely positive responses from pretentious critic snobs vs. the blatant ignorance of mongrels who would rather shell out money for another Paranormal Activity sequel gets me really excited to trek to the movies for occasions like this, mostly because I have no idea what I'm going to expect. And honestly, you can't really prepare for a movie like The Witch.
To outsiders and tragically most moviegoers, you'll hear usual ignorance in their blind hatred for this film; yes, it does feel long, no there really aren't any jump scares, yes the actors are a bit difficult to understand with their thick accents, but if you truly appreciate the craft of film and more so the essence of true, legitimate horror that will crawl under your skin, you won't find any of it boring. The problem with horror audiences today is that they're completely desensitized. The fact that we're so used to what we think is horror; seven Saw movies; endless gore and grotesque imagery; unimaginable maniacal violence, we've seemed to forget what horror actually looks like or where it began in its roots. We're so busy looking for the chainsaw-wielding manic in a mask hacking off someone's leg, that we're too distracted to see the every day disturbance that lies within our world of dark forces, corrupt religion and unseen spirituality which makes us afraid to turn the lights out at night.
Because even vampires like to grope.
The reason The Witch not only works but works so damn well is that it harks back to an internal terror; psychological terror; the kind of terror that's based purely on dialogue from characters who have seen and felt evil; the kind of terror with only faint glimpses of horrific imagery while leaving the rest up to our mortifying imaginations. The Witch is, in a sense, terrifying in the same way The Sixth Sense is; not because of seeing dead people or even anything that can physically be seen at all; the terror lies behind the glassy eyes of characters whose faith has been shaken; characters who have night terrors; characters played by actors so believable, just thinking about their roles scares the hell outta you later on, long after the credits roll.
And some of these young actors are outstanding.
The Witch is a kind of terror that, if you actually pay attention and stop being ignorant, can and will crawl under your skin because it only needs to piggyback off of so little in order to get its point across and one of the best ways the film accomplishes this is because, to an extent, it completely holds back leaving most of the fear to whatever you create in your mind.
They set the tone fairly early on in the film once the infant child of this very religious family goes missing. Then the film goes dark; VERY dark. It actually creates a mood so bleak that at this specific point in the beginning of the film, you'll know by these moments if it's the kind of movie for you or not. Most people hear psychological horror and they think of Silence of the Lambs and while I would classify The Witch as ultimately psychological, there are only a few brief that moments that only need to be brief in order to cross a line with many audiences and it involves not just dark witchcraft but just f**ked up methods of rituals that will make you straight up queasy.
Yes, the film takes breaks while the religious family prays, searches for their lost children in the woods, and slowly become angry with one another; it's all building; all building to the ending essentially but damn, does this film know how to create tension. And just when you think a moment is starting to drag for too long, something creepy enough surfaces to keep you wondering what's going to happen next and that's part of the brilliance in the film's creepy tension; they CONSTANTLY have you guessing, down to the last five minutes, and it's all payoff because of those long, dreaded moments that idiots claim are "boring." It's all about patience with this one and due to living in a generation of Michael Bay, most people can't sit still for more than five minutes without wanting something big and shocking to happen. So if you don't mind waiting, The Witch is very rewarding.
It's rewarding in a way that The Blair Witch Project is rewarding except this film builds tension SO much better (and actually has payoff) and one of the reasons both films work is because both are set in a realm of reality... Kind of. The most terrifying aspect about The Witch isn't anything supernatural. Like I said, it's all dialogue and suspense built on the fear the characters possess but what makes it all so damn terrifying is up until a certain point (and it unfortunately gets to that point), The Witch is 100% believable (alright, due to certain aspects, we'll say 97% believable).
About as believable as a demon-possessed goat
(no really, this is an authentic goat; no CGI whatsoever and whoever the animal trainer was for this film deserves some kind of award)
Imagine this: It's the year 1630 or so; A super religious family is banished from their previous village and find a new home in the middle of open land COMPLETELY surrounded by nothing but woods (so The Village). This is where our story begins. The film slowly progresses and like I said, once it all goes dark, about 15 minutes in, it never lets up. Whispers and talks of witches and evil forces PLAGUE this film. The children frighten each other with talks of witchcraft and their souls leaving their bodies to dance with the devil; really clever, dark dialogue-stuff. And THIS is most of the movie; dialogue. That's where it loses people. But as the film progresses it all goes a little deeper, a little darker and a little too real (This is where it becomes better than The Village). Save for the idea of potentially evil goats and other farm animals, the film uses religion as a mirrored aspect against the evil which surrounds this movie; the distraught parents (phenomenal actors) constantly pray for their children, make their children pray; they sense evil and evil lives in those woods. CAN YOU FEEL THE FEAR YET? Anyway, I won't spoil it, but yes it all builds; it's all about not just questions of "what's hiding in the woods," but "what's hiding in the family?" We start to question the actions of the children, the parents; we watch the family turn on each other, essentially all because of this talk of evil plaguing the family after the infant child goes missing, so what does the family do? They blindly pray to God.
And praying to God looks best with this kind of cinematography
#naturallighting
Now, this is where the film hits a little too close to home for me and it's particularly why it crawls under my skin the way it does. In the end, The Witch glorifies evil in a way The Exorcist does. Some of the reviews suggest that "it feels like a film we shouldn't be watching," and it wasn't till I saw The Witch where I really felt the weight of that statement and that's exactly how I feel about The Exorcist. Now I understand that it's only a movie; I'm not ignorant. But the way they nail the spiritually of evil, especially evil that triumphs over God, REALLY does a number on spiritual folk because this isn't an axe-wielding serial killer; it's an evil force that many religious people believe is actually out there and out there to demonize the idea of the Holy Spirit or God Himself. Now, am I suggesting The Witch is proving the existence of an evil which so many people believe but haven't seen with their own eyes? Up until the last five minutes, no; absolutely not (and I'll get to the last five minutes soon), and THAT's why this movie genuinely did scare the hell out of me. The characters are so shook that all they can do is pray; they scream their "Our Father's" while denying the existence of an evil force which appears to be killing from the inside out and when the prayers have no effect, the film literally sucks your faith right out. It's hard to be even a little bit religious and NOT be shaken by this film because it's not using supernatural forces to scare you out of church; it's using the hopeless shred of doubt in human Faith and all things Holy to save your faithful ass. The film is filled with sequences of dark, disturbing, totally plausible things that could happen in real life, simply just because; Terrible things happen to this family and even though the film drives the point that this family is being tortured by evil, the events that transpire are realistic enough to justify that bad things are happening to this family, just for the hell of it (LITERALLY). It's a cruel hand that life deals and the film nails it so accurately that it's hard to ignore from a religious aspect. The film dares to shake your faith; rattle it in its cage as hard as possible, because the film is almost completely realistic and totally authentic based on bad sh*t happening to one person or one family simply because that's just how life works sometimes whether it's due to coincidence, karma, God or the Devil himself.
The film uses witchcraft in such a way that you can't help but recall a time where evil felt much closer to Earth and it's totally based on one's faith in spiritual forces both good and evil. The tone is completely methodical and the use of low budget and art house filmmaking helps keep the film limited and therefore a LOT more effective than having special effects boost the realm of the possibly fictional supernatural world of witchcraft. It's the very aspect that separates itself the most from The Exorcist and the aspect that makes the end result as terrifying as it is.
And there's times where it truly becomes terrifying.
Now, if there's anyone who knows me at all, they know how much I love James Wan's The Conjuring; I saw it three times in theaters and to this day, it's one of my all time FAVORITE horror films. One of the aspects I loved about The Conjuring is that it was a throwback to spiritual 1970s flicks centered around demons but one thing to know about The Conjuring and its director James Wan, is that it's all a thrill ride; key word ride. The Conjuring almost feels like a roller coaster; slowly building up with tension and then hurling you down at warp speed with all the ghastly forces, big jumps, demons, creepy dolls and classic exorcisms. The movie has no problem holding back on the supernatural and that's part of what makes the movie pretty damn fun to watch. Wan knows how to build tension in a moment; he knows exactly when the audience is wincing, waiting for that pop-out scare and when Wan delivers, he delivers BIG time. The Witch, on the other hand? Completely opposite. The film stays almost completely psychological, almost completely silent, void of any jump-scares and save for the last five minutes, the film would have been ridiculously more effective in its ending.
Of course I won't spoil it, but it sucks that the first time director didn't seem to quit while he was ahead. The last half hour gets pretty bananas while still staying mostly realistic; at least realistic enough to be debatable. But then the film goes that extra mile and pushes it to extra creepy but ultimately safe territory; territory that's WAY too safe. Let's just say that for a movie that plays with the idea of SO many questions; "is there really a witch in the woods?" "Is THIS person actually a witch?" "Is any of this even real?" the movie does the opposite of what it should have done; It gives you answers. Of course in the end you want answers but it closes any gaps for endless questions that would have made the end result doubly effective. It's only a brief moment and it's only the VERY end of the film, but it's a moment that sucks you out of the mood that the near two hours had built up to. It's one of the few occasions where I almost would have PREFERRED the film cut to black. The set up for a cut to black is LITERALLY perfect... But they had to go the extra mile. And don't get me wrong, it's still a good ending but not an effective ending. Nevertheless, this aspect doesn't ruin the film but it still is my one and only complaint.
You'll understand when you see for yourself
The reality is, this is good horror and it's not just good; it's smart. And while paying homage to films of the past, there's really no room for horror movies to do much else but pay homage to the kings of horror before them and over the last few years I've seen some pretty solid horror flicks that use their wits to pay homage in a really unique way. Last year, It Follows more or less used the John Carpenter method of making a Boogeyman out of a B movie concept and 2014's The Babadook literally reinvented the Boogeyman genre even if it was done in a small, low budget kinda way. What's happening is filmmakers are using their limits to crawl under our skin, showing the audiences very little while leaving them to imagine a whole world of ungodly unknowns. Good craftsmen are doing so much with only so little. Good horror isn't dead, it's just much less present because we're living in a day and age of loud gore. What we need to do is start discovering more good, quiet, effective horror movies that do what classic horror movies used to do; the kinda flicks that throw back to the days of Nosferatu standing in your doorway like a creeper; the days where Damien made bad things happen simply by looking at you; the days where we believed a witch might be in the woods simply because it was one of the first times we ever saw "found footage" of possible evidence in the near twenty-first century. Good horror is out there folks; it's just a dying a breed and it's a terrifying thought because movies that withhold actual terror are SO hard to come by as of lately. We get MAYBE one decent horror movie a year these days, if that. Good horror is so rare that it gets lost in all these remakes, sequels, rip offs; all the garbage that gets people squealing in the theater, not shaking under their bedsheets when they go to bed at night and The Witch does just that; it's totally psychological and it's the kinda thing that really gets to you way after the end credits roll.
The movie is still rattling my brain in the worst way. It's psychologically horrifying and it's done so tastefully that it makes me wanna dig up more low key, indy horror flicks because I know they gotta be out there. But until then, The Witch is extremely demonic and ridiculously disturbing, that is if you actually pay your respects to the filmmakers and pay attention to their craft (and not be an ignoramus, texting and mocking with your friends). The movie is an occasion. It's got people talking; not just horror movie lovers but outsiders; spiritual people on both sides; wickens, satanists, gamers (you know, "weird folk"), people of Salem, historians, people obsessed with the witch trials, people obsessed with this time period, etc. The film is not just an homage but a love letter; it gives pure inspiration for all the history and influence that would come after it and aside from the flashy ending, the film is a damn near history lesson; an eerie look into the past; a very real time before modern day technology or blissful ignorance has brainwashed us and desensitized us; a time where prayers and God were very real support figures for MOST families and things like witches, demonic possessions and embodiments of evil were VERY real things that people feared. The film is a glimpse into the past where life was extremely different and beyond the horror of it all, it reminds you how far we've come making it impossible for the film to feel aged or irrelevant. But for all it's worth in its history, it strikes fear in 2016 in a way that creeped out religious folk from 400 years ago. It's horror in its purest form; a genre and a feeling that transcends time and generations. And though it won't be remembered by most, The Witch accomplishes fear in a way that will crawl under anyone's skin for ages to come, and that is what makes it a truly terrifying picture.
GO GETCHA SELF SOME NIGHTMARES
