robert eggers’ morbidly beautiful new england folk tale is one of the scariest movies ever, and it isn’t a horror film

By: Keaton Marcus

I know we’ve just passed Halloween night, and it’s a bit off-topic to be writing about horror movies, but I viewed Robert Eggers’ directorial debut, The Witch, yesterday and was absolutely blown away by the craft put into this. I had already seen his second movie, The Lighthouse, another slow-burn movie that was fantastic, but not quite the masterpiece his predecessor was. This film is genuinely unsettling, and intensely disturbing without throwing jump scares or glaringly loud music at you, as many movies in the genre do these days. From the gorgeous filming, to the haunting music, and the dreadfully tragic ending that will make jaws drop as well as tears stream down faces, there are no flaws to this experience. I plan to do a deep dive into this smart, horrifying movie, and how Eggers still managed to terrify audiences without movie tropes and cliches.

Starting this whole charade off is the way that the plot is so meticulously crafted for the film’s benefit. Audiences will have issues with not quite knowing which direction a movie is going from the very beginning, but this is one of the several ways The Witch succeeds. The entire first act is mostly family drama, with our main characters being banished from their village, isolated to their secluded farm and without much food left. We don’t get reason to believe that there is a threat to these people until we’ve watched 30 minutes, and I think that is absolutely brilliant. Although it’s definitely a slow start to a total blast, the performances, and cinematography will keep viewers looking for true horror on board. But I’m missing something, aren’t I? The dread is the third component into making the first bit of the experience easier to view, and it’s there alright. There’s an intrusive sense that something’s going to go very sideways from the get go, and that is through the technical aspects. The musical score, composed by Mark Korven, who also did The Lighthouse, is almost its own character. Despite no real visuals that can trigger us into being scared in any way, the unnerving soundtrack is enough to make us shiver in our seats in its own right.

Again, the entire first act relies on this feeling, this pulsing sense of dread that so effectively chills people to the bone without any masked villains or monsters. Then, of course, it’s time for the suspicion to rise that there is, in fact, something sinister living around the farm. The thing is, Eggers is a good enough director to still keep his very subtle yet disconcerting tone to bring fear into our hearts. This comes through one of the many highlight scenes during the 1 hour and 30 minutes, the kidnap. It all begins with an uncommonly cheerful bit where Anya Taylor Joy’s Thomasin is playing an innocent game of peek-a-boo with her baby brother, but each time she proclaims “Boo!”, the tension begins to rise. Finally, on the final scream, her brother suddenly disappears without a trace. It’s so simple, but completely alarming, and perturbing. This scene is coupled with effective music that truly brings it home without a scratch. Forget Michael Myers, this film is where it’s at.

The next moment is likely the most disturbing experience I’ve ever witnessed while watching a movie, and it finally gives us our first showcase of what this creature, or “Witch”, looks like. It isn’t quite clear at first, but as the sequence goes on, audiences will notice how scarring it is. The villain has taken the form of a senile woman in the moment, completely naked, mashing up a child. I wonder what this could mean? Yeah, we just got our answer to the very mysterious disappearance that still haunts the family. Speaking of the main characters, after that petrifying experience, we come back to the little farm, and things are starting to go wrong. The next morning, Caleb (the middle child) is attempting to shoot some game for the family without permission, but Thomasin wakes up and convinces the reluctant Caleb that she will be joining. What ends up happening is a wild chase to shoot down an animal, but after Thomasin falls, she’s completely disoriented. Caleb, determined, keeps running through the woods, only to come upon a strange hut in the middle. As if grounding babies wasn’t enough, a seductive form of this “Witch” exits the hut and straight up makes out with the young boy, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Once again, Eggers creates searing dread and uncertainty in a moment as in-complex as a kiss.

Obviously, with Caleb gone and Thomasin returning to the farm, the suspect meter continues to be leaning towards herself, and this is one the film switches tones magnificently into a masterclass of family trauma. The movie’s plot is almost like the butterfly effect, one event affects the next, and it’s done so with such craft that everything works. Robert Eggers is a genre filmmaker who knows and believes in his vision, and is not afraid to go beyond the barriers of what audiences can actually take. Reverting back to the actual series of events, Katherine (the mother), played by Kate Dickie, is particularly unhinged by two of her sons suddenly going missing, and the next scene further knocks her off the rails. In an earlier scene, Thomasin threatens Mercy and Jonas that she knows of black magic and witchcraft. Despite it only being a harmless joke, it contributes majorly to what happens in the turning point of the film.

Caleb is now back at the farm peculiarly, but not without his scars. There’s something lodged in his stomach, most likely a result of the witchcraft he faced, and this is also when actor Harvey Scrimshaw truly gets to show his acting skills. The child is clearly possessed by some dark force, and it brings pain and ugliness into your heart when audiences see this kid fight and tragically lose against whatever is haunting the family. He unfortunately dies in an intense, brutal scene, but it’s not till after his death that this terror truly begins to tear the characters apart. Mercy and Jonas, remembering the threats that Thomasin made, tell them to their mother and chaos ensues. Thankfully, Thomasin, who’s truly the life of this story, gets her way out of the metaphorical pit and convinces her father (William, portrayed excellently by Ralph Ineson) and mother that she isn’t the threat.

I haven’t talked much about Joy’s actual performance, and that is truly the shame of this analysis. I cannot express enough how magnificent she is in the movie, easily the standout and totally worthy for an Oscar nomination. It’s through her perspective in which we see the foundations that hold this family together crumble with her siblings. This brings me to another point: The Witch is more of a family drama than a horror movie, with the scary moments only fueling the familial disaster even further. To be honest, it terrifies me more because everything seems so real, and not just the supernatural aspect, but what these characters endure. Like other A24 masterpieces such as Hereditary and Midsommar, these movies are at their very best when focusing on the character-driven part of the story, and not creepy imagery. This is what makes films like these on another level, perhaps almost otherworldly to even the best of the jump scare regime like A Quiet Place and Insidious.

The true icon of this film, of course, is Black Phillip. Who is that, you make ask? It’s the fantabulous goat living with the family on the farm that’s somehow famed (Mercy and Jonas string up an adorable tune about him). Turns out, he’s the fucking devil, and will literally kill you if he gets any chance. That’s how Mercy, Jonas and William meet their doom when Phillip crushes them with stone. Anyway, they’re dead now, and the only two left are Katherine and Thomasin. That isn’t a good match-up, and immediately Katherine wrestles her daughter to the ground and attempts to kill her. At the last second Thomasin picks up a knife and stabs her through the neck, finally killing her. For Christ’s sake this film is so gloriously messed up. Joy’s character is now completely corrupted by the overwhelming darkness, and gives in to Black Phillip’s next form: the one and only Satan. She makes a deal with the devil, and walks into the woods for one of the most insane conclusions I’ve ever seen. “Would you like to live…Deliciously?”, Phillip grotesquely asks. Joy completely strips butt-naked, walks dramatically into the woods, and meets up with a bunch of other naked women flying in the goddamn air. The final shot will give you any nightmare fuel viewers may have been missing as her character completes her dive into madness. That, folks, is cinema at its finest.