The Witch (2015)

I caught this one in the theater a few months ago and, while VERY impressed, was just too damn busy at the time to muster up a review for it so I figured I'd give it another watch upon a good ol' home media release before I added in my two cents. Lately, here and there, some very decent horror flicks seem to have been slipping through the Marvel-saturated Hollywood sewer system of wider theatrical releases and I gotta say, I really fucking loved "The Witch"! Maybe a demand is growing. Hell, I'm game. Give me a reason to go to the theater and I'll fucking bite.

So, we're back in New England, circa 1630, where a family is banished from their plantation for their kooky, ultra religious bullshit and are carted out into the woods to start anew, ensconced in gloomy, righteous solitude. Right off the bat, their baby is swiped by an evil forest-dwelling hag and more run-ins with sinister presences ensue - showing that the family's devout, god-fearing lifestyle is no match for one of the evilest fucking goats and rabbits you'll ever see...

Make no mistake about it, "The Witch" is pretty slow and for the most part might as well be in another language, given the thick dialect taken straight from legit sources (diaries, letters, etc...), so if you're a stickler for knowing precisely what's being said at all times in a movie you'll want to have your English subs on. Frankly, I didn't really see it as being too crucial to the comprehension of the story since a good portion of the dialog seems to be just quoting scripture while the rest is intelligible enough, I'd say. The authentic period vernacular is the icing on the cake, however, of what makes "The Witch" a very unsettling flick. Bleak tones and eerie, evil moodiness on top of infanticide, devil goats, apple regurgitation, pedophilic witches and zero hackneyed jump scares! This movie is full of uncomfortable shit. The acting is phenomenal across the board. Remembering and reciting all of the fucking "doth hath's" and "hither's" while actually putting forth an intensive performance is fucking grandiose, if you ask me. All believable performances that really 'strike' you if you're like me and are disturbed by deeply religious jargon - most notably, when a dying child is 'ascended into Christ's loving embrace'... Yeesh. If you're hankering for something creepy and a bit fucked up that won't insult your intelligence with cliches, check out "The Witch"! I look forward to director Robert Eggers' take on "Nosferatu".