An exiled pioneer family travel from
their New England plantation to uninhabited land near a foreboding wood to
start their life anew. ‘We will conquer this wilderness – it will not consume
us’, the father says. It consumes them.
The Witch is at least half a family drama. Thomasin, the oldest daughter, is put-upon with having to take care of her mischievous twin brother
and sister; the stoic oldest son Caleb struggles with adolescent attraction
towards Thomasin. The mother, Katherine, is broken early on by the loss of her
baby Samuel – stolen by the witch – and she inevitably blames Thomasin, who was
minding him. The father, William, stands in the middle of it all, trying to
keep his family together as tragedy and lies pull them apart. Watching them turn
on each other is sickening and sad – it’s an unusual and effective kind of
horror.
Conflicts which might otherwise lead
merely to shouting matches acquire high stakes because of the presence of both
the witch and God. Devout Christians, the family are constantly seen in prayer
and concepts of grace, God’s mercy, the punishment visited on the prideful, and
the Devil are completely real to them – after Samuel is taken, Caleb asks his
father if Samuel is in hell because he was unbaptized. A day’s ride from the
plantation, the loss of a horse can make the difference between life and death
for the family, particularly once their crops begin failing. Poised so close to
death, every conflict acquires extreme gravity. The ambiguity of the witch’s
influence and the Puritan emphasis on personal responsibility combine to make
everyone suspect of evil – have they earned their suffering? Why is God
punishing them? All the while, the wood encroaches on their farm, nature’s
terrifying aspect comes to reclaim their attempts at a civilised existence.
The Witch is a masterpiece in building tension and dread.
When their crops fail, the family goes into the wood for food, into the witch’s
territory, giving her ways to influence them further and escalate the situation.
Little domestic dramas revolving around William’s foolhardiness in taking Caleb
hunting or Katherine’s missing silver cup inflate in significance as lies break
trusts and invite God’s supposed wrath. The spiralling is punctuated by moments
of indelible horror – Thomasin plays peekaboo with Samuel and opens her eyes to
an empty cradle, a milking goat gives blood, a raven pecking at a breast
–as reality is distorted by the corrupting influence of the devil.
To make the 400 years-old setting
credible and immediate, Robert Eggers painstakingly reconstructs the world of
puritan New England, from accent and speech – dialogue in The Witch has the antiquated gloss of
Jacobean drama - to costume and set design. Its characters may be credulous,
but they engage with their faith responsively – Katherine’s speech about how
she fears she’s become as Job’s wife, her heart hardened by the loss of her
children, is deeply affecting, as is William’s self-recriminating breakdown.
Eggers’ immaculate framing and his eye for what to leave unseen are a perfect
match for The Witch’s
slow-burn approach to horror. It’s a spectacular debut – functioning
simultaneously as a family drama, a vividly-realised historical film, and an
exercise in suffocating dread.
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