Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie
We are drawn into the film during the hearing of William (Ralph Ineson) and his family, who are accused of being too religious to live in the Puritan settlement they settle in after landing in America from England. Our hapless family decide to move out and start their own settlement right next to a huge, imposing forest.
The family’s new life doesn’t play out as they'd like and a lack of crops, a heap of family tension (including some sexual overtones) and a little too much religious piety causes questions to be raised as to where the baby has gone, and if the ‘witch’ they’re all so afraid of is closer to home than they originally thought.
New England in the time of the Pilgrims seems to have been left behind as a horror setting, which is a shame, so the return to the period in The Witch is very welcome. Everything is muted in colour, which evokes the sparse nature of a time where a fancy dress was a plain white smock, and living lavishly would be a mattress made of straw. In fact the whole mood of the film is sparse and barren, which works very well with the time period.
Harvey Scrimshaw as Caleb
Instead of focusing too much on the supernatural elements of the story The Witch focuses on family dynamics and historical accuracy, which moves the film past your run-of-the-mill horror story and almost into the realm of a psychological thriller, though this is remedied in the final quarter of the film when things start to get a little more creepy. There's some masterful misdirection too, keeping the audience guessing right until the very end of the story.
Eggers' directing is stylish and he offers something very polished despite it being his feature-length directorial debut. There is also some fine acting from a relatively unheard of cast - including Anya Taylor-Joy as Tamasin and Harvey Scrimshaw, yet another product of Nottingham's Television Workshop, as her brother Caleb - Eggers seems to have drawn good performances out of even the young twins Jonas (Lucas Dawson) and Mercy (Ellie Grainger, also a Television Workshop student).
The Witch is definitely a slow burner and those that like their horror scares thick and fast might find the pacing a little too dawdling for their tastes, but for those who like to watch the tension mount will thoroughly enjoy the creeping build up and extremely satisfying ending.
The Witch will be showing at Broadway Cinema until Thursday 24 March 2016
The Witch Trailer
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