The Witch (2016) Directed by Robert Eggers

Second Sight Films present the re-release of The Witch coming to 4k and Blu-Ray on 24 October.

The Witch is an historical horror following a New England family whose puritan beliefs see them exiled from their community to a wild forest where strange occurrences will soon be thrust upon them in Robert Eggers' directorial debut.

Ralph Ineson plays father William whose wife Katherine gives birth to Samuel, but he subsequently disappears after their daughter Thomasin plays a game of peek-a-boo with him in a field. When their other son Caleb goes missing on a trip with Thomasin and returns to the farm with an ambiguous sickness, their worries increase and their distrust of Thomasin intensifies.

And as the family’s twins play with a goat – “Black Phillip” – the mother lays the blame on Thomasin for the family’s current catastrophes.

With an “earthy” feel, the film poses questions of the soul but rather than subtle symbolism, these occur with heavy archaic dialogue. This gives a great sense of the past but is somewhat impenetrable at times. Making it less accessible for the casual viewer, the minimal language has however been helped by what seems like an improved sound mix in this new version.

Eggers throws the actual witch into the film early on and attempts to build up tension as we wait for the entity to be revealed to the family – but this is certainly a slow drawn-out process.

At those points, I felt The Witch had missed (or maybe badly marketed on its release) its key horror elements of terror, frights and shocks. I’m not looking for jump-scares but I didn’t “feel” enough engagement for the film to get under my skin. An underwhelming experience that is at odds with what I've read most people had thought.

The actors do very well though - Ineson especially is suitably overbearing as the family patriarch and Taylor-Joy rightly went on to become a superstar in her own right - and together, the whole cast confidently own the cerebral material.

Fans of drama and historical fiction will enjoy its paranoia - although I slightly preferred the real-life puritan horrors of Fanny Lye Deliver'd - but there's plenty of wonderful cinematography to enjoy throughout.

In the end I enjoyed this re-watch over my first initial impressions. However I have a slightly different view to critics who believe this is something of a watershed in horror - as the sluggish pace didn't build the tension - like, admittedly it did for other viewers.

For me The Witch is a technical marvel (and looks fantastic on this re-issue) but I have to go with my gut feeling that the absence of (what I felt was) real terror or psychological anxiety make it a movie with a cauldron full of missed horror opportunities.

★★★½

Michael Sales

4k disc Special Features 

• Presented in Dolby Vision HDR supervised and approved by Robert Eggers
  
• Archive audio commentary by Director Robert Eggers
• New audio commentary by film writer and broadcaster Anna Bogutskaya
• A Puritan Nightmare: a new interview with Robert Eggers
• Embracing Darkness: a new interview with Anya Taylor-Joy
• Love Thy Father: a new interview Ralph Ineson
• A Pious Wife: a new interview with Actor Kate Dickie
• Caleb’s Lament: a new interview with Actor Harvey Scrimshaw
• A Primal Folktale: features interviews with Robert Eggers and cast
• BFI London Film Festival Q&A with Robert Eggers, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson and Producer Jay Van Hoy
• Brothers: a short film by Robert Eggers
• Optional English subtitles for the hearing impaired

Catalogue number: 2NDBR4167

Certificate: 15

Region: 4K UHD Region Free