7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A devoutly Christian family in 1630s New England struggles to survive living along the edge of a vast wilderness. When one of their five children goes missing and their life-sustaining crops fail, they fall victim to paranoia and fear as they begin to turn on one another.
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie GraingerHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 34% |
Psychological thriller | 30% |
Supernatural | 29% |
Period | 8% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
We reviewers have learned the hard way that it’s often dangerous to review a film with any religious leanings whatsoever, as it’s virtually certain you’re going to end up offending or alienating someone who either doesn’t agree with the religion being portrayed, or how a particular reviewer reacts to that portrayal. And so let me just begin this review by apologizing to any and all Puritans who may read it and who are probably already taking umbrage that anyone would deign to assess elements of their faith, at least in how it’s portrayed in the riveting if intentionally small scale The Witch. This pastoral horror story, given the subtitle A New England Folktale, reminded me in a way of The Wicker Man, with an atavistic, agrarian society attempting to ferret out signs from the Divine in the workings of Nature, not always to felicitous results. The Witch plies a somewhat familiar 17th century environment, albeit with a spooky supernatural air wafting through the misty woods, and that “folktale” element tends to (perhaps ironically) give the film a rare feeling of authenticity, as if some long ago banished history had suddenly sprung to life and been reenacted for the edification of the audience. The Witch doesn’t really traffic in standard horror tropes like jump cuts, booming LFE or even outright signs of graphic gore (there are a few disturbing images in the film, but they’re relatively restrained, at least within the context of much contemporary horror cinema). Instead, much like The Wicker Man, there’s a slow but steady accretion of angst that ultimately creates a very discomfiting mood, one that becomes increasingly hard to shake as the intentionally minimalist story proceeds.
The Witch is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1, a kind of retro aspect ratio that may subliminally help to achieve an "old school" ambience. The IMDb lists this as having been digitally shot with the Arri Alexa, and the image boasts the typically sleek, smooth and often beautifully detailed look of this capture technology. There's some really interesting color grading going on in this presentation, with quite a few scenes both desaturated and also skewed toward cool blue and/or gray tones. It's a striking presentational approach which tends to highlight details like pores or strands of hair while also tending to cast backgrounds into more of a hazy, less precise looking, appearance. There are a number of nice shots establishing the surroundings (despite Eggers' complaints about a few of them not being "expansive" enough), offering good depth of field and no resolution issues in things like busy branches or foliage. The desaturation when combined with sometimes low contrast and darker filming environments can lead to some scenes offering relatively little in detail and shadow definition. Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke frame things in an almost painterly manner a lot of the time, offering tableaux that struck me on occasion as almost Vermeer-like.
Don't expect any ear shattering effects in The Witch's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 presentation, which is not to say that there's not some good low end and very evocative use of the surround channels in helping to aurally detail a seemingly possessed landscape. When the kids get out into the woods on a couple of occasion, there's some really well done immersive elements, especially as their imaginations (perhaps) take over. This is a subtle mix for a horror film, though, one which creates its spookiness out of seemingly mundane elements like breezes wafting through the trees or the plaintive cries of farm animals. While there's no fidelity issue with regard to dialogue, occasionally actors can be a bit hard to decipher, which may cause some listeners to opt for the optional subtitles.
This is a film where things don't exactly go "bump" in the night, tending to whisper menacingly instead. That means those wanting a gorefest with horrifying imagery, jump cuts and shock LFE are going to be mightily disappointed by what is a remarkably "quiet" feeling horror film. For those attuned to The Witch's almost dreamlike (and/or nightmarish) ambience, though, the film offers a completely unsettling mood, along with fantastic production design and some very naturalistic performances, especially given the built in "folktale" element of the story. Technical merits are strong and The Witch comes Highly recommended.
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