The impassive evil of 'The Witch'

Haunting images and slow-burn dread make for a deeply affecting horror film

Trailers for Robert Eggers’ feature writing and directorial debut, “The Witch,” promised an ominous experience. They were so effective, in fact, I tamped down my expectations like unconsecrated dirt.

It’s the early 17^th century at the peak of the Great Migration, and Puritan settlers fleeing religious oppression have found a refuge for worship in the woodsy wilderness of New England. William (Ralph Ineson), a stalwart man of God, and his family are banished from their village after a council decides he’s guilty of what amounts to ecclesiastical narcissism. William, his wife Katherine (“Game of Thrones” Kate Dickie) and their children, forced to start anew, build a farm on the edge of a sinister forest.

Eldest children Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) and Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) help William with the day-to-day chores that go with living off the land, while the fraternal twin toddlers, Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson), occupy their time playing with their creepy goat named Black Phillip.

For a time, things are about as good as they get when you’re pioneering with five kids and living on blind faith in the middle of nowhere.

Then, newborn Samuel disappears, borne away deep into the woods by a witch. Right away, Eggers subverts the conventions of the colonial-era witch story, which has in the past involved some element of “is she or isn’t she?” mystery, by showing us the titular sorceress in the first ten minutes of the film and firmly establishing the existence of the supernatural.

Torn by the loss and their fruitless search for Samuel (and, seemingly, for God’s favor), the family desperately leans on each other and their faith. Yet as the corn grows rotten and their goat’s milk turns to blood, their familial bonds begin to fray like taut, quivering ropes, along with their sanity.

The power of “The Witch,” which is subtitled “A New England Folk Tale,” lies in its authenticity. Eggers studied original writings of the period to cull the details of their legends and myths and to capture the patois of their speech—sculpting his story with their own language. The story can be read as a traditional horror film, or as a psychological drama about the spiritual despair of the human condition and the oppression of women in colonial America. Regardless of your interpretation, the haunting images, genuine characters, and slow-burn dread remain deeply affecting.

Eggers owes a debt to Kubrick. His long, deliberate, and flawlessly composed shots are often taken to the next level by Mark Korven’s chilling score—high, dissonant wails of the damned that punctuate the drone of atonal strings, eerie horns, and unnervingly ritualistic percussion—recalling Wendy Carlos’ work on “The Shining” and György Ligeti’s “Requiem” from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Jarin Blaschke’s painterly cinematography imbues every frame with menace. There is the witch—a nude crone barely glimpsed as she prepares the baby for an awful fate; a psychotic-looking hare that stares with malevolent purpose from the bower of the tangled woods; the knowing tilt of Black Phillip’s horned head as the twins whisper secrets, and the dream-like finale, during which Eggers offers a horrific and beautiful punchline to the previous 90 minutes. All are evocative images drawn out of the deep recesses of our collective imagination: images of impassive, chaotic evil balefully satiating itself on the sheep and dancing orgasmic upon their ruin.

Ineson and Taylor-Joy stand out among the fine cast, Ineson going a long way to sell the existential tests of faith that make up their spiritual struggle, Taylor-Joy offering a revelatory performance as the budding woman fighting to keep her family and her sanity. While the slow-burn storytelling and Eggers’ fixation on the era’s spiritual struggles make the story sag, the brooding tone and disturbing atmosphere keep the bottom from dropping out. Eggers’ poetic direction evokes a constant, growing bubble of anxiety that bursts into darkly satisfying fires of corruption.

“The Witch” is a quiet, bleak, traumnovelle glimpse of an eldritch past that makes one long to step through the screen. In parts, it almost seems possible. The movie beckons with what exists on the other side of its spectral mirror—from that place where the familiar shore gives way to black Neptunian depths.

For more from Joe, check out his conversation with Oklahoma Film Critics Circle president James Cooper on the upcoming Academy Awards.