The Witch

"What went we out into this wilderness to find?"

Spoilers throughout.



Every once in a while you watch a film and you can tell right away that it will stand the test of time. People will be talking about it, for better or worse, for years to come. The VVitch is a movie that has garnered a lot of discussion, and I've noted how divisive it is, viewers seem to really love it, or really hate it. It's inspiring passion in the viewers, but almost nobody watches the movie and says 'meh.' When you see Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, you think to yourself: 'wow, that was truly awful.' Then you move on with your life. Something about this movie is truly provocative, and encourages people to come into threads to remind others how much they hated the movie.

Horror movies are my bag, baby. When they scare the audience, they can be fun, but they can also be so much more. Horror films can be truly great, because of the emotions they elicit and force the audience to experience and explore. Every time I go see a horror movie in the theater, I make a point of scanning the audience to see what kind of crowd is there. You might think that it's mostly horny teenagers lining up to see the latest scary movie, but it is always the most diverse, varied crowed of any movie genre. I see white people, black people, hispanics, young people, middle-aged people, children, I see little old ladies clutching each other's hands, and yes, even some horny teenagers. Something about horror movies speaks to the humanity at its core, and everybody can relate. In comparison, when you go to see The King's Speech, it's a pretty homogeneous crowd.



So why is The VVitch such an effective movie? Because it plays on the emotions that define and motivate human beings. The film opens up with a proud declaration of righteousness. "What went we out into this darkness to find?" Is the first line we hear, spoken off-screen, and what we see is that character's daughter, wide-eyed and frightened. Her father is challenging the village elders, and attacking their faith, and adherence to God's law.  Her name is Thomasin, and you can see in her eyes that she understands the gravity of her father's words, and in that very scene her family is banished from the village.  This film transports us to a time in the past when life was harsher, and the wilderness was vast, mysterious, and dangerous.  There are many ominous, lingering shots of the woods, darkness and the unknown are lurking just beyond the treeline.  To leave behind the safety and structure of a village, to turn away from a community of people that can provide support, has huge implications in young America.

This is a time that places extreme important on religious faith.  After all, life was harder, and when it's so easy to lose a child to illness, it makes sense to look to a higher power for strength in your own uncertainty.  That is the framing of this film, and similar to The Exorcist, it might even be scarier for atheists.  The film reveals the presence of a witch early on, which was necessary, to put the modern audience into the mindset of the characters.  There could be no ambiguity about the existence of dark forces working in the shadows.  This scene, was terrifying, and allowed me to relate to the characters when their paranoia overcame them.  There is something in the wilderness, and it's out to get us.



Yet, the film would work without any presence of witchcraft, you could remove all of those scenes or at least chalk them up to symbolism, and the main drama of the film would still be compelling.  Because this isn't really a movie about witches, it's about the frailty of the family unit in harsh conditions.  Almost immediately after their departure from the village, the family feels strained.  Tension escalates between the siblings, between the parents and their children.  The family struggles to yield a harvest that will last them throughout the upcoming winter.  Thomasin is playing peakabo with the baby when she closes her eyes for a moment,  and opens them to find the baby gone and a path of swaying grass leading to the woods.  It's not said, but we can tell that Katherine, her mother, holds her responsible for her baby's disappearance.

Will, the paterfamilias, breaks down and trades his wife's silver cup behind her back, in exchange for traps, he knows their crops won't sustain them, so he wants to catch his food in the very woods he forbade his children from entering.  This causes Katherine, his wife, to become suspicious of Thomasin, and allows Will to bring his son Caleb into the forest for the first time.  Caleb reminds his father that he was told not to enter the woods, at this same time he's asking theological questions.  Caleb is complimented for reciting prayers and bible stories, but when Caleb asks his father if his baby brother was in hell, it makes Will uncomfortable.  He doesn't have an answer.  It's the first of many scenes where the authority figures implore the children to 'do as I say, not as I do.'  Throughout the remainder of the film, each character lies, sins, and justifies their actions for the greater good.



The inevitable breakdown of this family unit is what makes it so effective.  The performances are amazing, and the stakes are high for this family struggling to survive out there in the wilderness.  With inexplicable external forces pressuring them at every moment, it's only natural that they would turn on each other and accuse each other of witchcraft to help explain the tragedy that this family is experiencing.  Will defends Thomasin from his mother's accusations, but doesn't confess his part in her missing cup.  Katherine is overcome with grief, neglects her family during her coping process, and allows her jealousy of Thomasin to cloud her judgment.  Caleb steals lingering glances at his sister's chest, as he is tempted by the pangs of lust.  Thomasin loses her temper and torments her sister with threats of sorcery and torture.  When this family isn't reciting prayer, they're sinning, and it's hard to watch the guilt eat away at them.  Not until his family is torn apart does Will admit that his own pride put them in danger.  By that point, he's lost two children and alienated the remainder of his family.

For a review of The VVitch, you're probably thinking about how little I've talked about witches.  That is because the family drama is the heart and soul of this film.  The Witch scenes scared me, but it was watching the family struggle to cope with their grief that broke my heart, and elicited the strongest feelings from me.  The horror elements of this film are just icing on the cake.  And that is what makes a truly great horror film get under your skin and haunt your thoughts.  The Exorcist wasn't scary because it was about the demon Pazuzu possessing a child, it was scary because it was about a mother being completely helpless when her daughter is stricken with an inexplicable and incurable illness.  And like The Exorcist, future generations will scoff at how people could possibly find The VVitch scary, or even interesting, but for those who want to see the frailty of the human condition, there has not been a greater horror movie in decades.