LogFAQs > #965320848

6. The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (161 points)

Why I Chose It: The VVitch, Robert Eggers' debut film, represented the most clear shift in the decade to arthouse, elevated horror pseudo-blockbusters. A surprising box-office hit, The VVitch impressed even more with its fanatical attention to detail, religious subject matter, and star-making turn by a then unknown Anya Taylor-Joy.

rockus: 1
thesmark: 1
Suprak: 2
fortybelowsummer: 3
Johnbobb: 6
Tom Nook: 8
Inviso: 9
Lightning Strikes: 12
Snake: 12
FFDragon: 13
jcgamer107: 14
BetrayedTangy: 15
red13n: 16
PrinceKaro: 19
Plasmabeam: 30

Rockus - Pretty easily my favorite film in the group. The fact that its also a debut is pretty remarkable. From the period design, the attention to detail, and the work put into researching it for authenticity everything feels so carefully thought out that I would assume its the work of a more seasoned filmmaker. It also works on multiple levels. As a chilling atmospheric supernatural nightmare, as an examination of puritanical paranoia, and just on a purely sensory level with a great score and how good it looks. It also gave the world two of the biggest breakout stars in recent years with Anya TaylorJoy and Charlie as Black Phillip, becoming the most iconic animal star in recent memory.

Thesmark - The language, sets/location, cinematography, clothes, its just a wholly unique level of authenticity, filled with atmosphere. The cast (featuring the breakout performance for Anya Taylor-Joy) and the score fit perfectly too. Beyond just themes (arrogance/pride of man being able to conquer nature/the unknown, patriarchy and the place of women in young America (along with their burgeoning womanhood), the tension keeps rising so effectively, and theres a human element to all of it: the characters are not just there to be symbols for something. And what an ending! Ive seen The Witch a couple of times now and it continues to delight me and yes, it is my favorite film in the whole ranking.

Its funny, the only change I thought about for the movie is not to reveal whether the witches are real or not less than 10 minutes into the movie. Then again, there are plenty of movies like that where the whole thing rides the line between madness and the thing being real only for the movie to lose steam at the end once we know-moving it up to the beginning makes the film not about that anymore.

Suprak - Holy shit was this one bleak. The film opens up and in the first five minutes a baby is kidnapped by a witch and is then murdered with a large knife. And then things get worse. Thats as ok as the characters in this movie are going to get. Usually in horror movies there is some level of happiness. Like obviously the characters arent happy when theyre getting butchered but theres at least some point in the movie where the film is ok letting you know that happiness, as a concept, still exists and these characters felt that at one point. Not here. In The VVitch, happiness is a word that maybe one of these characters saw in a book one time and then fell to their knees and started to pray because they were afraid reading about it might be sinful. It is a heavy, dark film that just slowly beats you down and beats you down until you feel almost just as desperate in the family in the movie. And I think I love it.

I checked on Rotten Tomatoes after watching this, and the sort of common complaint from audience viewings was that it was just kind of boring and I can understand where they were coming from, even if I dont agree. Like, I was watching this and it was pretty clearly heading towards the end and I remember thinking to myself, I bet this absolutely bombed audience scores because it isnt really what youre expecting from something that markets itself as a horror movie. There isnt a spooky clown showing up and going BLARGHARGHARGHBOOOOO and you dont have any sort of demon popping up from the dark to bite someone in the throat or anything like that. If someone was to ask me if this was scary, Id probably respond with a No, but because it is more complicated than that. Where The VVitch succeeds, at least for me, was this constant and unrelented feeling of dread where I wasnt maybe jumping out of my seat, but I felt like I was clenching my jaw the entire time.

It is this really interesting focus on this one family and how they slowly lose their mind and turn on each other while none of them know what the hell is going on. The characters were great and I was shocked how much I liked this cast. I can see why this launched Anna Taylor Joys career and even the child actors were excellent. There are so many great scenes here and this was one of the films on this list where I really lost track of time. Like I felt like it just started and then all of a sudden I realized an hour had passed and they were coming up on the final act. I thought it might be hard to follow at first because of how close they try to keep the dialogue to the period, but it works really well to help reinforce the atmosphere and by the end I barely noticed. The atmosphere in this movie is excellent. I love how that hopelessness builds up over time, and at a certain point the which almost feels ancillary. You have the baby disappearing, and the corn is rotten and they cant catch any food and the father is letting Anna Taylor Joy take the blame and each thing adds up over time to the point where you are basically just begging for these people to have something go their way but it never does. The payoff is great too, and the scenes where the dad is begging for his kids to be spared for his pride or when he is asking Anna Taylor Joy to confess are just so good. Everything just builds on each other and it was so nice to sit down with a film where the horror comes from this creeping dread and hopelessness and not LOUD MUSIC JUMP SCARES BOO.

One thing I think I wouldve liked to change was the ending. I had one in my from roughly the two-thirds mark, where what I thought would happen is that everyone died and then Anna Taylor Joy would go back to town and everyone would burn her for being a witch. Which I thought would be a suitably dark and dreadful and bleak ending for such a dark and dreadful and bleak film. Like, there was no hope for her. All this bad stuff was happening and she knew it wasnt her and no one would even help her because they thought she was doing all this bad stuff that she was suffering from. Sort of an interesting here is why it was terrifying being a woman back then even if you want to assume you live in this history where witches are in fact real. So Im not sure I was entirely on board with the ending. I liked it up until she goes and talks to the goat but then, I dunno, it just didnt feel in line with what I thought the movie was up until that point. And maybe Im just misinterpreting something or I missed something. This was a film I really thought about for a while and it stuck with me more than most of the movies on this list. I dont know exactly, but I wanted it to close out on even more misery. GIVE ME THAT SWEET SWEET GRIEF, BABY. And maybe there is a little bit of that if you assume shes fallen so low she is now being sucked into something where she is going to be causing that same grief onto other families that absolutely tore hers apart. Maybe I sound like an idiot rambling here, but just, to me, it didnt quite stick the landing and I thought there could be a more clever way to wrap this all up. I feel like I could be missing something though, but fortunately this is one I plan on rewatching sometime soon so maybe Ill pick up on other stuff then.