This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 2: Black Magic Night
“We will conquer this wilderness. It will not consume us.”
The Witch (2016)
Though witches are as much of a Halloween staple as
vampires, werewolves, and pumpkins, they are not often the subject of horror
movies. I can only think of handful of films about witches (Lords of Salem, The Craft, The Blair Witch
Project) and fewer good ones (Suspiria,
Hocus Pocus—yes, seriously). The Witch: A New England Folktale has
the plot of a basic witch story: a family is menaced by an evil witch living
nearby. But the time and place of the setting—colonial New England—along with
its less is more approach to horror, turn The
Witch into a chilling and haunting realization of campfire stories and
legends.
The Witch finds a
family of colonial era New England Puritans exiled from their village because
of the father’s “heretical” view on faith. They now live in isolation on the
edge of a deep, dark, portentous forest. The first eerie event to befall the
family happens when the oldest daughter, Thomasin, played with a great
performance by Anya Taylor-Joy, is playing peek-a-boo with her infant sibling.
When she pokes her head from behind her hands the baby is gone. William, the
family patriarch, says that a wolf took the baby though there are no tracks to
be found. This event casts an ominous shadow over every other misfortune that
occurs from dying crops to the goat giving blood instead of milk. The presence
of a witch and black magic loom over their home though no one wants to accept
that possibility.
The most striking and pronounced element of The Witch is the manner of speech of the
characters. If you’ve read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, you’ll have some familiarity with the way the
characters speak, which some may find surprisingly understandable. Their
antiquated diction and phrasing, in addition to being period accurate, adds to
the eerie tone of the story. This movie calls itself a
folktale, a story that is immediately familiar with recognizable cues and
characters, and just like that campfire story you’ve heard before, the scary
parts hit effectively well and stay with you long after the story has ended.
I’ve heard some people say that The Witch shouldn’t be classified as a horror film. It’s more of a
creepy drama, someone told me. I do not entirely disagree, however, I think what these viewers
mean is that The Witch does not
follow the template and tropes of a typical horror film. There is not a scare
every ten minutes regardless of the context of the scene— no pop-up scares. It
takes its time to get to the scary moments, which are small and unostentatious
until the film’s frightening climax.
There are a few disturbing, bloody images but otherwise this
a relatively gore free film. Instead of using pop-up scares and gross images, The Witch does things like hold a close
up shot of a rabbit William and his son, Caleb, are hunting. Something goes
wrong. When we see that rabbit again there is instant tension. When Caleb
becomes lost in the woods he stumbles across one of the most eerie and
beguiling scenes of the movie. The Witch,
like many other effective low-key horror films plays with the characters’ and viewer’s perception of reality. The family is all alone and frightened of their
situation and surroundings. Could the signs of the supernatural be all in their
minds, or is there indeed an evil witch living in the woods? At a certain point
the film makes a definite decision, or at least I did, and then the film
becomes quite scary indeed.
I would definitely put The
Witch in the horror section of the video store, but I understand the sentiments
of people that say this shouldn’t be thought of as a horror movie. This is a
largely quiet film. It is a slow burn to an incredible finale, but it doesn’t
let you know its building to anything…then it hits you. For stretches of The Witch you might feel like you’re
watching a movie just about early American settlers, but I highly recommend you
keep watching. This is the kind of horror movie you could get away with showing
to someone that doesn’t like horror movies. It may not seem like a traditional
horror movie, but what else do you call a movie that chills you and tightens
your skin?
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