A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Witch -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

When a low-budget indie is crowned a festival favorite, reality can go either way.

Robert Eggers' The Witch, was reported accurately, and it's a winner.

To me, it's a bit of a miracle film. Within its compact 92 minutes, an extraordinary world, accurate in every detail of which I'm aware, and peopled with real people dealing with a major problem of the time, is created.

This is a feat for anyone, but even more-so for a first time director.

The Witch is what every witchcraft film through the ages of cinema might have, or should have been, but except in very few cases, wasn't.

A tiny cast, led by a mesmerizing new talent, Anya Taylor-Joy, leads us through what in the past might have been a black & white world of Dreyer or Bergman. In this case, with slightly desaturated beauty and horror, it's a place that few would willingly wish to visit.

Photographed by Jarin Blaschke, with an Arri Alexa Plus, and taken through a 2k DI, the resultant Blu-ray gorgeously represents the wilds of Ontario, Canada.

Upscaled to 4k via an Oppo, Mr. Eggers' world becomes all the more evil.

Image - 5

Audio - 5

4k Up-rez - 5

Pass / Fail - Pass

Highly Recommended


RAH

 

[TravisR]

Within its compact 92 minutes, an extraordinary world, accurate in every detail of which I'm aware, and peopled with real people dealing with a major problem of the time, is created.

Yeah, I'm no history scholar but it seemed like everything was period accurate & believable and so when more supernatural elements are introduced, you're not taken out of the movie. Another great thing about the movie is that they clearly didn't try to make Los Angles or Vancouver double for the northeast of the U.S.

 

[Oblivion138]

Yes, and yes. As a lifelong horror fan, I've become rather jaded in recent years, as even rave-reviewed movie like It Follows do absolutely nothing for me. I'd begun to wonder where all the real horror movies were. And then I saw The VVitch. Echoes of Polanski and Nic Roeg, with a smattering of Bergman and Ken Russell thrown in for good measure, this one is the real deal. Extremely unsettling and truly horrific. The best horror film I've seen in years. By far.

 

[Tony Bensley]

This was filmed in our neck of the woods!

CHEERS!

 

[Robert Crawford]

Yes, and yes. As a lifelong horror fan, I've become rather jaded in recent years, as even rave-reviewed movie like It Follows do absolutely nothing for me. I'd begun to wonder where all the real horror movies were. And then I saw The VVitch. Echoes of Polanski and Nic Roeg, with a smattering of Bergman and Ken Russell thrown in for good measure, this one is the real deal. Extremely unsettling and truly horrific. The best horror film I've seen in years. By far.

I was unimpressed by the horror in this film. It didn't scare me at all. I might buy the BD so I can view it again with the subtitles. It wasn't a bad film, but I didn't like it as much as others.

 

[Sam Posten]

It's supposed to be psychological and somewhat realistic horror. We are so far removed from living on the frontier it is tremendously hard for us to remember that ANYTHING out there that goes wrong could spiral into catastrophe, and these people had no scientific basis to their medicine or world view. Something as simple as a

Spoiler

rancid bacteria could cause them to hallucinate and turn on each other.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat...s_on_the_real_history_behind_the_movie_s.html

 

[Oblivion138]

I was unimpressed by the horror in this film. It didn't scare me at all. I might buy the BD so I can view it again with the subtitles. It wasn't a bad film, but I didn't like it as much as others.

Fair enough. That's pretty much how I've felt about every horror film that's been touted as an "instant classic" in recent years. The VVitch is the only one that's connected with me on any level

 

[Robert Harris]

I was unimpressed by the horror in this film. It didn't scare me at all. I might buy the BD so I can view it again with the subtitles. It wasn't a bad film, but I didn't like it as much as others.

Robert,

The Witch is less "horror," and more extremely unsettling historical drama and dread.

It's been categorized as "horror," but that seems almost in line with the Foreign Press delineating Mad Max as musical.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Robert,

The Witch is less "horror," and more extremely unsettling historical drama and dread.

It's been categorized as "horror," but that seems almost in line with the Foreign Press delineating Mad Max as musical.

Would this film be more closely related to Robert Wise's The Haunting than say The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? A serious question since I prefer the former film type to the latter.

 

[TravisR]

Would this film be more closely related to Robert Wise's The Haunting than say The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? A serious question since I prefer the former film type to the latter.

Definitely. It's more spooky atmospheric stuff than awesome chainsaw stuff.

Fair enough. That's pretty much how I've felt about every horror film that's been touted as an "instant classic" in recent years.

I think that comes from horror film bloggers going to film festivals and wanting to be the coolest kid on the block by seeing something that everyone can't see and so they tout anything that's good as a masterpiece.

All that being said, I thought The Witch and especially It Follows were examples of movies that lived up to the hype.

 

[Dick]

Terror, like comedy, is incredibly diverse. One person's hilarity about a joke is another's stupid pet trick. Similarly, one person's fright over a given horror movie is another's head-scratcher about what the hell is scary about it. It all lands upon how we were brought up and what we were exposed to and what pushes our very specific, individual buttons. THE WITCH for me was a creepy, often rather subtle horror film. I love subtlety. It allows our imaginations to fill in spaces with images that no filmmaker's visuals could possibly compete with. THE WITCH firstly developed a forceful period atmosphere, which is not easy to do unless you have a lot of talent. Second, it has a cast that feels real in its roles. Third, the slow-build to terror is deliberate. This is not your typical Hollywood horror thriller, which would assault you with staccato cutting and deafening dts music cues. Here we have a slow build to a horrific climax, the result of a foundation of unease and escalating terror. Young viewers might consider this film boring. I consider it a great example of the kind of film that was being made in the late 1960's and 70's, when movies took their time to absorb their audiences into the moods and plot before nailing them with their devastating finales. The process by which we were made terrified by movies during that era have been almost lost by today's filmmakers. An exception is THE WITCH, and I highly recommend it to those who have attention spans and patience. This is well worth their time.

 

[dpippel]

We were able to watch The Witch last night, and I was blown away by the expertly crafted build-up of psychological horror in this film. Unsettling themes of isolation, paranoia, suspicion, fear, violence, and eventual madness - all spun together in a vividly realized slow-burn of a movie that absolutely sucked me in and then spit me out. Amazing direction and amazing cinematography. The acting was superb and the entire cast gifted us with authentic, believable performances. With the exception of the twins, who completely creeped me out, I felt compassion for every character on the screen. It wasn't an easy film to experience, but certainly a deeply satisfying one and the Blu-ray presentation was superb. For me The Witch lived up to its hype and gave off a subterranean vibe very similar to but not the same as Let the Right One In. One of THE best movies of 2015 in my opinion.

 

[The Drifter]

Saw The Witch on Blu a while back. Incredible horror film; one of the best ones I've seen, and I've seen many. This is one of the few movies that stay with you long after the finale.

Here is my SPOILER-filled review:

When I first started watching, I was under the impression that this would be one of those films that made you believe there was a evil being behind a lot of the bad things happening, but the bad things would ultimately prove to have a non-supernatural explanation...especially since the film took place during the time period of the Salem witch trials/mass hysteria surrounding the false accusations of many women that people incorrectly believed were witches.

However, after watching the film - there appeared to be fairly obvious evil/supernatural elements here. My interpretation was that:

Thomasin was not an actual witch throughout most of the film, but was correct when she told her father that the young twins had unintentionally?! called "an evil spirit" forth with their playful/creepy chanting around the black goat (with the long horns).

The evil spirit "possessed" the goat, which ended up goring the father. The goat did not appear to be that out of control/violent prior to this.

Thomasins' threatening/scaring her younger sister by telling her she was a witch (to get her to behave) was a pre-cursor/indication that she was slowly becoming evil/a witch - even though she didn't know it yet.

The night before the mother died - she saw an image of her dead son and the baby boy. These were obviously hallucinations.

The baby boy was stolen by a witch living in the woods. The baby disappearing so quickly under Thomasin's nose (to the point that it was nowhere to be seen) has only one explanation: A supernatural/evil being stealing the baby; there is no way it could have vanished that quickly otherwise. Also, the two twins (fenced in with Thomasin in the barn?!) who disappeared may have been stolen by the witch as well.

There was a coven of actual witches living in the forest as well - as was seen in the final scenes after Thomasin had been seduced by the "evil spirit" and made her way into the woods, where she saw all of the witches chanting around a campfire. At first I thought she may have been hallucinating this, but in watching it carefully I don't think so.

The final scene of the witches floating up into the air...which culminated in Thomasin herself floating higher than all of them towards the top of the trees - was extremely disturbing. This was definitely one of the best horror film finales I've seen. Obviously, Thomasin had finally become what her family (especially the mother) believed she had been all along. Horrific.

 

[bigshot]

Turn on the English subs for this one. Some of the dialogue is hard to follow.