"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"
Stay away from the woods. As a life rule, just always stay away from the woods...
A family in 1630's New England are torn apart by witchcraft and black magic.
I love the Salem Witch Trials. Having been to Salem, Massachusetts, I have had an obsession for the trials, ancient witchcraft and the psychology behind it all for years. Needless to say, when I heard about this film, I was very excited.
Seeing the trailer for ‘The Witch’ filled me with hope that there are still well made, artistic and genuinely scary horror films out there. There were endless positive reviews and word of mouth was building for this movie but, unfortunately, seeing it wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as I had hoped it was going to be.
The film starts out extremely well. It has bucketloads of tension, mystery and some seriously fucked up imagery and events. Like a rollercoaster, it gradually pulls us up to the height of anticipation and, just when you think you’re going to go over the edge at top speed, it stops and slowly brings you back in reverse and the ride grinds to a halt.
The slow pace of the film didn't bother me, it was the structure of the film that felt sporadic. The story was relatively well balanced and had lots of details that brought it to life but the tension and the horror weren't consistent. Personally, I think it gave too much too soon and didn't have much left to build to. It goes pretty much where you expect it to go, not that it's predictable but it's not a surprise when it all happens.
Don't get me wrong, 'The Witch' has its moments of pure horror but they are so few and far between that the film begins to drag after its fantastic opening. The tension is lost in moments of poor acting and the meaning of certain aspects of the film are lost in the confusion.
This leads me to one of the main problems with the film. The acting. The characters speak in an old English dialect and you can tell that the actors either don’t understand what the lines mean or have simply memorised the lines. It gives you the impression that they are more focused on making sure they get the lines right rather than delivering a meaningful line of dialogue. It feels like a bad theatre production. Unfortunately, this was especially the case with the younger actors, an unavoidable issue with young actors speaking in a dialect that they aren't used to but the older actors should have had a better grip of it. Probably the best actor of the family was Ralph Ineson who delivered the most believable performance.
The cinematography was interesting and really suited the tone of the film. The way it was shot was like an old painting from the 1600's come to life. This was a stroke of genuis from cinematographer Jarin Blaschke but style alone doesn’t necessarily redeem a film and it certainly doesn’t with ‘The Witch’.
A lot of the themes and ideas have been done so well in ‘The Crucible’ that it’s hard to top them anywhere else. Despite taking a different approach and a different flavour to 'The Crucible', it still felt like a cheap knock-off off and didn’t feel authentic. It had a lot of potential but falls short of the mark, which is especially frustrating because it's dealing with a lot of folk tales and mythology that are gripping and horrific. When you have such rich and textured lore to draw on it's a shame to see it wasted.
I could see what they were going for but I just don’t think that it paid off in the end and left me unsatisfied.
Overall, I was really disappointed with 'The Witch'. I expected so much and only got about 40% of what I had hoped for. It has some decent imagery and a handful of moments that make the film worth the watch but, ultimately, it doesn't deliver on all aspects. There are two key scenes in the film that will send a shiver up your spine but the rest falls into obscurity.
A family in 1630's New England are torn apart by witchcraft and black magic.
I love the Salem Witch Trials. Having been to Salem, Massachusetts, I have had an obsession for the trials, ancient witchcraft and the psychology behind it all for years. Needless to say, when I heard about this film, I was very excited.
Seeing the trailer for ‘The Witch’ filled me with hope that there are still well made, artistic and genuinely scary horror films out there. There were endless positive reviews and word of mouth was building for this movie but, unfortunately, seeing it wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as I had hoped it was going to be.
The film starts out extremely well. It has bucketloads of tension, mystery and some seriously fucked up imagery and events. Like a rollercoaster, it gradually pulls us up to the height of anticipation and, just when you think you’re going to go over the edge at top speed, it stops and slowly brings you back in reverse and the ride grinds to a halt.
The slow pace of the film didn't bother me, it was the structure of the film that felt sporadic. The story was relatively well balanced and had lots of details that brought it to life but the tension and the horror weren't consistent. Personally, I think it gave too much too soon and didn't have much left to build to. It goes pretty much where you expect it to go, not that it's predictable but it's not a surprise when it all happens.
Don't get me wrong, 'The Witch' has its moments of pure horror but they are so few and far between that the film begins to drag after its fantastic opening. The tension is lost in moments of poor acting and the meaning of certain aspects of the film are lost in the confusion.
This leads me to one of the main problems with the film. The acting. The characters speak in an old English dialect and you can tell that the actors either don’t understand what the lines mean or have simply memorised the lines. It gives you the impression that they are more focused on making sure they get the lines right rather than delivering a meaningful line of dialogue. It feels like a bad theatre production. Unfortunately, this was especially the case with the younger actors, an unavoidable issue with young actors speaking in a dialect that they aren't used to but the older actors should have had a better grip of it. Probably the best actor of the family was Ralph Ineson who delivered the most believable performance.
A lot of the themes and ideas have been done so well in ‘The Crucible’ that it’s hard to top them anywhere else. Despite taking a different approach and a different flavour to 'The Crucible', it still felt like a cheap knock-off off and didn’t feel authentic. It had a lot of potential but falls short of the mark, which is especially frustrating because it's dealing with a lot of folk tales and mythology that are gripping and horrific. When you have such rich and textured lore to draw on it's a shame to see it wasted.
I could see what they were going for but I just don’t think that it paid off in the end and left me unsatisfied.
Overall, I was really disappointed with 'The Witch'. I expected so much and only got about 40% of what I had hoped for. It has some decent imagery and a handful of moments that make the film worth the watch but, ultimately, it doesn't deliver on all aspects. There are two key scenes in the film that will send a shiver up your spine but the rest falls into obscurity.
The glowing reviews feel a little misplaced after seeing the film but, who knows, it may just be my own personal bias towards the source material. Only one man's opinion!
A little bit of style over substance for me in this one but, in the end, it's something new and it's something relatively original so I'm happy that the horror genre is moving in this direction... Hopefully.
A little bit of style over substance for me in this one but, in the end, it's something new and it's something relatively original so I'm happy that the horror genre is moving in this direction... Hopefully.
No comments:
Post a Comment