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Casting a Moderate Spell

Leaving my showing of "The Witch," I heard a variety of reactions. An "Oh my God", a singular round of applause and a "What did we just watch?" were the main ones. I exited the showing with a bit of an apathetic shrug.

That's not to say there aren't merits to writer-director Robert Eggers' feature debut. "The Witch" comes to theaters after having an extensive festival run last year - making stops at Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival - and earning raves. Currently, it sits at an 88-percent rating on RottenTomatoes.com. People love this movie, where I found myself appreciating a lot of it but never fully loving it.

Horror films have become a thankless genre in modern filmmaking. Seemingly all remakes, reboots and sequels, it's hard to make a genuinely shocking mainstream horror film (I would implore you to seek out an Austrian film called "Goodnight Mommy" for something disturbing and effective). "The Witch" operates outside of the mainstream, featuring a cast of actors who are not known to the general public. While violent, it isn't relentless in its gore and cheap tricks. This is why people seem to love this film.

Eggers built "The Witch" mostly on atmosphere, which intermittently works. When this film is on, it's really on, but when its stalls, it really stalls. There are prolonged moments of silence (the score is used sparingly), which occasionally amount to nothing. It makes for an uneven experience.

"The Witch" is billed as a New England folktale. Eggers establishes a sense of place, setting the film in the 1630s. A family, led by William (Ralph Ineson) and Katherine (Kate Dickie), are forced from their hometown and banished to a remote village with their children. Their oldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), is often in charge of taking care of her younger siblings, while her father tries to make a home for the family and her mother copes with her depression.

It doesn't take long for things to get weird in their new home. We aren't going to talk about how weird it gets because if you are looking forward to seeing "The Witch", you are going to want to go in with as little information as possible.

There is an evident amount of care that went into the production of the film. From a technical aspect, "The Witch" looks flawless. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, captures the film through ominous fog and shadows, giving an eerie aesthetic to the proceedings. The costume design and set design all add to the authentic feeling of the movie.

Taylor-Joy is a wonderful find as Thomasin. She looks like a young Michelle Williams, wide-eyed and innocent. Watching the film unfold around her is one of the strongest aspects of "The Witch", and seeing how this new actress portrays the ever-changing life of the young Thomasin is absorbing.

As a first feature, "The Witch" is certain to put Eggers on a lot of radars. He never feels the pressure to make the film's violent content heightened for the sake of pandering to a horror film audience, which is refreshing. If he could have ironed out the flow of the film, "The Witch" could have been something great. Mixed-feelings or not, I look forward to what is yet to come from Eggers.