The Witch — George Heftler
Wouldst thou like to live… deliciously?
This is the question at the core of the best horror movie of the 2010s, The Witch. Released in 2015, The Witch strikes a balance between performance, writing, filming and message that is difficult to find in horror. Too often, one or more of these is sacrificed for the others, leading to flawed movies that perhaps are scary but have characters that don’t draw you in, or have great dialogue but sit in boring wide shots, etc. Not the case here, with the singular vision of writer/director Robert Eggers at the helm.
For those who don’t know the movie, it’s about a family in the early 1600s who’ve sailed to New England across the Atlantic in search of religious freedom. They are cast out of their community for the sin of pride, as patriarch William has been questioning the piety of the settlement. He strides out into the harsh wilderness of the northeast with his wife and five children in tow. Unfortunately, the woods are not as empty as they thought.
The first contribution to this as the best horror movie of the decade is the characters/performances. Perfect for a movie about a religious family’s fall from grace, they each represent an aspect of the cardinal sins. William is portrayed by Ralph Ineson, whose stone-carved face matches the character’s rigid pride perfectly. Harvey Scrimshaw plays Caleb, casting shameful, lustful glances at his sister and becoming seduced by both the idea of being an adult and the titular witch.
Ellie Grainger plays Mercy, whose name becomes an ironic jab in the side as she embodies wrath: falsely accusing her sister of being a witch as revenge for a fright and generally being a spiteful and cruel little bastard in the way only children can. Her twin brother Jonah is played by Lucas Dawson, and his name calls to mind the biblical Jonah. Eaten by a whale for shirking the task God set him, so too does this Jonah slothfully not contribute to the farm or try to stop his sister’s disproportionate revenge.
Kate Dickie is the mother, Catherine, whose envy of her daughter’s youth and beauty causes her to turn on her, positive that she beguiled Caleb and that William will be next. Finally, there is Thomasin, representing both greed and gluttony while played to perfection by Anya Taylor-Joy. She admires wealth like the family’s prized silver cup, is unhappy with the puritan lifestyle throughout the entire film, and ultimately signs her soul over to the devil for a taste of butter and a pretty dress.
This leads to the movie’s next highlight, the message. While the family falls apart, we’re forced to confront the idea that holding up an unreachable bar for purity can lead to your downfall. It’s easy to see why the strictness of Thomasin’s parents and their religion would chafe, leading her to desire more. Perhaps without William’s unshakable faith in his religion being so superior to everyone else, he and his family would still have been living happily in the settlement instead of various shades of dead and damned to hell.
And in a less literal reading of the story, we can understand Thomasin’s seizing of her own future. Her family called her names like “whore” and “slut”, allowed her to take the blame for crimes she did not commit, hurled false accusations at her feet, and were content to ship her off to be some other man’s property in exchange for a dowry to help them get by. Rather than simply accept this, Thomasin makes her own choice, takes power into her own hands. It might be a choice she will regret later, but it’s her choice, and that liberation is what living deliciously is all about. So, as she floats into the sky with her new coven, we understand the smile on her face.
The writing and direction are also fantastic. The shot choices showcase the stark beauty of their barren home, with leafless trees lining the outskirts of their farm. The plot twists and turns, keeping you engaged and questioning what’s happening. This engagement is crucial, because there is no hand-holding in this movie—the period accurate speech means that you absolutely need to pay attention lest you miss crucial information in the labyrinthine Olde English. Characters act in realistic ways, making understandable choices given the context of the time and situation. All in all, it’s shocking that this is Robert Eggers’s debut because he films with the vision of a veteran director.
“Best horror movie of the decade” is no small title, however, and despite the successes in the other areas, this movie would never get that title without the sheer terror it conjures. Unlike the lazy jumps of so much horror, we are never simply surprised by something accompanied by a loud noise. The fear in The Witch is more omnipresent, an oppressive weight on your heart as you watch this family turn to shambles. This is not to say there are not scary moments. At the very beginning, we see a witch grinding up a baby into an unguent, then covering her broom in that baby paste so it can fly. This is presented unflinchingly. But as you watch, the tension just grows and grows. There is no break. No comedy to give you some small relief. The unrelenting nature of this movie makes it terrifying and a horror movie in the truest sense of the word.
Also of note is the influence that this movie had. One of the early entries in the now-popular “tension-porn” subgenre, The Witch helped to put A24 on the map as a distributor and publisher, without it, it’s possible we’d have never gotten movies like Hereditary, First Reformed, Eighth Grade and many more that followed. And looking at cinema with a wider scope, the 2010s have been an amazing decade not only for A24 but horror as a genre at large, with several new and unique voices getting a chance to tell their stories. But when you’re asked to nail down the best horror movie of the decade? All you can do is preach the gospel of The Witch.
