Good for a laugh and little else

Rating: 2/10 (26 March 2016)

It's always kind of hilarious when they try to do a movie making witches out to be monsters. They tend to be either ridiculous slasher pieces or goofy fantasies of people who, either way, don't understand that witches do exist and they're victims of a lot of massive and extremely unfair persecution.
And here we come to this movie, which tries a different take by presenting a period piece of a Puritan family, beset upon by what we are to believe is a witch. Oh dearie me, how hilarious this is from the get-go. We've got all the stereotypes here, and it's pretty embarrassing. But the most embarrassing part is the fact that the script is incoherently-composed, and the acting is either dialed up to 11 or sleepwalking.
It is nothing short of amazing, and definitely worthy of praise, that the cast could even deliver the ponderous, dense lines as well as they did, though. Especially given that the direction was not particularly great, with extremely questionable choices on photography, blocking, and focus.
But what really ended up the most questionable of all was: what was this film trying to say exactly? Who was this film even for? I find it hard to imagine that anyone would actually enjoy it except as a goof in October, when they're in the mood for a "scary movie", but not too close to Halloween because it's just not good enough for a special occasion. It's not even really scary, it's just something to watch because it's supposed to be in that genre.
None of the family is remotely sympathetic or likable. They all come off as idiots or phoning it in, until the time comes for their Oscar bid, at which point they turn it up to a ridiculous level of ham. They also do incredibly stupid things, like stacking a precariously steep, narrow wall of firewood, ignoring giant animals that realistically they would know are dangerous and should be handled carefully, and naturally -- as with all films of this type -- turning on each other at the slightest hint of danger or threat. Because nothing helps people survive being set upon by supernatural threats by attacking...each other...instead of trying to come together to meet the danger or running away.
So I'm not exactly sure what movie some of these crazy praise-filled gushers are on about, but it wasn't The Witch. It's so incoherent, you can't even really be sure if you should be offended at the stupid and clunky misappropriation of the titular term. Who knows what was going through the mind of the writer-director?
I will be kind and say that this might have worked much better as a short film, perhaps half an hour at most. At the very least, the feature-length film is not as self-indulgently long as some I've seen (at about 90 minutes), so even if you're as unimpressed as I was, it doesn't overstay its welcome as horribly as some of its type.