initially interesting film that is hungry for cheese, and sticks of it

Rating: 5/10 (14 June 2017)

Perhaps the idea of a witch in the woods preying on a humble Christian family living at its edge was just too strait for writer / director Robert Eggars.
I liked the set up and the first half. We are presented with a small handful of intelligent and sympathetic characters and there is a clear sense of where (but not what) the threat is. Then just past the half way mark, the scenes get progressively silly and derivative of better horror movies. You feel the irony of a witchcraft movie that has been possessed and lost its soul and direction.
The decision to use strong period dialect is simultaneously frustrating and intriguing. It commands the audience to be intelligent listeners but there are times when sentences get muddled underneath the heavy British accents. The theme of fearing abandonment by god (or possession by darkness,) is prevalent as the story gets underway. At first it feels like a historically accurate motive for character vulnerability, but instead it becomes a device for hokey paranoia as our characters start pointing fingers and accusing each other of witchcraft.
The dramatic momentum that slowly accumulates in the first hour comes undone in the last half hour. The Witch starts as a story about characters but regretfully caves in and conforms to the horror genre by summoning gimmicks like the possessed animal that turns on its master. Once the chaos starts to pick up you get the feeling that a lame ending is inevitable. The last scene of a movie is visually quite strong without being showy, but the punchline feels meaningless beyond saying that darkness prevails; again very generic for a horror film.
Strong acting and eerie scenery are the additional highlights, but the finished product is neither scary nor memorable.