They get points for historical accuracy and characters, but lose points for, just about everything else

Rating: 5/10 (16 April 2016)

Remember back when we first started seeing trailers for "The Witch" or as it called itself, "The VVitch" (yeah, I still don't get the double V thing), and it actually looked terrifying. The trailers made this look genuinely scary, and as the film got closer, we started getting more hype in the form of reviews saying that this is "the most shocking movie you'll see" and "it feels like something we shouldn't be watching" and so on and so forth. It seemed like the closer this movie got, the more hype it received. Unfortunately, the film itself does not live up to said hype, not by a long shot.
So, what's the story? In the early colonial days of America, a Puritan family is exiled from their town for religious reasons and forced to live near a forest. The family soon learn that the forest is home to a coven of witches that are conspiring to tear the family apart, which causes paranoia and finger-pointing among the family, particularly towards their eldest daughter, Thomasin (I think that's how you spell it). Now, if there's one thing that I have to give the movie credit for, it's the characters. Other than Thomasin and the twins, who are both unlikable and annoying, respectively, I found myself getting attached to this family. They didn't seem like cookie-cutter horror protagonists, but rather real people with real struggles. The father in particular was a complex character, one I wound up feeling sorry for. The movie also does a good job at trying to realistically represent the time period, even down to the dialogue, which sounds very old- fashioned and unfamiliar compared to modern English.
Sadly, this is where the merits of the film stop. The fact of the matter is, the film works fine as a period drama but as a horror movie, not so much. The titular witches are barely ever on screen and when they DO make an appearance, they don't really do much. We don't know of their motivation, their origins, or really anything about them other than the fact that they're crazy flying naked women doing weird stuff. Of course, because of this, the movie has a noticeable lack of scares. It has a few creepy moments and disturbing scenes (including a very tasteless attempt at shock early on when the witches kidnap and kill the infant son of the family), but no real scares.
All of this, um, non-action ultimately leads to nothing really special as the ending is disappointing and sort've out of nowhere. So here's what happens: the father locks his remaining children in the barn as he believes them to be involved with the witches. Somehow, a witch enters the barn in the middle of the night and runs off with the twins. The dad finds out, gets gored by the goat (more on him later), the mother goes nuts so Thomasin stabs her, and then later finds out that the goat is the Devil, very quickly signs her soul away to him, becomes a witch, floats into the air, the end. Yeah, it's THAT kind of movie.
You know, I feel like this film would have worked better if there really WASN'T anything supernatural going on, and the family's belief system and paranoia were all that were tearing them apart, but when you try to still play up that angle while at the same time revealing that there really are witches doing bad things, it doesn't really work as well, especially when you have critics and audiences talking about the "paranoia of the times" and "rethinking your religion." I admit, the belief system of the early Puritans was questionable, but in the universe of the movie, when the things they're afraid of actually exist and pose a genuine threat, doesn't that kind of justify the paranoia a bit? This movie appears to send mixed messages. There's also another aspect of this movie that bugs me, and I've seen it quite a lot in these types of movies lately: the absence of God. The movie quite clearly establishes that the Devil is real, but he can't exist without God too, so why is he just mysteriously absent? These "demon" and "witch" type films lately give credence to the existence of the demonic, but for whatever reason leave God out (prayers and exorcisms don't work "just because", or Divine intervention seems almost nonexistent). As a Christian, this kinda bothers me. That's why I like movies like "The Rite" or even the original "The Exorcist" that showed the threat the forces of Satan pose while also acknowledging that the power of God can beat them. Okay, enough of my ranting, time to wrap up.
"The Witch" is a film that doesn't work because it tries to be too many things at once: a period drama, a commentary on 17th century beliefs, a tale about family bonds, AND a horror movie. With all of these different genres thrown in together, what you have is a disjointed mess of a film that does some things really well, such as drama and character development, but other things like horror and a clear message, it falls flat on. This leaves us with a movie that should have worked and should have left me disturbed and emotionally shaken, but ultimately just left me disappointed and wanting back the money I spent on the ticket!