Disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (20 February 2016)

Maybe my mistake was reading the reviews prior to seeing the movie because I was really looking forward to an excellent psychological horror drama. What I got was a kind of dull, slow moving, not-so-tense film that was a good study of a family's descent into madness. The first 10 minutes or so were very promising but then things slowed down to a crawl. The movie isn't really so much about a witch but rather how a family, in those times (and this is very important), dealt with adversity, pain and most importantly, the presence of evil in their home. I didn't find the movie scary but I did find it interesting. I like stories about early America and this film paid respect to the time with beautifully authentic costumes and language. It hardly mattered to me that I really couldn't understand a great deal of the dialog. The acting was so good that I was able to understand what was going on, despite the difficulty understanding the words. The film was obviously very low budget and you'll see this in some scenes but that's OK--the cinematography was great and it didn't have that same feel that many low budgets have, if you know what I mean. The acting of the main characters was superb--mainly Thomasin and the mother and father. The other kids were just OK. Finally, I didn't hear one positive remark from other people as they left the theater. In fact, most said they thought it was horrible. Guess it is that kind of movie--you either will love it or think its so-so. There's a lot of good about the movie (costumes, acting etc) to appreciate so it would be hard to hate it. It won't be a fan favorite and will probably be out of theaters quickly if word of mouth gets around, despite the great reviews.