A beautiful experience and it gets the simple yet important things right. But not so much as a scary horror thriller.

Rating: 7/10 (27 April 2016)

Horror is a genre that has a defined scope which is governed by certain rules based on society's understanding of how ghosts/demons/spirits/'witches' etc function. While believers treat it as a social drama, others do so as a fantasy. So it is very important for the makers to have enough clarity on who their target audience are. In the recent times the makers have mostly catered to the latter audience dealing these stories as fantasies where these unnatural forces have the capability to control the technology (read 'Unfriended' or 'The Ring' series) which is fun to watch sometimes when done good.
'The Witch' goes back to the roots of orthodox methodology of film making in horror genre which is thus far so overdone that it is difficult to present in a way that attracts audience attention. Director Robert Eggers does overcome this challenge with a tight script, suitable cast and going to a period (mid 17th century) when witches and witch hunting is still a norm in that part of the world. Right from the first frame, it draws you into that period, into their family, into their beliefs, into their conflicts. Once the connect is established, it plays around with its smart twists, whodunit mystery and creepy background score where you are forced to invest your emotions but not sure where.
William (Ralph Ineson) is a righteous believer in spreading the Holy word and that is the purpose of his arrival in America with the pilgrims. He feels cheated and confronts the society when he finds a changed agenda which gets him banished from the village along with his family comprising of his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie), elder daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), young twins and a toddler. When they settle in a plain near the forest, things go south when their toddler disappears from the hands of Thomasin followed by Caleb's abduction in the forest. When Caleb dies, each family member starts blaming each other and that builds up a certain disgust and mistrust among themselves leading to painful confrontations.
It takes a while to settle into and start understanding the period diaglogue, but that adds a little freshness into an otherwise simple story. There is also a huge variation in the character arcs and their performances - for example Kate Dickie plays a depressing character who goes all melodramatic, while Harvey Scrimshaw and Ralph Ineson gives a textbook stage performance. The twins are cute and high-spirited while Anya Taylor-Joy gives a rather subtle contemporary performance. Though the background score gets a little intrusive at the beginning, it settles down well and starts being effective and plays an important role along the way. The whodunit thread may not be a driving factor, but it adds to the mix of things. There could have been more scary thrills to give it a bit more mass appeal and some scenes could have been squeezed a bit more to generate the necessary edginess.
A beautiful experience and it gets the simple yet important things right. But not so much as a scary horror thriller.