Saturday, February 20, 2016

The Witch *SPOILER* Review



Hey guys, Horror For Life back with another horror movie review. Me and my roommate decided that we were going to go see the new 2016 thriller "The Witch", directed by Roger Eggers. This movie is about a religious family in New England that is banned from their plantation. They start a new life for themselves living off of the wilderness that surrounds them. Soon weird things start happening, children go missing, and we find out that someone isn't being completely truthful.

The film starts out in a court on a gated plantation. A family is being tried in front of their peers and a few elders. They are banned from the town because the father has been speaking against God, and the people in the plantation don't take well to what the father has been saying. So they leave and go on to make a life for themselves.

The family starts to rebuild their lives, along with their home and some barns to keep their animals in.  We soon meet Thomasin, played by Anya-Taylor Joy. She is a teenage girl who has three younger brothers, and a younger sister. They all do work around the farm, except for the youngest brother Sam who is only a baby. Thomasin looks over the children while she is working. They start to get their lives back on track.


We then see Thomasin who is playing peek-a-boo with Sam. After a few times, she opens her hands and sees that Sam is missing. Thomasin goes running towards the woods but stops just before because she knows that they are not suppose to go into the woods. Then we see a figure in a red coat carrying the baby through the woods. We find out that a witch has taken the child, and ultimately kills him and covers herself in his blood.

After the death of Sam, the family grieves, especially the mother. She is seen laying on her bed praying multiple times. She feels that her son is in hell because he had been taken from them. Soon Thomasin and Caleb, the oldest brother, are seen down by a brook talking about old times. Then the youngest daughter Mercy, comes crawling up behind them saying that she is the witch in the woods. After joking, Thomasin starts to convince Mercy that she is a witch herself. She speaks of how her master is the devil himself. Mercy threatens to tell the parent what she said, but Thomasin pleads her not to, saying its just a joke.

Now Caleb decides to go out and check the animal traps by himself, because he checked them with his father during the movie. When he goes to leave, Thomasin insists that she goes with him. After some persuading and threatening of waking up mom and dad, they make their way into the woods. Thomasin is riding the family's horse while Caleb is walking the dog. Soon the dog chases after a rabbit, and this startles the horse, eventually knocking Thomasin to the ground. Caleb decides to chase after the dog.

Caleb is now lost in the woods and its getting dark outside. He sees his dog laying dead in front of him. Then he comes upon a small hit inside the base of a hill. Then a beautiful woman steps outside and comes face to face with Caleb. She then kisses him but quickly grabs him by the head with an old, wrinkled arm.

Eventually Thomasin wakes up and meets up with her father at the edge of the farm as shes coming out of the woods. Her parents had been looking for them.

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site25/2016/0218/20160218__19CDEMOV1w~2.jpgThe family starts to wonder why they have lost two of their sons. They start thinking of witchcraft but they don't really have any proof to what's going on. They eat diner and eventually go to bed. Thomasin stays up late and decides to feed the goat. Suddenly she sees Caleb leaning up against the fence naked. She runs and gathers him and they get him into the house.

The next day Mercy and Jonah (twin brother and sister) start to accuse Thomasin of being a witch the parents finally say they are tired of here this talk about a witch. But then they hear a scream coming from inside the home. They rush inside to see Caleb and he starts mumbling passages that aren't very clear. The parents soon pry his mouth open and he spits out a bloody apple that had been shoved into his mouth. While this is going on the twins fake being possessed to prove that Thomasin is using witchcraft on them. Soon Caleb says a few more passages and finally dies. The mother yells at Thomasin to leave him alone. She runs outside and the dad goes to comfort her.

While Thomasin and the father talk, he says that she needs to tell him the truth, about whether or not she is a witch. Thomasin is mad because he doesn't believe her, and the dad eventually drags her inside so she can tell her mother the truth about what is going on. When they are inside Thomasin tells the dad that the twins are faking being possessed. The father is angry and confused about who to believe so he picks up the son with one hand and the son screams. They were faking. Not knowing who to believe, he puts the three children in the barn and locks them inside.

The three kids are now in the barn with a white goat and a black goat that the twins call "Black Phillip". They say that the goat talks to them now and then. That is where they sleep for the night. During the night the mother wakes up and finds her son Caleb holding Sam downstairs in the house. Remember, both are dead. She takes Sam from Caleb and starts breastfeeding him. While this is happening, the twins wake up to a woman eating the one of the goats. She turns around and it is a the witch. She steals the kids and disappears. We then see the mother having her breast attacked by a crow, because the child she was holding wasn't really there.

In the morning the father wakes up and goes outside to find that the barn has been broken into, and the twins are missing. Thomasin wakes up and  sees her father outside looking at her. Then suddenly the black goat rams the father in the gut, piercing into him. He starts bleeding out of his mouth. Finally the goat rams him one last time into a wood pile, and the wood falls on him, eventually killing him. Thomasin goes to see him but then the mother comes outside and starts accusing her of being a witch. They wrestle for a bit before Thomasin picks then kills her mother with a knife that she grabs laying on the ground near her. She then goes inside and sits down and the screen cuts to black.

https://b6c18f286245704fe3e9-05e2055f4cd9122af02914269431c9f6.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/5893840_the-witch-trailer-witchcraft-black-magic_15c0eaaa_m.jpg?bg=180E08It then fades in to Thomasin talking to Black Phillip. Except he has turned into the devil. He tells her that there is something that she has to do. She then takes off her clothes and walks towards the woods. She then finds her self coming upon a clearing where there are five or six naked women all dancing around a fire. Then they all begin to levitate. Thomasin then joins the group and levitates. She is finally starting to except that she is indeed a witch. She levitates high up into the trees and the screen cuts to black, but this time for the last time.


Pros: 
  • The setting of the story was beautiful and eerie all at the same time. Some of the shots of the woods made the feeling of the movie very creepy.
  • The acting by all of the characters was perfect. Each person brought their own touch to the part they were playing, making everything very believable. 
  • It didn't have many jump scares, but it didn't need any. The slow build up of tension made the movie very chilling.
Cons:
  • Some of the dialogue at the beginning was hard to understand. They were speaking broken English, but it took some getting use to as the film went on. 

 Now on a scale from A-F, I give "The Witch" an... A-!!!

Going into this movie, I didn't quite know what to expect. I saw this trailer a year ago and was very excited for it. Now finally seeing it, I was very impressed. It was a very creepy movie, without many jump scares. But like I said, it was so chilling at times, that's what made it scary. The acting was amazing and even the gore that was in it was solid. Definitely my favorite horror movie of 2016 so far. A must see for horror fans.

Thanks for reading everyone and come back anytime for everything that is horror












Image References

4 comments:

  1. Good review that gives you a great overall picture of what is happening in the movie!

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  2. Wow, that's a lot of detail! I'm impressed that you are able to retain this much information while watching the movie for the first time.

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  3. Although I didn't read the whole entire review (I didn't want to read a big spoiler) I really liked this review because I'm a huge horror movie fan and I'm always looking for a decent horror film that isn't totally lame. Just from the first half of this review I'm really interested in going to see this movie, and it seems like you give a really detailed description of what occurs throughout the movie.

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  4. Nice work recounting the flick with interesting photos to engage readers. Not only do you incorporate a lot of detail, but you also finish with pros/cons and a grade reflecting the experience to enhance the piece.

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