The VVITCH (2015) - Review

Robert Eggers is a horror icon these days, and his horror films are some of my personal favorites! From his first feature film The VVitch in 2015, to The Lighthouse, to The Northman and Nosferatu, Robert Eggers has a talent for deep and layered story telling which even with his first film The VVitch is incredibly tasteful!

The VVitch stars an 18 year old Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin, our main character, and the rest of the film features so much talent from Ralph Inneson and Kate Dickie joined by very talented child actors to create such a terrifying family scenario in the early puritan movement in New England.

This film follows the isolated family struggling to survive and farm enough food to survive the winter. They believe the land is cursed because the patriarch William decided to leave the Puritan plantation over disagreements in faith. Things go awry, and Thomasin finds herself, a young woman, in the middle of all the strange occurrences. This is not just a spooky period drama, this is a film about family, faith and how it drives people to do crazy things, survival, and feminism. The film has so many layers, and I find new little details and connections every single time I watch the film, and it's crazy amazing!

As always, I can not reccommend Novum on YouTube's dissections of some of the most impactful and famous horror films such as Midsommar and Hereditary which are two of my favorites to rewatch and scan for connections and details in, but he also has recently published a deep dive on The Witch and while these are all lengthy watches at upwards of 6 hours minimum, I highly reccomend putting them on while youre working of if you like horror as much as I do, I pop it on instead of a movie.

I love watching these deep dives because they all highlight the time and effort that was put into these films, not just in the writing and character development, but in the time period, the visuals and costumes, the ambient noises, and the corn. If you know about the corn, you'll get that part; if not, watch Novum's video after you watch the film itself.

I find it funny how in interviews, Robert Eggers says that The Witch is his least favorite film in his portfolio and I can not believe that as its quickly beocming a cult classic in the horror community and he outlined in other interviews upon the film's release all of the setup he did for the film, the lighting technqiues and how everything always comes back to the strong character driven story. This is Thomasin's story, and it's very clear right from the very first 5 seconds of the film that it is, and this is a story about a young woman figuring out her place in her mind, her family, and in the world,d and figuring out what it is she wants to believe in depsite what her family forces her to believe in. Anya Taylor-Joy gives such an astonishing performance in this film, and at only 18 years old, too. Her sense of confusion, fear, and sadness all drive the character to do certain things and keep the story moving, and her relationship with her younger brother Caleb is such a light in this otherwise bleak film.

It's really difficult not to get right into the spoilers here since 10 minutes into the movie, stuff starts happening that can be considered spoilers, so please, don't scroll until you've seen the film for yourself because I wouldn't want to ruin this experience for anyone.

A24's Theatrical poster for The VVitch

So I love that this film spends very little time setting up the time and the backstory, and the family dynamic, and it just jumps right into the crazy stuff. The first scene with the family altogether tells us all we need to know about the dynamic and who we will focus on the most and when. That's how a film should set up a critical piece of the story and not give us 30 minutes of exposition dumping and backstory. The Witch shows us things and doesn't just tell us the important stuff. Show, don't tell, is what Robert Eggers does to make these films stand out in the way they do. We don't just hear about the witch and it's confirmed that there is a witch, but we see it and we feel it in the creepiness and the silence of the assumption from the characters, and that's rich storytelling to help us as the viewer feel like we are the characters. We are Thomasin or Caleb, or William, feeling lost or hopeless.

Each of the characters' deaths is so satisfying and insanely poetic. For the newborn Samuel, he came into this world quickly and was gone in the blink of an eye. Caleb had lustful thoughts and he lusted after the Witch in the woods, and she infected him to the point of death. The twins played with the wicked goat called Black Philip (The devil himself) and thus were slaughtered in the goat pen. William was headstrong and chopped wood when he was angry with himself and had a lapse in faith, so the devil himself rammed him into his woodpile. Kathryn's death was probably the most tragic of them all, with her entire story revolving around her hatred towards her young daughter as she grew to be a woman, and Kathryn grew jealous of her beauty. Thomasin then stabbed her face and disfigured her in self-defense.

The ending of the film itself is probably one of the most satisfying endings ever since Thomasin gets to make her own choices and is freed of the confining and cripiling lifestyle of her puritan family. She follows Black Philip,a.k.a the devil himself, into the woods to find a group of witches practicing their spells around a fire. Only when Thomasin lets go of her past and surrenders to the wickedness of the witches does she begin to fly with the other witches. The film ends with Thomasin smiling and laughing as she flies into the air.

To me is a feminist story about a suppressed woman within a confining religion who finds herself and makes her own decisions for her future. She comes to terms with her sexuality and understands that understanding your sexuality and what it means to you is not a sin and isn't a bad thing to do. It's part of growing up and finding who you are.

That's why I give The VVitch (2015) a 10/10