A boszorkány

Kezdetben úgy tűnik, hogy A boszorkány A falu Shyamalan filmjének mellékhajtása, de végül kiderül, hogy ez egy olyan horrorfilm, amely kitör a műfaji formákból, és nem akar csak egy újabb An American Haunting lenni. A szigorúan ó-brit angol nyelven vágott (amit talán maguk a britek sem értenek felirat nélkül) film megpróbálja hitelesen ábrázolni a szereplők mentalitását, de viselkedésük és reakcióik nem vezetnek a helyzetek kielégítő megoldásához. Lehetetlen megtalálni a módját annak, hogy hogyan lehet azonosulni a karakterekkel, akiket annyira elöntött a hit, hogy hisztérikusan imádkoznak és egymást átkiabálva gyónnak ahelyett, hogy normálisan beszélgetnének, és lehetetlen szorítani nekik, hogy kimásszanak a helyzetből. Épp ellenkezőleg, azt kívántam, hogy a sorsuk végre végleg megpecsételődjön. A film második fele ugyanis inkább a kontrollálhatatlan pszichózisukra koncentrál, mint a boszorkány felőli fenyegetésre. Az eseményeket és azok indoklását illetően rosszul kitalált film, illetve egy olyan film, amelynek furcsa (boszorkányos?) logikája van. De a hangulat sűrű, és az egyetlen normális karaktert megtestesítő fiatal Anya Taylor-Joy egy reményteli újonc. (2015.08.06)

Unique. It's as if the cameraman had been transported back several centuries in a time machine and filmed the feelings of a family in isolation in the middle of the dark woods. Everything is subordinated to these feelings of the time – the archaic language, the great piety that permeated every individual back then, the fear of the unknown, the fear even of the forest next to you, where evil, evil spirits and witches were believed to reside. Because faith in Christ and fear of the powers of hell was everything at that time, the whole film is permeated with pious talk, prayers and irrational behaviour, which – as it seems from the reviews here – the dull-witted population, without knowledge of the historical context and dumbed down by the mainstream, will not appreciate. The rest of us give it a thumbs up, because such period parables, where the author drew from written sources of the time, bringing to life the witch trials and the mindset of pious people, are a rarity in today's cinemas. It's just a shame about the overly suggestive ending, if the author had had the balls to drive it through the simple "psychosis" of one frightened family, I would applaud even more. And Anna Taylor-Joy? You’ll be hearing a lot about her, trust me! (2016.07.31)

(50th KVIFF) As a horror fan I don’t put most of the genre films at the top of the rankings, modern horror doesn’t usually reach the levels of quality, budget and depth to compete with films from other genres. The Witch, however, is really one of the best three films, if not the absolute best film of the 50th Karlovy Vary Film Festival, even if it might not fully correspond to what some drunken viewers were expecting in the midnight section. Such a perfectly directed horror film is something that you only see once in a blue moon. The Witch is not fun, it’s dark, terrifying, and depressing. The amazingly convincing setting of 17th century New England, with the characters and the way they speak, or, rather, what they speak about, and the almost tangible fear of the unknown hidden in the forests, of the witches and the devil’s helper, who threaten the family and drive them into madness. Eggers shows the witches very rarely, but when he does, in short but impressive sequences, it is quite something. Ew! He dedicates more time to the father, the mother, the daughter and the son and shows how the clash with the supernatural has affected their relationships, with insecurity and suspicion creeping among them. The sequence of the agitated father chopping wood in the middle of the night is, thanks to Eggers’s craftsmanship, as terrifying and unpleasant as the one of the witches performing a ritual with a helpless infant. During the scene of Caleb’s cure, I shuddered nervously in my seat and felt a chill running through my spine. Unlike many other horror movies, this one fortunately never stumbles, even in the end, which is very satisfying. After the screening I realised that this is the horror film I’ve always wanted to see even though I didn’t know it. 100 % (2015.07.08)

After the trailer, I was hoping to be delighted by The Witch. In the end, it is only rather inconspicuously, mildly concerning because of the excess of religion and one established witchcraft cult in New England. The movie actually doesn’t contain anything innovative and so there is only one thing which can entice you. And that is the atmosphere. The atmosphere is definitely brutal, but it doesn’t make up the whole movie. Unfortunately. (2016.05.25)

These a few dozens of seconds were completely unnecessary, without them it could have been the best horror of recent years. But we cannot do anything about it and their presence is even a bigger letdown because the problem is not what they show but how. Anyway, otherwise it is pretty good. You can find here everything what a real old school horror movie should contain; disturbing atmosphere, graduating psycho tension within a closed community (in this case a family in the middle of the woods), exposing carefully written characters, fears, evil and prejudices hidden in us, disturbing scenes... I am completely happy about that; especially when you add the impressive camera à la Dutch masters and acting performances of the whole family, which are worth highlighting, including the children. I can't remember when four children played such a complicated characters so well. Perhaps Eggers will make more horror movies, because a similar approach to this genre has been missing in recent years. (2015.07.12)

Eggers has a brilliant way of building atmosphere. The Witch is thus an unobtrusively absorbing film that is completely devoid of cheap genre techniques and formalistic devices. Eggers captures the terror and awe on the part of the pilgrims coming from the world of god-fearing civilization to the world of the wilderness in the seventeenth century and facing psychological decay in a hopeless situation. But in addition to that, it makes viewers experience the same feelings. After the disturbingly relieving climax, you suddenly realise that you are totally wound up and that you never want to go to the petting zoo again. The upcoming The Lighthouse focuses on macho hierarchy and shapes its characters in relation to their pasts as something that they want to escape from. In his debut, The Witch, Eggers carefully maps the dynamics within a family that finds itself in a situation of existential distress, where the past conversely becomes both a delightful myth and a burden exacerbating their situation. Furthermore, Eggers brilliantly captures the essence of witchcraft as a bogeyman, a stigma and a form of liberating relief in a society bound by fanatical devotion to belief. (2021.11.12)

The Witch is a return to the foundations of the genre, whose cinematic form crystallized in the 1930s, thus a return to careful work with atmosphere. We can observe a gradual uncertainty and loss of support shaping the spiritual and physical world of immigrants to the New World in the 17th century. Suffering leads to the breakdown of the family, which we tend to consider as the basic building block of society. At that time, the community was most important. Outside of it, there was only struggling and in the long run, zero chance of survival in the wilderness. The key to the film is the opening scene of excommunication from the church and the community, the cruelest possible punishment, harsher than the death penalty. What follows is a logical descent into darkness and ruin. Just as shamanic magical rituals are a reality for tribal natural cultures, witches are a reality for people shaped by beliefs and early modern religion. The clash of devoutness, the depth of which secularized Europeans cannot imagine tainted by science and modern technology, with freethinking and hedonism of sinners, is precisely what makes the film so impressive. The Witch is not a flashy and expensive film, but it is meticulously shot with knowledge of the subject and awareness of what the filmmaker wants to achieve, and last but not least, it is characterized by a refined sense of detail. Some of the popcorn-eating viewers may feel deprived of some jumpscares, but for me, the film is an exemplary example of what a horror film should be, and if Eggers had refrained from a too unambiguous interpretation of events at the end, the film could have received a perfect score. Overall impression: 85%. (2021.12.31)

When the movie is over and I feel like seeing it again as soon as possible, that's a good thing. What does it matter that the film has an almost unbearably oppressive atmosphere, the fanatical people are portrayed so mercilessly and without turning a blind eye that perhaps only our own Witchhammer has managed to do so far, and that you almost hate to watch it all because it is so full of hopelessness. The Witch is just so engaging that, despite all the horrors, I wondered what would happen next, and I kept hoping that at least some of the characters would come to their senses. The ending, unlike many other users, didn't ruin the experience for me, although I thought for a long time about whether it was a good thing that it was so literal or not. Truth be told, after the intense harrowing experience of the previous eighty minutes, it was enough for me that there was an ending. (2016.05.24)

The Witch feels like a film from another planet, or better said, a media from a completely different time. While it accepts contemporary genre tropes and draws its surface tension from the popular formula of a group of people – a cabin, the surrounding forest, and a supernatural evil, internally it sharply defines what we consider common and therefore actually correct in modern horror. The plot focuses not on the true nature and character of the evil, but on the psyche and behaviour of its victims, which, hand in hand with their religious fanaticism, spreads the already terrifying threat into their own ranks, and the viewer can no longer be sure who is the victim and who is the hunter (as the scene with the dog and the rabbit makes clear). It's true that it's hard to sympathise with such irrational characters, but the painstaking work of evoking the period, the orders of life at the time and the Old English language itself add to the naturalism and authenticity in an overwhelming way, so that we actually feel like we're in another reality, even though we're told at the outset that the story is based on an old folk tale. Though the attempt at added historical value may hurt the expected horror content a bit, the formal side is flawless. Sudden edits matched with the hauntingly unmelodic music cut every scene precisely at its climactic moment, so that its effect cannot be diminished, while the setting is used to great effect thanks to slow camera runs and carefully staged shots, without any image that would feel cheap or predictable. We are not forced to be afraid, as we know in today's "scary" ghost stories, but the fear is omnipresent and insistent. In a nutshell: horror that is different, more honest, and better. 80% (2016.03.27)

The Witch is definitely not a typical horror film, if only because the viewer doesn't have much chance to get scared during it, but the film still offers some very rough scenes that will undoubtedly stick in many people's minds. The fact that the film is somehow lacking in scares is not entirely a bad thing, as I think that the aim here was more to build up the atmosphere of the time, which it did – from the gloomy production design, to the depressing music, to the performances (I was particularly impressed by the child roles). I have to admit that I might have expected a bit more from a film that has been graced with more than one praising review, but it's still worth a watch. In short, an unconventionally conceived horror film that benefits particularly from the degree of authenticity and the performances of the small cast. (2016.04.08)

A film with such a dense atmosphere, where there are no silent moments, is not seen every day. "The Witch" is a movie that some may not classify as a horror, but probably only because it is not a slasher or a film full of jump scares that they imagine when they think of horror. I had such unpleasant feelings from this movie, which I haven't experienced in a horror film for a long time, but which I would like to experience often with it. A very unpleasant film. Unpleasant, but great. (2016.05.18)

So once again a decent trailer but nothing more. For the first time in my life I found myself praying for a movie to end. Here we aren’t talking about no horror movie or thriller (as a proof of that was laughter from me and other in the movie theater, in what were supposed to be suspenseful and scary scenes…), it’s about a spiritual psycho, who is a constant bore, except for few tense moments. The screenplay was unbelievably irritating, the only plus I see is in the acting performances, production design and music, but that’s the end of the positives. A truly bad, bad movie… (2016.03.30)