One of the many "we've been waiting since the trailer" movies that finally falls in my greasy lap... The Witch.
Like that other movie about a witch from the 90s, how much I liked it only snuck up on me afterwards. On the outside, The Witch is a very bleak and simple film about a family in the 1600s that is cast out from their village for one un-puritan reason or another. Staring at corn ears or something.
Moving out to the countryside and building a farm their newborn is snatched from under their noses during a game of peek-a-boo (the evilest of games) and taken by what we presume is a witch.
What follows is a sort of "who-is-it" game where the children get taken or possessed and strange things happen, evil and witchcraft is suspected and maybe one of the children is in league with the devil. Two creepy twins that talk to and play with a black goat maybe doesn't help. It's all very slow and very character-focused with not much action or revelation until the last 15 minutes or so.
The whole feeling of the film is not a million miles from 2009's "Antichrist" for it's minimalist tone, which does add to the tension.
Ralph "Finchy" Ineson plays the father of the family in one of his first roles where he's not Finchy I believe.
Where as it's not jump-scary or reliant on effects and gore it sits with you and the tension builds and sucks you in. In the end Finchy beats the Witch by challenging her to a game of throwing a copper kettle over a pub.
Ok that may not happen. The climax will win you over though. And that's Blockbusters.
8/10 Masks
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