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  • Reviews: The Witch (2016)
  • 2015 Films

Reviews: The Witch (2016)

Governing Committee February 18, 2016 4 minutes read

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witch

witchHere are review links for this film submitted by our members:

  • Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire
    • Excerpt: Eggers patiently threads his needle with themes of faith, family, and fear, and sews it up into a mélange of unsettling mood and unshakable images; it’s a movie that drifts along, haunting yet manageable, and then it clobbers you.
  • Francisco Cangiano @ CineXpress [Spanish]
  • Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
    • Excerpt: Writer/director Robert Eggers…has made a masterpiece right out of the gate. This production is absolute perfection in every regard, from its well researched screenplay and art direction to its great ensemble cast and unnerving score
  • David Crow @ Den of Geek
    • Excerpt: And as the third act surrenders to that blackest magic, hurdling audiences into a kind of Puritan fever dream, the palpable dread that you’re partaking in something truly wicked will grab hold of you as sure as hellfire.
  • Jim Dixon @ Examiner.com
    • Excerpt: There’s something so alarmingly primordial about “The Witch” that you begin to understand why people are afraid of the dark. The relentlessness of “The Witch” is close to punishing. But for those who can handle it, this is a remarkably intelligent and genuinely frightening movie.
  • Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
    • Excerpt: In a uniquely twisted way, The Witch is a condemnation of religious fanaticism, as well as the stubbornness of ideas and ideals that comes with it.
  • James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
  • Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
    • Excerpt: ‘The Witch’ is a skilfully creepy thriller that chronicles a family’s destruction triggered by supernatural interference or simple paranoia.
  • Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
    • Excerpt: This engrossing saga of a Puritan family’s worst nightmare is extremely artistic. That makes this horror film rather unique in this day and age.
  • Courtney Howard @ Sassy Mama In LA
    • Excerpt: This prickly, shifty, unnerving psychological nail-biter turns the screws slowly, resulting in a vise grip of terror.
  • MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
    • Excerpt: Eerie and sinister, operating on a more psychologically incisive level than the typical horror flick… until it tosses it all with a cop-out of an ending.
  • Steve Katz @ The Alpha Primitive
    • Excerpt: The Witch does not hide its malevolence offscreen, but it does not overplay its hand either, opting instead for disjointed flashes of…something…that so often defies description. Anything and everything seems possible, and Eggers uses that unease to his advantage by pumping the gas sparingly but with bone-chilling effectiveness.
  • Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
    • Excerpt: …the first truly accomplished horror film of 2016 thus far.
  • Benjamin Kramer @ The Voracious Filmgoer
  • Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
  • Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
    • Excerpt: The Witch holds you in its grasp with a chilling exploration of how evil chooses some people to be its victims and others to do its bidding.
  • Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
    • Excerpt: The Exorcist filtered through The Crucible, Rosemary’s Baby by way of the Salem Witch Trials, The Witch marks a stunning debut, and is a movie that will leave a long-lasting impression in horror and beyond.
  • Simon Miraudo @ Student Edge
  • Jared Mobarak @ Jared Mobarak Reviews
    • Excerpt: Don’t expect to jump at all because Eggers isn’t interested in cheap tricks. He’d rather lull us into a state of trepidation and subtly bring forth his evil from the shadows as though it was there all along.
  • Jon Patridge @ Cinapse
  • James Roberts @ Glide Magazine
    • Excerpt: The Witch is a powerful and unnerving reminder of what the genre can accomplish given creativity and, in a just world, will become a beacon for current and future makers of horror.
  • Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
    • Excerpt: A study in paranoia that creates a deepening mood of unease and dread…[and] despite a few stumbles (most notably a miscalculated final scene) is genuinely creepy.
  • Andrew Wyatt @ St. Louis Magazine
    • Excerpt: What ultimately makes the film so absorbing and haunting is not its rustic folktale terrors, but its potent depiction of a Protestant household—that alleged rock of American life—coming spectacularly undone amid snarls of deception, sorrow, and psychosexual tension.

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