‘Witch’ conjures yawns, not screams
“The Witch,” a horror story about the supernatural undoing of a Puritanical family, occasionally casts a spell with some eerie production design and solid acting, but its slow-boiling brew of dread turns out to be more tepid than terrifying.
Director Robert Eggers magically transports us to 1630s New England, six decades before the infamous Salem witch trials. It’s a fine concept, and much of the film’s dialogue, in fact, was cobbled from real transcripts of the time. But that meticulous authenticity ends up being both a blessing and a curse: All the characters speak in a heavily accented brand of English, making some of the conversations hard to follow.
The folk tale begins when a farming family flees their home after their church, for reasons that are not entirely clear, declares them personae non gratae. Off they go into the wilderness, at which point the music cues get ominous, though all we see are trees. Our imagination is supposed to fill in the blanks, and that’s the pattern that takes hold for the rest of the film.
Soon, the animals become unfriendly, the corn turns bad, and the baby goes missing. The film tries to build on this suspense, but the pacing is so languid that the proceedings induce more yawns than screams.
The most frightening aspect about “The Witch” is not the aura of the occult, but the devastating implosion of a family overcome by fear. When young son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) finds himself on the losing end with an evil spirit — or whatever it is — the possession itself is less scary than watching family members become unglued as they witness the episode.
It’s clear that this beauti- fully made film wants to root its horror in the less-is-more approach. But in this case, less is often just less.