I thought The Witch was great. I have to give special attention to the sound design, which was not super over the top. The only place I felt the music felt out of place was early in the film when the main character (I'll get to this in a moment, I only know like 2 of the names) is telling her sister that she's a witch and the music gets all intense like she is one, which she wasn't. I thought it was a misuse. But there was this discreet high pitched noise running through the climax of the film that I think was designed to make you feel uneasy. It was so subtle that when I asked the friend that accompanies me if he heard it, he didn't know what I was talking about. Brilliant. I should point out that the accents were way overly thick. I get that it's a period piece and that the family was from Europe, but we should at least be able to understand what the hell the names of the characters are. I only was able to distinguish the older brother, the baby, and the dog's names among the whole film. After a while I was able to understand what was happening in spite of the accent, but the dialogue seemed like it deserved to be understood a bit better. The writer clearly put a lot of effort into it.
As for the cinematography, I thought it was solid, and there were a few great visual queues like casting the main character in silhouette throughout the film from very early on until the end. Those who know the ending will understand the significance of this I think. There were times where I felt like they just walked around with the cast and said "Okay these trees are pretty creepy, let's shoot here!"
I thought the story did a great job of addressing issues that were a real problem of the time. Sexual repression was covered, even if it was pretty brief, but more prominent was the role of women and the accusation of being a witch. I was really struck by how many of the events of the movie could actually occur without an actual witch being involved at all! A simple misunderstanding could have caused everything that happened. The witch itself seems symbolic of this fact as it barely has any appearances in the film at all.
On the topic of jumpscares and the lack thereof, there was a moment at the end where a guy in the auidience said "boo!" after it went to black, as if he expected one. If that isn't a statement about the state of horror today, I don't know what is. There actually was a jumpscare in the movie, but not in the expected fashion.
I don't think this movie is for everyone. As I said there was a certain fellow in the audience that I felt was not there for what he got. He made a couple comments during the film that made me think he really wasn't understanding the movie he was watching. It's not really an intelligence thing, but I feel like this is a movie specifically for those who immerse themselves in the macabre and explore the horror genre with an open mind. What was really surprising to me though was the fact that the theater was as packed as Deadpool which I saw 2 days after. That was incredible and says to me that more people are interested in good horror than ever (this is not a statement on the quality of the film, I know not everyone thinks it's good, just an observation of the actual crowd that came out). If you like horror beyond a few cheap thrills, check it out. If you want to be scared, watch another movie. This one is about unease.
