Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. A recent exotic trip kept me from the first few days of Fantastic Fest (believe me, I shook my fists to the heavens when Crimson Peak screened in the first Secret Screening slot), but I'm on the ground and have jumped headfirst into a couple of very Fantastic Festy Fantastic Fest flicks, both with a heavy focus on Satan. As you do.
The Witch was one of a handful of movies I'm making damn sure I don't miss at the fest this year. The word out of Sundance was astronomical and that latest trailer they did was moody and tense and creepy as hell.
It's inevitable that hyperbole has reared its ugly head by this point and while I did feel a bit overhyped for The Witch I must admit I get why it hit people so far, even if it didn't hit me quite dead center.
Robert Eggers' debut feature is an impressive exercise in tone. The 1600's New England period is pulled off effortlessly with all creative elements (from cinematography to costume design to production design to acting) lining up to give the film an authentic quality missing from so many low budget period outings. This one does not feel like it was shot at a touristy historical location. Instead it feels like they time traveled back to the wild, scary days of a very young America. The land is still ruled by nature and the mysteries it conceals. Our puritan family might as well be adrift in an ocean surrounded by sharks.
The film also does a great job at reminding us why our very religious forefathers were so fucking terrified of witches. Deals with the devil have become a bit overused cinematically, but by setting this in the remote wilderness of the 1600s and using real life testimonials from this time period you begin to be reminded that witches aren't green-faced drama queens that like sparkly red shoes.
The flick is about a puritan family that is banished from their settlement thanks to the patriarch's strong-held belief that the folks running the town aren't Christian enough and making sure they know it. They set out and make their own way, establishing a small home in a field bordering some creepy woods. Naturally those creepy woods contain more than just wolves and rabbits and the family soon starts paying the price for encroaching on a land they know little about.
Ralph Ineson is fantastic as the strict head of the family. His voice is so deep and gravely that I couldn't help but think he needs to voice some big baddy in one of the new Star Wars movies. Fellow Game of Thrones alum Kate Dickie plays his wife who is hit the hardest by the supernatural events and tragedy that beset this family and Ana Taylor-Joy and Harvey Scrimshaw are the two eldest children.
The family dynamic between those four have to work in order to give a shit about this story because like most good religion-based horror movies the real evil of the devil isn't the horrors he creates, but the ones he inspires in the generally good hearts of those he's attacking. The family is stressed and fracturing and the more intense the movie gets the deeper and wider those fractures become.
Score, cinematography and tone really help make the movie work, but my high expectations possibly set me up for a movie that it never meant to be. I didn't find it all that scary and some of that might be because the key horror imagery (a mean goat named Black Phillip, blood in the milkpan, some possession stuff) is almost entirely glimpsed in the trailer. I wouldn't say it was done in a spoilery way, at least as far as the story is concerned, but when the moments come in the film they weren't as shocking because I was expecting it.
Still, I was engaged thanks mostly to Ana Taylor-Joy being well-cast as our lead, the young daughter who gets a front row seat to the destruction this witch heaves on her family. She's a great person to follow in a story like this. She's desperate to be accepted and loved, but also has a bit of a mischievous streak so she doesn't come across as clingy or annoying.
Perhaps the greatest success of this film is that once the shit hits the fan you have no doubt that all our characters are utterly and completely fucked. There is no calvary waiting in the wings. These people have no idea what they're up against and are ill-equipped to fight it and they're all alone out in the sticks.
It reminds me a tad of the feeling the original Blair Witch Project was able to capture. The darkness is a character in this film and you don't see how any of these guys are going to make it out of the film.
That's rare for a genre film, so I get why people went apeshit for it, but I'd say tamper down those expectations just a tad. The movie's a refreshing change of pace for serious horror fans, but it's not a new Exorcist.
The Devil's Candy was my follow-up to The Witch, which is kind of brilliant programming. Both deal with Satan whispering to unstable folk, but this one is set modern day.
Directed by The Loved Ones' Sean Byrne, this one focuses on one of the best father/daughter relationships I've seen recently. Dad, played by Ethan Embry, is an aging metalhead painter who has moved on from painting the sides of vans and into doing happy butterfly murals for banks and the apple didn't fall too far from the tree as far as his daughter is concerned.
Young Kiara Glasco plays the daughter and she's super into metal and it's ridiculously cute to see these two headbang to Metallica together on the way to school.
Shiri Appleby rounds out the family as the cooler-than-she-should-be mom. Appleby fades a little bit into the background as it becomes clear the focus is the relationship between Embry and Glasco.
This family moves into a house that might be priced right, but also comes with a little unwelcomed Satan whispering. The home's previous occupant was Pruitt Taylor Vince and his family. Vince was only able to keep Satan out of his brain by playing very loud metal chords. He wasn't entirely successful, though, which is the reason why this Texas house is on the market.
This flick is really damn fun and has a solid heart in the form of Embry and Glasco's relationship. I think some of the supernatural stuff gets a little muddled towards the end (to say much more would go into radical spoiler territory), but that's more of a nitpick than an actual criticism.
Pruitt Taylor Vince is the personification of the threat throughout the movie and he's flat out great here. His jittering eyes are both insane and oddly sympathetic. He plays his character like a big child, the victim of the voices telling him to do evil more than someone who relishes hurting others.
Embry gives it his all in the lead and is painted as a flawed person, but one with a good heart. When things start to unravel as the third act unfolds the violence we see doesn't feel movie-exaggerated. Gunshots go wild, nobody looks cool and if you're hurt you're not doing John McClane action sequences afterwards.
The drama within the family is well-handled, too. You don't get the mom being the nag to the cool dad, for instance, but they are struggling to make ends meet and dad isn't the most responsible guy in the world. The love is felt, so you're pulling for them when everything comes to a head at the end.
I was really impressed with this one and it is among my favorites of the fest so far. I'll have write-ups of those (Anomalisa, Green Room and Victoria) very soon as I still play catch-up in the last few days of the fest. Stay tuned!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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