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CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on March 21st, 2024, reviewing the new streaming series “Manhunt” – based on the bestseller by James L. Swanson – currently streaming on Apple TV+.
Film Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes in ‘The Witch’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 19, 2016 - 9:21am
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“The Witch” opens everywhere on February 19th. Featuring Anya-Taylor Joy, Ralph Ineson, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson and Kate Dickie. Written and directed by Robert Eggers. Rated “R”
Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “The Witch”
Father (Ralph Ineson) Incants in ‘The Witch’
Photo credit: A24
Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “The Witch”
Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version
CHICAGO – We perpetuate our fears through many sources. All mythology, religion and politics are based on what is “unknown” in our lives, and the desire to placate what frightens us is how we invent and worship those entities. This is all explored in the new film, “The Witch.”
 Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
There is horror in this story, a mix of natural and supernatural elements that plague a family of British Puritan settlers in the 17th century, in the New World of America. But the horror is also based in doubt, when the land and nature conspires against survival. This doubt morphs to darkness, and that lack of light is not healed through the extreme Christian faith of the family. “What is in the woods?” “Why is my body changing, and why is that accompanied with feelings previously not known?” “Where is our God?” It must be a supernatural power, it must be a witch. They accuse, I accuse, we accuse, and all the forces that embrace and ensnare the soul are now part of the spell.
The family is exiled from a larger plantation community, because their religiosity causes extreme dread for the rest of the settlement in the New World of 1630. The father William (Ralph Ineson), his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie) – who has just given birth to an infant son – and older daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) and younger twins Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson) eventually carve a homestead and failing farm on the edge of a dark wooded area.
Thomasin is playing with her new baby brother when the child disappears. It could be a wolf, or it could be forces outside what they know. Creeping paranoia begins to infiltrate their survival instincts, and all bad things starts to happen, with the aid of an old hag (Bathsheba Garnett) who plagues the vision of Caleb and invades the consciousness of Thomasin. The familiar structure of family and faith start to collapse.
Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “The Witch”Father (Ralph Ineson) Incants in ‘The Witch’
Photo credit: A24
Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “The Witch”
