Original Sin and The Best Goat Ever

I get chills when I think about THE WITCH (2016). I saw it twice in the cinema, which is not enough. It stirs in me my love of movies and "film" (same, but different). It'll be a film I buy on Blu Ray day one, and I look forward to basking in it as much as possible until I die or the witches get me. Whichever comes first. It irritates me beyond words that mainstream horror audiences have almost fully rejected the film. It's made about $22 million, which is a major success for a low-budget Sundance pick-up from small distributor A24. That's good. And it's already built a cult following.  I am a horror geek and hell, I love slashers and zombies and factory-churned horror like everyone. But I also love even more things crafted from a vision, from ideas, from love and from darkness. I saw a few films in 2015 that are like that. STARRY EYES, CREEP, BONE TOMAHAWK. All special and worth your time. But it's been a long time since I have been so instantly in love with a film like I am with THE WITCH.

THE WITCH is an evil film, refreshingly bereft of irony, humor or respite. It's evil in a sense that it's sole concern is evil. Original sin, even. It's awash in the fear that one misstep before God will damn you to eternal hellfire.

As the film opens, a devout family has been banished from their settlement for reasons that are unclear. The townsfolk claim the father, William, has wandered from the "pure gospels" and practiced "prideful conceit." The family -- William, wife Katherine, teenage daughter Thomasin, Son Caleb, creepy twins Mercy and Jonas, and infant Samuel -- pack all they own and settle on the edge of the a dark, immense forest. William is confident they will prevail over nature guided by the grace of god.

We are talking, approximately the year 1630. The writer and director, Robert Eggars, says the film takes place about 60 years before the Salem Witch trials. We are in New England. It feels amazingly authentic, and if you are interested in the time-period, as I am, you enjoy just the art decoration, costume design and the language. It should be remembered as an amazing period piece as much as for it's place as a horror story, or "New England Folk-Tale," as the title card declares.

So they set up their life, and here is where the film begins to play with it's idea of evil, from without AND within. After a particularly tense game of Peekaboo, the baby Samuel is abducted by someone, or something. We see it carry the baby through the woods. We see a woman, bathed in shadow and firelight do....something...to the baby. She rubs....something on her skin (blood? Flesh?). William insists the baby was taken by a wolf. Mother Katherine grieves as a mother would, most worried that her baby was not baptized and is burning in Hell. After crops fail, William take Caleb on a hunting trip where they engage in a discussion of sin. "Canst thou tell me what thy corrupt nature is," William asks his son. Caleb responds, without hesitation, "My corrupt nature is empty of grace, bent unto sin, only unto sin, and that continually."

They've had this discussion before, and they believe it.We see the entire family living with the fear of God. It is so real to them and is made real to us as we see the seams come apart. William is prideful, yet fails as a provider of food for his family. He threatens to sell his eldest daughter for food before Winter hits. All he does is chop wood because that's all he is good at. He is later revealed to be a thief. Caleb stares longingly at his teenage sisters breasts. Thomasin herself confesses to being lax on chores, which may sound silly but again, it's played dead-serious.

This is eternal damnation shit to them. This how I imagine Ted Cruz responding if his wife suggested maybe they try oral.

I digress. Perhaps most sinister of all is the twins, Jonas and Mercy, and their relationship with the real star of the film, an amazingly well-cast (I'm serious!!) goat named Black Phillip. The twins prance around the farm singing his praises:

"Black Phillip, Black Phillip 

A crown grows out his head,
Black Phillip, Black Phillip
To nanny queen is wed.
Jump to the fence post,
Running in the stall.
Black Phillip, Black Phillip
King of all.

Black Phillip, Black Phillip
King of sky and land,
Black Phillip, Black Phillip
King of sea and sand.
We are ye servants,
We are ye men.
Black Phillip eats the lions
From the lions' den."

The twins say they are conspiring with Black Phillip, that he talks to them. They say he told them that Thomasin is a witch. Upon being told this she turns on Mercy, playing the roll all too well to scare the child. The twins don't forget this.

As things come apart there are images I'll never unsee. A raven suckling at a mother's breast, drawing only blood. A possessed(?) boy vomiting up an apple. And Black Phillip, often shot in close-up so his eyes look directly into ours, his face filling the screen. There is something there, and it all comes to fruition in his big scene later on. It really is a remarkable piece of animal casting. I want a Black Phillip doll so badly.

"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" someone is asked as the film barrels towards it's resolution. Who asks the question, who answers and what they say I will leave for you. Is Black Phillip the Devil? Again, you figure it out. But the film closes with it's most remarkable images. The woods. It's secrets. It's agents. All beautifully and hauntingly rendered.

I could go on and on. But as I alluded to earlier, a ton of horror fans hate this film. I can't tell you how many arguments I've gotten into (and won!) on Facebook and other sites over the film. I normally don't like the "if you didn't like it you didn't get it" argument. We've seen it a lot lately in horror fandom, especially with THE BABADOOK (a film I love) and IT FOLLOWS (a film I was cool on but need to revisit). In the case of THE WITCH, if you don't like it, fine. But if you think it's boring or that it isn't really horror, well, you're a fucking asshole. It's horror from frame one. Nothing in the film is more horrifying to me than Caleb's young face as he speaks of his soul being "bent unto sin." The Puritanical religious views, the fear of sin and damnation can blind you to other evil right outside, beyond the woods. It's an idea relevant still today, especially in our political climate. But outside of all that this is just a damn good horror show that should appeal to B-movie fans as well as those with more refined taste. I doubt I will see a better movie all year. God, I want the Blu Ray....

(for reference with quotes and plot I used a couple reviews i liked a lot: 

• http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/the-witch-review
• http://www.larsenonfilm.com/the-witch
• http://lynncinnamon.com/2016/02/6261/
• https://www.quora.com/Robert-Eggers-What-are-the-lyrics-to-the-Black-Phillip-song-that-Mercy-and-Jonas-sing-in-the-film

I also used these as help with verbalizing some things I couldn't quite do on my own. They helped me provide examples for my thoughts. I hope I didn't plagiarize but if I did let me know)