THE WITCH (2016)

I’m reticent to call The Witch a horror film, even though it utterly is. Because doing so would call forth images of how the current horror film has come to look: lazy remakes of classic titles, CGI monsters, buckets of blood, or even old-school classy approaches that avoid cheap tricks, but which at least provide a visceral jolt to the audience every so often to remind them that they are, indeed, watching a horror film.

The Witch isn’t interested in doing any of this. It very much wants to get under the audience’s skin and unnerve them in ways they aren’t used to, but its approach is tremendously different from the current crop of fright flicks at the theater. It’s not a spoiler to say that this isn’t a case of “Is there a witch, or is it all in the heads of this family recently excommunicated from their former home?” There is a very real and tangible threat. It exists among this displaced, God-fearing family, looming over their new patchwork home in the woods like the night sky. Quick and hazy sightings of the force haunting them, rarely glimpsed but ever changing, heighten its malignancy. Like another witchy horror flick—The Blair Witch Project—the thing going bump in the night is never made a primary on-screen force. It’s not hiding behind closet doors or hovering in the background of a mirror’s reflection. Its existence is felt in every frame, even if its visage is hardly sighted—a masterful accomplishment for any filmmaker, but especially for one making his directorial debut.

Horror films are easy to construct, but difficult to render effectively. It’s easy to scare the audience, but difficult to earn those scares through classy and clever execution. And it’s tremendously difficult to establish dread from the very first frame. So few horror films know how to accomplish this. We can throw out The Shining as an example, and even more recently, Scott Derrickson’s Sinister. If the inescapable feeling of dread permeates from the onset, before a single horrific incident has occurred, that’s not just rare, but nearly unheard of. Filmmakers don’t know how to do it, so they open their film with a kill, and end it with a monster literally screaming into the camera. And in between: heads fly off, or ghostly faces drip. It’s tiring, and it’s cliché, and it’s boring, and The Witch is the antithesis to all of that.

Like The Blair Witch Project, The Witch is destined for a viewers’ revolt. In fact, it’s already here. “Overhyped.” “Overrated.” The dreaded IMDB bomb: “Worst movie EVAR.” Maybe The Witch should have remained a quiet title, released to VOD and then later to home video, but A24 Films boldly called the bluff of horror fans demanding smart and original material, rolling out the film in their widest release so far. And they get immense credit for having such faith in writer/director Robert Eggers’ debut. But The Witch is not a Friday night “I’m bored, let’s go to the movies” kind of film. It’s not ideal drive-in fodder (yes, they still exist). It’s not a party film like The Evil Dead. If there were ever any film worthy of closing the drapes, turning off the lights, and immersing in the environment of a horror film, The Witch is it. To experience it any other way is to rob yourself of an honestly unsettling experience.

The Witch's impressive sound design adds to that experience. A film that relies on utter silence, complemented by a chilling musical score by Mark Korven, The Witch makes great use of environmental ambiance, filling in those long stretches of silence, though a combination of textbook-authentic dialogue matched with actor Ralph Ineson's baritone voice and accent may have you leaping for the subtitles. Of all the horror films to watch with at least an average home theater surround sound, The Witch is a prime candidate.

If you have not yet taken The Witch plunge, please do so. But before you do, watch it with a mindset that’s different from what the film’s marketing has enforced. Don’t think of it as a horror film, but as a family drama that just so happens to contain horror elements. Sit down with it knowing that its eerie events are going to unfold at a slow pace, that the antagonist will be constantly felt but not seen, and that it will provide no easy answers. But ideally, sit down with it knowing that while the shadowy thing in the dark is a dangerous and terrifying threat…it’s not the only one.

HOLE IN THE GROUND (2019)

The evil kid sub-genre has been kicking it at least since 1956’s The Bad Seed, but was certainly most popularized following the release of The Omen in 1976. Richard Donner’s anti-Christ fable is still considered one of the all-time greats released during film’s pinnacle of the 1970s, having inspired three sequels, a remake, and a short-lived television series. Ever since then, most evil kid flicks have taken its page from The Omen just a little, and in some situations more than others, it absolutely shows.

I say over and over that I don’t care how many times you repackage the same horror concepts and tropes. So long as your flick is well made, lacks pretension, and adds just a twist of freshness, I’m on board. (For example, I adore The Conjuring, even though it tells one of the most derivative stories possible in the genre.) And that’s where The Hole in the Ground comes in. 

Possibly based on the short story “The Samhain Feis” by Peter Tremayne, about a woman and her young son escaping a miserable husband/father to a cottage in Ireland where the son becomes possessed (maybe) by an ancient spirit, director Lee Cronin makes his feature directorial debut in this familiar but well-made supernatural tale. As noted, it treads similar ground to Tremayne’s short story, although now instead of an American woman traveling to Ireland with her son, it’s Sarah O’Neill (Seána Kerslake, who looks like a combination Rebecca Hall/Ellie Kemper) locating a quiet, out-of-the-way place in her native Ireland to take a moment out and raise her son in peace. (All we know is that there’s bad blood directed at the family’s patriarch, but we never find out what, and he never appears on screen.) While doing some exploring, Sarah discovers an unnaturally large crater in the woods behind her house and steers her son, Chris (James Quinn Markey), away from it. But whatever dark forces dwell in those woods/that crater won’t take no for an answer and soon take control of young Chris, pitting Sarah in a helpless and hopeless situation and leaving her to figure it out on her own. 

While The Hole in the Ground is familiar, Cronin, who writes as well as directs, establishes a fair pace while skillfully slipping in scenes to unnerve or even terrify his audience. Sarah catches small glimpses of her son acting in ways very unlike him, or very unlike that of your normal human being, and this begins to mount, with each instance becoming more disturbing and presenting Chris as increasingly less like her little boy. Cronin, also, very smartly directs young Markey to play Chris as off rather than downright creepy or evil from the word go, allowing the audience to wonder if perhaps Sarah is just undergoing some undue stress from her recent separation. Markey never outright acts evil, in the same way that The Omen’s little Harvey Stevens mostly just placed a little boy, which ironically causes him to come across even more off-putting. Additionally, Game Of Thrones’ James Cosmo appears in a supporting role as a mourning father still getting over the loss of his own child, and who, as you might expect, provides most of the film’s exposition. 

The Hole in the Ground isn’t going to win any awards for originality, but, as usual, A24 knows what they want from the horror genre, and it’s just one more solid acquisition for one of the most respected indie film distributors in the land. 

[Reprinted from The Daily Grindhouse.]