Director: Robert Eggers.
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Julian Richings.
Production and costume designer Robert Eggers directs his first feature length debut about a family settling down in New England in the 1630s who experience something of the supernatural.
Eggers previous movie roles really shines through as the whole production is on point, especially the sets and the costumes. The film is often dark, even during the daylight hours giving an enormous sense of bleakness throughout.
Ralph Ineson leads his devout Christian family with his wife and five children, who struggle to keep the farmstead going and there's possibly something working against them other than the elements.
Anya Taylor-Joy plays the eldest of the children and is usually shackled with the responsibility of tending to her younger siblings while father and boy go off to hunt. But they soon fall prey to the Witch who lives in the nearby woods, but not how you might expect.
Ineson is amazing and truly deserves much larger roles than the ones he's played previously. Taylor-Joy already appears to getting noticed as quite the star with Morgan and soon to be released Split. But the whole cast here perform amazingly well, and the script is quite astonishing with impressive diction.
Mark Korven does quite the eerie score which probably makes up for a lot of the atmosphere, it resonates right through you immersing the viewer deeper in the film and I strongly suggest not listening to it in isolation alone.
Unfortunately with all these key elements, the story, the script, the haunting score and the production as a whole, it's not at all scary and is more of a drama than horror. It certainly has that feel of the classic horrors like the original Wicker Man, but it just didn't get to me like it maybe should have.
Having said that, this film is definitely split into two camps. While some, like myself didn't get the full affect, others would find this frightful; even Stephen King, the master of horror himself has stated the film to be terrifying, so don't take my word for it not being scary. It's superbly executed, well performed and brilliantly written, but it's a personal shame I didn't take to it.
Running Time: 7
The Cast: 8
Performance: 9
Direction: 8
Story: 8
Script: 9
Creativity: 8
Soundtrack: 8
Job Description: 1
The Extra Bonus Point: 0
Would I buy the Blu-ray?: No.
66% 7/10
