Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10
Cast: Russell Shaw, Ryan Spong, Sarah Alexandra Marks, Fabrizio Santino, Mims Burton, Nick Tuck, Nell Bailey, Ritchi Edwards, Hazel Fell, Jane Hamlet, Danny Howard, Arpen Kapadia, Livvy Nicolae, Anto Sharp, Ella Starbuck.
Like many stock-in trade characters or tropes, the notion of the witch has become one that has become over-used and to little or no effect of portraying something new, revealing little even of the origins or the disciplines of the women who practise such machinations of the spirit world.
Whilst it is true there have been classic examples, such as the sublime Anjelica Huston in the role of Eva Ernst in the 1990 dark comedy classic and subversive nature of The Witches, Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet in Rosemary’s Baby, and even Anya Taylor-Joy in 2015’s The Witch, the stereotypes of the phenomenon are aimed at making all almost teen friendly, giving rise to the popular rather than the in depth makings of the macabre and horrific, and when placed against literature from the 16th and 17th Century, such as the outstanding Elizabeth Sawyer in the play by William Rowley, Thomas Decker, and John Ford in The Witch Of Edmonton, the very nature of films now insist on giving such creatures a face behind the façade and not treating them as demonic; and thereby giving cinema what it truly desires…one exceptional film that captures the essence of the genre.
Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit’s The Witch unfortunately attempts to draw such a performance with a story-line that does its upmost to convey the sense of drama and fear felt in a period in which the essence of a witch’s power was most keenly felt in England, across Europe, and finally to the American colonies which came to full prominence in the disgrace of the age in the monstrous trials in Salem and elsewhere in the new world. Yet, however honourable, how inviting the possible tale and pay off, the 2024 film fails to sparkle, it doesn’t land the sense of the morbid or the deathly, instead relying on the already conventional and often repeated.
The Witch isn’t complicated, it hasn’t the heart to go deeper, and to that it is a shame, for there are moments of the genuine expression of the terror that surrounded England in those dark years, and one that could have been added to the narrative at hand.
A watchable film, one that does not betray the trust of the watcher in knowing it was never going to be a spectacular, but still one that could have been an eyeopener of the genre if pushed.
Ian D. Hall