The VVitch (2016) - Perils involving goats and home schooled children

This was good and spooky and not at all the retrograde exploitation flick some have described. lots of unsettling suggestion but no lack of legit freakiness. and a genuinely amazing ending. had a damn good time and recommend it to fans of slow-burn horror, ye olde folk weirdness, A Field in England and even The Blair Witch Project.

Wanna see this so bad
Maybe while I'm in Seattle next week

this was dope

This review got my attention.

chaw's review is 100% otm and great and within like two friggin' sentences way too spoileriffic for anyone who has not seen the movie to read. i am sad that it exists. DO NOT READ THE FILM FREAK REVIEW!!! just go see the movie and have yourself a time and then come back and maybe read it.

olde new england is in my dna so i liked this a lot

this was not as good as it should have been imo

i would have far preferred it to have ended at the first big blackout, when a few things were still ambiguous. if it had ended then it would have been a beautifully-shot allegory whose various paths of witchery lie tangled and unresolved across the family unit - a beguiling curio. but then everything just had to get all on-the-nose

once I realized it was Finch from the Office I kept remembering that character and it was messing w/ me.

but then everything just had to get all on-the-nose

it's a documentary; they had to stick to what actually happened.

i liked finding out at the end that the girl had some cakes hiding under those robes

I disagree big time Imago, I was relieved it wasn't like that because for all the talk of that kind of ambiguity being an alternative or novel, I find it all too common, cheap and very rarely working to great effect.

This is waaaay better than I expected. One of my favourite films of recent years. So many great scenes.

Everyone was great in it. Anya Taylor-Joy has the most incredible film face I've seen since maybe Michael Shannon.

Pretty scary too.

Yes, I thought the final ten minutes or so pushed this film into greatness - very close to the spirit of Machen's The White People, a walk into the woods of forbidden desires. The look of terrified ecstasy on Anya Taylor-Joy's face in the final shot was sublime.

I don't know how well this will stand up under scrutiny, but a hell of an effective piece of filmmaking nonetheless. Incredible performances by the young actors and award-worthy cinematography and set decoration (if this were the kind of film that won awards).

it really felt like it was actually happening, i never felt any disconnect or anything that took me out of that world

that scene with the raven & the reveal the next morning that it was real (?) was soooooo ah god wtf is happening

and i love the the two little kids, they were so perfect

I'd read enough about the film in advanced to be prepared for some of the stuff that happened in it, but the raven was something that I definitely didn't see coming.

How good was the casting too, Mum & Dad looked like irl pilgrims

Parents were note perfect, but I just can't get over the performances he got out of these kids. Caleb's big scene was especially amazing.

i loved this. watched it after a few beers with all the lights off and it was v immersive.

Saw this the other week - thought it was great. The twins were so creepy, they were barely human; they reminded me of the little mutant kids from The Brood.

Finchy was great. I couldn't remember where I recognized that actor from until being reminded in this thread.

still think this is to folk horror as idk punk ipa is to craft beer

Loved this -- finally saw it last weekend. This is one of my favorite types of horror movie -- almost like a processional. No real 'twists'. There is a threatening force, the threatening force overwhelms all, the end. Also would like to echo la lechera's call for write in votes for black phillip this November

This is one of my favorite types of horror movie -- almost like a processional. No real 'twists'. There is a threatening force, the threatening force overwhelms all, the end.

Serious recommendation - if you haven't seen Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem, do.

otm. i was thinking afterwards that LoS had some sort of similar ~vibe~

currently streaming on amazong prime
https://www.amazon.com/Witch-Anya-Taylor-Joy/dp/B01BT3SEHM/

Anyone else notice the figure in the background in the woods?!

whaaaaat

time for a rewatch!

btw my wife read an article online somewhere that talked about how the goat who played black phillip was super naughty and intractable

yeah the special features on the bluray had some interviews where the director said they had way more scenes planned for black phillip but he was a nightmare basically

hahaha

i love the scene in the closed-up shed where BP is just looking into the middle distance and breathing super heavily, I bet he was working up to a tantrum

There are like a dozen levels upon which I thought this was masterfully done but I think one of the most effective elements was the film's adherence to naturally-lit scenes. The quality of the light always felt appropriate to a setting in the woods with no electricity. Seems like a no-brainer for this type of story but Hollywood often has no brains.

otm

good movie. my only criticism is guy from the office's voice was so gravelly that i could barely make out wtf he was saying. sounded like he was just angrily gargling at people

i turned on closed captioning from the getgo

ha ha i didn't realize it was finchy from the office. amazing. i just thought he looked like graham chapman.

i did not clock him at all either! wow

Finchy was the only thing that pulled me out of this movie a bit, because I think I'd only ever seen him in The Office and he'd done such a good job of convincing me that he was a disgusting human being that I was a little taken aback to see him playing something other than a disgusting human being.

Recently at the theater, I saw the main girl from this in two and possibly even three trailers before the movie. Good to see she's getting work.

I like his voice a lot, I appreciate that non-brits and some brits might find his accent hard to understand but I wouldn't change it. Thought he'd be more recognised from Game Of Thrones and Harry Potter. Apparently he's in Guardians Of The Galaxy.

I don't think there's a lot of good folk horror films. There's obviously Wicker Man and I've never been as into that as most people but it's still unique. Blood On Satan's Claw just isn't very good. Can't think of much that slots in that neatly.

guys, i'm seriously getting worried my family room and/or apple tv is haunted because apparently no one else out there has seen this figure in the woods.

I never watched The Office so...who was he playing? The dad?

yes the dad

he play the dad

When does the figure in the woods show up?

the scene when Caleb is in the woods on his own. pans into the shot on the right as he's walking.

or the figure is standing alone in a dark corner of my living room. waiting for me.

Wow, yeah, I just spotted it. That is creepy.

oh thank god.

i didn't go back to check – but there's also the scene where the mother is in her bed praying/sobbing, and you see her through the gap in the curtains – I noticed something moving above her, just barely in the shot. thought maybe it was a mic or some other slip-up; but now i'm not sure – am going to check when i get home.

love when Thomasin calls out her dad for being a coward & a crap farmer & all you do is chop wood #burn

The best part of that in particular is that she switches from addressing him as "you" (deferential) to "thou" (equal)

I need to rewatch this

Holds up!

yeah i try to watch it every year now & it never disappoints

Looking forward to Nosferatu but this remains his best

Mercy and Jonas are so creepy

there’s a great clip in the behind the scenes footage of the director trying to get Jonas to eat on camera & he keeps fake chewing & making weird faces & Ralph Ineson gently but sternly coaxes him, Dad-style, into getting him to behave, it’s v sweet

I've never quite understood why The Northman failed so miserably, but maybe too much 'weird dude energy' for that moment in history? I thought it was a really compelling film

i still havent seen it but i really want to

I thought weird dude energy was about lacking glamour or coolness?

There's one scene in The Northman where they're hottubbin' in some phony hot-springs, that scene looks super bogue
But everything else looks killer, very good storyline

Saw Northman at the cinema. Don't remember much other than it was a fairly good looking film. I just don't remember it having that much depth or content - felt very "montagey" IIRC. It didn't feel much like an Eggers film

I basically called it a two and a half hour Amon Amarth video and I stand by that.

Looking forward to rewatching this with captions on.

I had a teenage allergy to Björk songs with Sjón lyrics, and I carried this bias into my watching of this film, but I plan to re-attempt again sometime soon

It didn't feel much like an Eggers film

My take is that The Northman was a studio finally taking a chance of him making a big budget blockbuster (Nicole Kidman!) and it turned out to be an abject failure on a commercial level.. so he'll probably go to make to making smaller films about madness in the lighthouse, etc. for A24

Except his Nosferatu remake in a couple of months is a big-budget Focus/Universal production, so.

yeah, we'll see... maybe he'll get a hit, but Northman wasn't it

It's sort of like the Mandela effect in that when it came out I thought, what, *another* viking/barbarian movie?! But the only other one that comes to mind is "Valhalla Rising."

there was a series of TV shows around that time... Vikings, The Last Kingdom

Viking video game, too, and of course the general vikingness of medieval TV shows like Game of Thrones.

Playing on the 23rd in one of A24’s one-night-only IMAX showings. (The Lighthouse on November 13th.)

Looking forward to an OTT doom n’ occult Nosfetatu from this guy. Based on the script that leaked some years ago it supposedly gets pretty freaky.

*Nosferatu

The idea of watching The Lighthouse at an iMax boggles my mind

I basically called it a two and a half hour Amon Amarth video and I stand by that.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 15 October 2024 15:21 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, absolutely. It's a cool music video but nothing about it made me want to rewatch it in the same way as The VVitch or the Lighthouse.

I've rewatched the former three times now and got something new out of it every time. I totally forgot that you actually see the witch several times throughout the film before the final sequence, including right near the start when Samuel goes missing. If it were up to me I'd be tempted to cut all those parts out and just keep people guessing till the final reveal. Or maybe, controversially, just cut the film as Thomasin is walking into the woods with Black Philip

How many films go from "Well that was pretty good..." on first watch to "OMG BEST FILM EVARRR" on, like fourth or fith watch? Okay, maybe not best film EVER but certainly enough for me to vote it into the recent NYT readers poll. I notice or appreciate somethign new about it every time I watch it. The performances, especially, are wall-to-wall perfect.

I agree. Really well executed.

xp Ugh, so many typos. I blame ergot poisoning

btw my wife read an article online somewhere that talked about how the goat who played black phillip was super naughty and intractable

― I wish you could see my home. It's... it's so... exciting (Jon not Jon), Montag, 26. September 2016 17:38 (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah the special features on the bluray had some interviews where the director said they had way more scenes planned for black phillip but he was a nightmare basically

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Montag, 26. September 2016 17:41 (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Great performance though, hard to think of a goat actor with better range. Does his own stunts, too

Yeah its gone up in my estimation since I first watched it too. Same for The Lighthouse

Need to rewatch the Lighthouse. Saw it at the cinema and dare I say the language left me a bit baffled as to exactly what was happening. His movies generally do deserve multiple watches. Still not sure The Northman would reveal much more to me on a second watch though

The Northman reveals that Vikings rock. *Amon Amarth riffs play in a heap*

I'm not sure why The Northman didn't do better that year, other than too much weird dude energy at a time when it was becoming unwanted

The VVitch was also cool in that it was set in a pre-United States version of Colonial America, which hasn't really been explored all that much in cinema

(I would like to see something about pre-United States colonial California)

Americans don't even dramatize the revolutionary period much, and that's still only the midpoint of Europeans in North America. There's a lot to be explored. I'm always startled when walking through the front of an old New England cemetery when a headstone says something like "died in the service of his King"

Because most films about the Revolutionary War have sucked (The Howards of Virginia, Revolution, The Patriot).

There were a couple of other viking movies at the time, iirc, but who knows. I mean, I like this director and have seen all his films *except* The Northman, for no good reason.

The Northman blends with a bunch of other viking films for me, too. I should see again but not sure I will get around to it. The VVitch on the other hand, has a weird clarity; scenes come back to me at different times. I was up in the hills yesterday and found myself bellowing 'Black Philip!' at a poor black goat who looked most indignant.

I will say, Eggers is doing the kind of eccentric work I appreciate (as opposed to Ari Aster, who imo seems to be trying to engineer himself into a Todd Solondz shaped corner). All three things Wiki claims Eggers is up to sound appealing to me, including the remake(s) that at least on paper seems least appealing:

In January 2025, it was reported Eggers would direct Werwulf, a werewolf horror film set in 13th-century England. The film's North American release is currently set for Christmas 2026. It was also reported that he will write and direct a sequel to the 1986 film Labyrinth. In June, it was reported Eggers was writing and directing a new adaptation of A Christmas Carol for Warner Bros., with Willem Dafoe the frontrunner to play Ebenezer Scrooge.

"Clarity" is exactly what makes The VVitch stand out for me. There's a deftness, a throughline in that movie that makes it very compelling, whereas his other films seem to get increasingly claustro. Even Nosferatu had a slightly muddled, montagey, music-video quality to it that just doesn't come across in The VVitch

Fixed.

In January 2025, it was reported Eggers would direct Werwulf, a werewolf horror film set in 13th-century England, with Willem Dafoe the frontrunner to play the Werwulf. The film's North American release is currently set for Christmas 2026. It was also reported that he will write and direct a sequel to the 1986 film Labyrinth, with Willem Dafoe the frontrunner to play Jareth Hoggle. In June, it was reported Eggers was writing and directing a new adaptation of A Christmas Carol for Warner Bros., with Willem Dafoe the frontrunner to play Ebenezer Scrooge.

as opposed to Ari Aster, who imo seems to be trying to engineer himself into a Todd Solondz shaped corner

Having seen Eddington the other night, you're not exactly wrong here.

Can't decide.

with Willem Dafoe the frontrunner to play Jareth Hoggle Jareth

I really really hate the idea of remaking Labyrinth but I'm also intrigued by the idea of Eggers working with an army of Muppets

Labyrinth walked the fine line between cutesy and dark as fuck, can't imagine anyone managing to repeat the trick as effectively. So why remake it?

In other words he should remake A Muppet Christmas Carol instead

it says a 'a sequel to the 1986 film Labyrinth' - so not a remake?

Hell, bring Jennifer Connelly back as the lead.

The idea of Willem Dafoe as Scrooge is so absolutely hilarious, and would almost certainly be terrible given the steady decline of Eggers films. But the first factor outweighs the second.