The Witch | Cinema Parrot Disco

Happy Halloween, everyone! This wraps up another year of October Horror Month for me, which always makes me a little sad (but also a little happy since I can go back to reviewing all sorts of genres instead of just horror). Until October 2018… 🙂

Ah, the horror genre. Between horror & comedy, I’d have to say we get the largest number of movies that are complete & utter shit. Very disappointing. I suppose part of the reason may be that they’re probably the cheapest types of movies to make but, also, people’s tastes vary so widely on these genres so only a small handful end up with praise & high ratings.

It felt like I reviewed only a couple of good horrors in 2016 & that the rest were dreadful. This year I’ve again seen some truly abysmal horrors but, overall, I lucked out and saw some really good ones. Yay! On this list of 32 movies: I loved numbers 1-4, I liked numbers 5-9 quite a lot, and I thought numbers 10-15 were fine & had fun with them. The rest were meh or awful. But 15 decent ones out of 32 is REALLY good for the horror genre! Oh, I should add that I cheated a little & threw a few “thrillers” in as well.

So here’s my ranked list, counting down to My Top Ten Horror & Thriller Movies Watched For 2017 October Horror Month:

32. The Forest
31. Lifeforce
30. The Neon Demon
29. Poltergeist (2015)
28. The Girl On The Train
27. Byzantium
26. Only Lovers Left Alive

25. Cooties
24. 1922
23. Cell
22. Ghostbusters (2016)
21. Ouija: Origin Of Evil

Top Twenty:

20. Green Room
19. Mother!
18. Alien: Covenant
17. Split
16. Get Out

15. Monster Hunter (aka Dark Was The Night)
14. The Watcher In The Woods
13. Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children
12. Before I Wake
11. The Babysitter

Top Ten:

10. The Witch
9. Pontypool
8. The Wailing
7. The Gift
6. Coherence

5. The Final Girls
4. House (Hausu) (1977)
3. Gerald’s Game
2. Train To Busan
1. It (2017)

Phew. Horror Month is over! Now I can go watch something happy & fun. Any recommendations? 🙂

The Witch (2015)
(stylized as The VVitch, subtitled A New-England Folktale)

Directed & Written by Robert Eggers

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
The Witch follows a Puritan family encountering forces of evil in the woods beyond their New England farm.

My Opinion:

I’d really been looking forward to this after it got some great reviews, which is rare for a horror movie. I’ve been very disappointed with the horror genre these last 20 years or so. It’s so rare to get a good one anymore. However, there’s been an increase in good horror films the past few years (I especially loved The Babadook & It Follows). I did a list last October of My Top Ten Horror Movies Of The 21st Century and was disappointed I’d not yet seen The Witch as it sounded like another good modern horror that may actually make my list. I’m sad to say that, while I think it’s an okay film, I can’t say I loved it & I certainly don’t need to add it to that Top Ten list.

I can see why it has its fans. There’s a good atmosphere & I did like the genuine oldy worldy feel of witches & satanic goats & all that good devil stuff. When it comes to horror subgenres, I love a good devil movie! The Omen is a favorite. What a classic. And I guess I can again plug one of my favorite top ten lists – My Top Ten Devil & Hell Songs. Clearly, witches and demons make for great movie & music material. Therefore, I suppose it didn’t help that I had such high expectations for this movie…

Anya Taylor-Joy does a good job as Thomasin, a girl whose deeply religious 17th century Puritan family go a bit crazy when mysterious happenings occur. Her mother (Kate Dickie, who was Lysa Arryn in Game Of Thrones) is a nutjob once again engaging in some breastfeeding weirdness. She’s a bit like Carrie’s mother in Carrie but unfortunately not nearly as entertaining as the wonderful Piper Laurie in that. When bad things start happening, such as the disappearance of her newborn, she blames Thomasin for everything. There’s lots of praying & religious hysteria & I really wanted poor Thomasin to be able to get away from all that shit. Luckily, her father does have some sense and tries to protect her a little bit. Except for Thomasin & her father, it was hard to really care about what would happen to anyone.

The Witch is a good old-fashioned atmospheric horror movie that relies on a slow build-up of terror instead of jump scares and/or lots of gore. It’s my type of horror but just didn’t quite work for me. Overall, I was a bit bored but can see why some people really liked it.

My Rating: 6.5/10