Review #185: The VVitch (2015)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #40: The VVitch (2015)

I watched (and reviewed) this movie back when it came out, after hearing only rave reviews for it. At the time I just didn't get what all of the fuss was about- it's a bleak period piece about a puritan family who runs afoul of a witch and things just keep getting worse and worse. Watching it again now, I "get" a lot more of the appreciation for it than I did the first time, but I still don't really like this film.

Now don't get me wrong, this is a superbly-made film. I recognize the immense amount of work that went in to making as much of it as possible period-accurate, even down to taking most of the dialogue from letters and books written from the time. The performances are almost all fantastic, and there's so much creepy imagery and the atmosphere is pretty strong. I 100% guarantee this movie was intended to be so bleak you almost wouldn't want to keep watching it, because that's how every second of the movie felt to me.

But despite all of the work that went in, despite the huge amount of competence and talent that came together to make it, I just... didn't really care. This is an incredibly slow burn (maybe not as slow as some others, but still very, very slow), and all of the characters are either "bland, but relatable" or "downright annoying". And maybe this is going to make me sound uncultured or plebeian or whatever, but both this time and last, I found the dialect and style of dialogue to be VERY hard to follow. For every second someone was talking, I'd have to spend twice as long working out in my head exactly what they said afterward, so that I could then process what that line meant in the context of the scene and how I was supposed to feel about it. In the meantime, a couple more lines probably got said so I'd have to focus on translating those. I'm all for period pieces and such having accurate language, but there's a point at which it gets in the way of the storytelling, and of course that point is going to be different for different audiences, but to me, it made watching this movie into a chore. Add in the fact that the dialogue was INCREDIBLY quiet for most of the film (and I couldn't turn it up any more, because there were two or three points where the score got AMAZINGLY LOUD already) and I was expending more effort just trying to follow what was being said than I felt the movie was worth. For anyone who is planning on watching this in the future, I HIGHLY recommend turning on subtitles. If I had done that I bet my experience would have been better (but I don't see that as a reason to give the movie more credit than I am).

I know I'm in the minority, but this slow-moving bleak film just wasn't an enjoyable time for me. Maybe it will be for you.

Overall Rating: 5/10 Ahpples in the Valleh

Behind-the-Scenes Tidbit: Apparently, Black Phillip was actually a jerk off-camera. One of the scenes when he lunges at William wasn't even scripted, it just happened when filming.