A purely fresh horror film. Not gory, not jump out of your seat scary, but damned unsettling.
Set circa 1645, Massachusetts, Family decides to move away from Commonwealth village to their own place near a brook and massive woods. It is spoken with Puritan English, which director Eggers pulled directly from many fairy tales and bible studies of the time.
I’m sure no one on THIS message board will have trouble tuning into words like, thine, thou, dost, thy, ye, or woolens. But ye who dost think words like “LOL” are really words may be confused.
I would even suggest going in blind, without seeing the trailer. I’ll give it 9/10.
Minor Spoiler:
I’ll never look at certain animals the same way again.
I enjoyed it, but the audience was unfortunately full of assholes, most of whom did not appear to enjoy the movie. As much as I liked it, I kinda wish I had gone to see Deadpool instead and watched this one at home on video.
I can’t wait to see this. I’ve heard it’s really good and, seeing as how I’m on a personal “awesome horror movie win!” streak, I’d like to add this to the list.
I’m interested in this movie because I like the historical and psychological subject matter and it sounds beautifully made. But I’m not a fan of horror and scary stuff. It’s too disturbing for my delicately balanced psyche or something. Stuff stays with me. Can I see this without coming away traumatized?
Glad to hear this. I came “this” close to seeing it over the weekend but had a scheduling issue. Will report back after I see it.
[QUOTE=faithfool]
I can’t wait to see this. I’ve heard it’s really good and, seeing as how I’m on a personal “awesome horror movie win!” streak, I’d like to add this to the list.
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Do tell! What other good horror movies have you seen lately? I just watched The Visit and despite some really bad reviews, I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Yeah, The Visit was better than I could’ve hoped for, but I LOVED both Krampus (which was frigging awesome!) and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Plus, going back to some stuff I’ve rented, I’ll be buying a secondhand copy of the new The Town that Dreaded Sundown and It Follows. But I think we’ve already talked about the latter.
Still waiting to see Goodnight, Mommy and The Green Inferno. I’m hopeful about the former.
I saw this over the weekend and it was very good. Creepy, if not exactly scary. And at least in this movie, when characters act irrationally, it’s mostly because they weren’t very rational to begin with. Lovely setting, too.
Saw it this weekend and loved it, not so much because I like horror movies (though I do once in a while) but because I love history. If I taught 17th century American history I would totally make this mandatory viewing for my students.
I’ve rarely if ever seen a movie that conveys such intense accuracy and feel of a historical setting as this does of early 17th century Massachusetts. The house, the clothing, the food, the farm- all pitch perfect. Even the twins: they look like Little People as in fact they would because children were dressed just like little adults at the time (often in adult’s refitted clothing).
It also conveys the Puritan concept of the devil and witches perfectly. There’s no modernization at all: the devil isn’t abstract and witches aren’t protofeminists who have herb gardens but both are… well, to say more would be spoilers.
A total recommend. The filmmaker is now working on a movie about Rasputin, which I’ll definitely go see.
One of my few complaints is actually because it is TOO accurate: the rural English accents are so thick that they’re hard to understand at times. No matter, still wonderful.
And I would totally buy one of these action figures (which I’ll put in the spoiler box):
Oh goodness, I have two friends begging me to go see this with them. Something about me makes people think I like going to scary movies. I don’t. They scare me. I have a wildly overactive imagination and it needs no further help creating ideas to scare me. This past visit home, I was forced to watch The Babadook and It Follows.
All last week I looked forward to seeing this, went to the theater on Sunday and it turns out they had the wrong times posted :mad: (stoopid theater; I put a curse on thee). Sooooo I’ll try again next weekend. It’s all I can do not to go on IdiotsMoronsDipshitsBoobs and read all about it.
I normally don’t like horror-type movies, and I thought it was excellent. I will agree that the accents took some getting use to, but I got past it.
I tried and failed to recognize the actress who played the wife until I looked her up, then kicked myself for not recognizing her, especially since I recognized the husband right away…and he had a much smaller role in the same damned show!
[QUOTE=Morbo]
I tried and failed to recognize the actress who played the wife until I looked her up, then kicked myself for not recognizing her, especially since I recognized the husband right away…and he had a much smaller role in the same damned show!
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Neither did I til just now.
She’s going to be typecast as a breast feeder if she’s not careful.
1.) Saw this with MilliCal over the weekend
2.) We saw it at the cinema – in Salem, NA!
3.) Very well made, with an extremely realistic look and dialogue.
4.) Calling it “based oin a New England Folktale” isn’t accurate – it’s not based on a folktale, but on accounts of witchcraft from New England, jumbled together. I’ve read several of these.
5.) Calling it a “Horror movie” is kinda misleading, as MilliCal pointed out. It’s not a straight scare-your-pants-off film, and if you go in expecting that, you’ll be disappointed.
6.) It’s more of a Dark Fantasy film, in which the beliefs about 17th century witchcraft are taken as real, and faithfully depicted.
7.) They could’ve had a LOT more stuff about the children acting strange. Period accounts describe afflicted children being rigid in weird positions, speaking at length in tongues, even levitating. The film accurately depicts what many of the effects of malefic witchcraft were held to be – crop failure, animals getting sick and dying – but it was the weird effects on people that were the most unnerving.
8.) The one thing that bothered me the most was how this family – one man, one woman, a teenaged girl , a pre-pubescent biy, and two toddlers – could, in the space of less than a year, put up a homestead as huge and complete as they depict, unaided. They have a full-size house with loft and thatched roof, a small barn, and one other outbuilding. The walls (and the divisions in the garden) are made of sawn planks – that requires a sawpit and two people to work the saw. Raising just the house would take a company of people the better part of a year, and this family was expelled from the colony for heresy – they wouldn’t be able to count on help. An actual bunch of settlers to Salem put up a couple of dwellings that are reproduced in one of Salem’s parks – it’s a closet-sized room half-0buried in the earth, and it slept a dozen people. These folks in the film werre living in incredible luxury (although it might not look like it to us). But I’ll let it pass – the story’s the important thing.
9.)
The girl, Thomasin, at the end isn’t seduced or corrupted into witchcraft – she really has no other alternative. She could die, or kill herself, or throw herself upon the mercy of their community, but those really weren’t options, unless the community went severely against type and alllowed her back in. She joined the witches because there was noplace else to go.I’ve never heard of an actual case at all like that.
10.)
Where did that Coven of Witchs come from? The family was supposed to be out in the woods. The nearest settlement, we’re given to understand, is the one that threw them out. Witches don’t live on their own, as depicted in Hansel and Gretl – Accused witches were supposed to be one’s neighbors. Those are the folks that were accused at trials, even before 1692.
The film is supposed to be set in 1630. That’s 62 years before the Salem trials. But there were many reported cases of witchcraft well before 1692.
MINOR TO MEDIUM SPOILERS BELOW
The father mentioned trading with the Plantation, and they were discussing sending Thomasin to work for a family in the Plantation (a standard practice for adolescent girls as I recall), so apparently they had some dealings with them.
We saw the dwelling of one witch and it’s much as you described- a tiny earth lodge. Maybe others lived with her.
A more major spoiler so I’ll box it:
The father said the Plantation was a day’s ride, so maybe 30 miles or so. That’s not that terrible a distance when you can fly.
It reminded me of my favorite aspects of Blair Witch (a movie I liked though many didn’t).
Of course having grown up on a very spooky and isolated piney wood farm I’m naturally predisposed to be freaked out by anything involving spooky and isolated farms in the piney wood.
I was surprised there were no natives other than in the Plimoth scene.
