Movie Review: The Witch (2015)

 

Returning from my viewing of The Witch on an unseasonably warm and sunny day in February, it's still hard to shake the feelings with which the film left me. The unlikely horror period piece has been generating a lot of buzz ever since its festival debut, and has now been given a deserving wide release in theaters. You don't have to believe ALL the hype if you don't want to be disappointed, but I really hope that if you see this creepy flick, disappointment will be the last thing on your mind.

In 16th century England, a man and his family are excommunicated from their village for religious reasons. They settle on a small farm of their own in the middle of nowhere, next to a dense forest that is most assuredly hiding something evil. Witchcraft seems to be the main culprit when their infant son goes missing one day, and the mix of desperation and fear causes the family to slowly turn on one another as they suspect one of them may be the one in deals with the Devil.

As The Witch was just released today, I'll forgo my usual spoilers and find other ways to convince you to see this movie. The big name of the game here is dread. The Witch is consumed in this constant feeling of dread. Even in the simplest of scenes, I was completely on edge about what was going to happen next. An early scene involving the titular witch sets the audience up for how far the movie is willing to go, and those visuals stay with you as the story goes on, keeping that tension tight. Sometimes the movie delivers with a break in the tension, but sometimes it doesn't. You never know when something creepy is going to happen or what it might be, and that's what makes The Witch so compelling.

The movie is methodical with its direction, editing, and music to help build this tight atmosphere and keep it going throughout. It savors the use of long takes and holding on a particular shot to pull you into the scene, sometimes offering a crescendo of beautiful, but insanely eerie, music to accompany it. There were times when I was absolutely terrified, even though there wasn't really much happening on the screen. There is just enough information given to propel the story, but there is also a lot held back in The Witch. The insulated location doesn't allow for outside influences, except the belief system of the characters, which only goes downhill as their situation gets worse. Neither they or the audience knows who or what to believe. Adding to the family strife is their spotty food supply, and the possibility of having to send their children off to another family to survive.

This breakdown of the family unit also brings about much of the movie's suspense. The eldest daughter, Thomasin, is the main person targeted for being a witch, as she was with the baby Samuel when he disappeared. Mother Katherine seems to put the blame all on her, but she gets sympathy from her younger brother Caleb and father William - though that doesn't last long. Jonas and Mercy are the young twins who are both adorable and quite creepy at the same time (kids always are). This cast of unknowns excels in each of their roles - they all get a chance to shine and do so brilliantly. And though the language of the time period may make some lines difficult to understand at times (I have developed somewhat of a reliance on subtitles for all films, so I definitely missed them here), it doesn't put any kind of burden on the story. You still get it, so don't worry about that.

If The Witch succeeds at what it's trying to do, there will be some scenes that will shock you, or at least thoroughly freak you out, but it is not all that violent or gory. It is really just intense, and it gets there solely through the atmosphere. Even seemingly innocuous animals like bunnies and goats are made terrifying from the way the movie is shot, and the amazing score only intensifies this all the more. For a truly moody film that expertly ratchets up the tension in almost every scene, see The Witch.

Movie Review: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

 

I avoided Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters for a long time because of certain preconceived notions that the title alone brought up. I likened it to the Underworld series, which I am not a fan of, and expected moronic action that would only make me mad to watch. Now I admit to being wrong. Hansel and Gretel is for sure no cinematic masterpiece, but, holy crap, is it a good time. I dig it.

As children, Hansel and Gretel became known for killing the witch who tried to cook them. Now the siblings have grown up to become professional witch hunters, using their hatred and some nifty weapons to take out witches all over the place. They face one of their toughest and most personal battles ever when evil witch Muriel plans a dangerous Sabbath ritual that means danger for them all.

The wiki entry for Hansel and Gretel best describes the movie and what I think is the general consensus about it - "unpretentiously entertaining." This is a movie that doesn't care about being anything other than a fun romp that doesn't take itself even the least bit seriously. When done the right way, a movie with this attitude can be a huge success, especially when it is backed up by some fun action gags and decent enough story that at least keeps things moving. Some stuff was obviously filmed specifically for the 3D aspect (hate that), but it's not too much and doesn't distract.

The casting leaves a little to be desired in some roles. Jeremy Renner is actually pretty perfect as the often sour-faced Hansel who doesn't like to dwell on the past. Famke Janssen, one of my favorite actresses, portrays Muriel in a beautifully joyous way, and Peter Stormare as the sheriff is always awesome to see no matter what he does. The only person that brings down the cast a bit is Gemma Arterton as Gretel. She's cute and all, but I just didn't feel anything from her. Her performance is flat - the troll Edward shows more emotion than this girl. I didn't learn until after watching the film that writer/director Tommy Wirkola was also responsible for Dead Snow, one of my favorite films of recent years, and its sequel, which I'm still anxiously waiting to see. He brought the same sense of fun to Hansel and Gretel that he did to Dead Snow, and brought out the right attitude in the actors.

The thing that I usually hate about movies like this was the very thing that made me laugh most of the way through it. Anachronisms abound in Hansel and Gretel; most of them have to do with the look of the film and the weapons the witch hunters use, and some of them are used to get a laugh out of the audience. I loved the deal with the milk bottles with drawings of missing children tied to them and the fanboy Benjamin's book of clippings about Hansel and Gretel's witch hunting exploits. The weapons are beyond unbelievable for the time period - shotguns, a Gatling gun, Gretel's crazy machine gun-like crossbow, etc. - but most of the action sequences would have been nothing without them. The fashions are also completely out there... though I did sort of love Hansel's coat with the cool tiered shoulders.

The CGI effects are obvious, but not unbearably so. The CGI blood makes the kills feel a bit tamer and PG-13, though, so some cool kills are left feeling a little less cool and not as hardcore. At the same time, this is exactly what I was expecting and I wasn't that disappointed with what I got. There's a guy exploding in a bar, the Sabbath massacre, and probably my favorite part - the troll head-smashing sequence. So sad about Stormare, but he went out in an awesome way.

A very surprising thumbs up for a movie I wasn't expecting to like at all! Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is simply a good time all around, a movie with a good sense of humor and unpretentious understanding of what it is. Bring on Part 2!

The Biggest Debate Since Evolution: "Harry Potter" or "Twilight"?

Twi-hards. Fanpires. Officially, Twilighters.

Oh Em Gee, another tween book craze has taken over the country. Years ago, Harry Potter ruled the       best-seller lists, with people old and young rushing out to the bookstore to read the next installment in the saga of the boy wizard.

Then the Twilight books came along and shit all over everything that Harry Potter built.

Okay, maybe that was too harsh. I have such great respect for J.K. Rowling and what she created with HP, that it's almost insulting that this Stephanie Meyer chick and her goddamn sparkly vampires have made her almost obsolete. If they would hurry up and get the seventh HP movie out, perhaps people would remember what they are missing. Instead, we have to deal with repetitive, gag-me-with-a-spoon romantic, vegetarian vampire stories with the totally NOT CUTE Robert Pattinson as the lamest vampire in the history of vampires.

I was against the HP craze at the start, not thinking those books were for me or that they could really be THAT good. Then the first movie came out and I decided I would give the book a chance before I saw it, even though most of the time I would rather waste two hours on a stupid movie than a few days on a stupid book. But you know what? I loved it. I LOVE HARRY POTTER. After the first one, I devoured all the other books, sometimes having to wait a painful amount of time for the paperback to come out because I'm too cheap to buy hardbacks and I wanted my collection to be all the same format. Yeah, I'm a dork.

Then the Twilight craze started. I was mildly curious because of the whole vampire thing it had going on, but also because I wanted to see what the big effing deal was. So I read the books and saw the movie. I wasn't impressed. Especially once I got to the second book, which was full of so much teenage DRAMA and angst that I wanted to puke. Edward left and Bella turned into this zombie - it wasn't sad, it was just really annoying. But what annoyed me the most when I got to the second book and then the third book was how repetitive Meyer can be. Every time Edward and Bella kiss, we have to read the same g-darn description of how kissing him makes Bella weak in the knees and how she can't remember her name even anymore because Edward's face is just so PERFECT and he's the most gorgeous thing on the planet. Those who've read it, you know it's true. You've read this same description over and over. 

I will admit that the story is interesting enough to make you at least want to finish the book to find out what happens. It's not the most original take on the vampire or werewolf lore (vampires that sparkle in the sunlight is I'm sure one thing we will not see copied by any other person), and I've never heard of vampires that were so hard to kill. Having to go to Italy to commit suicide must be a real inconvenience. 

I must agree with critics in that the books are not that well written. The style is immature, with repetitive descriptions as I mentioned, plus some people also talked about the heavy use of adjectives and adverbs in dialog, which I seem to remember there being a lot of that as well. They're easy to read, and that's okay for the target audience of young, annoying teenage girls but not for me. 

And perhaps I'm not the best to review a novel that's mostly romance - I hate romance novels, and especially the idea of vampires as romantic figures. Sure, they're hot and immortal and all that sexy stuff but they're monsters, vegetarian or not. And why are they presented in these novels as so much better than their monstrous counterparts, the werewolves? Bella is constantly pissed at Jacob for being all macho and werewolf-y, but I always thought she should be with him than Edward anyway. It's like a teen version of Phantom of the Opera - the Phantom or Raoul? Who will she choose? Of course, she chooses the vampire, with whom, as we learned from Buffy, she could never have a normal life. Unless she becomes a vampire, too...

Okay, I hate to say it, since I've been railing on the series this whole time, but I really need to read the last book. Hey, after 3 books you want to find out how it ends! Whether or not Bella becomes a vampire, or I even heard that she was going to end up pregnant or something. Don't spoil it for me.

And then we have Harry Potter. These books are, if I may, about 100 times better than the Twilight books. I love stories that create their own whole new world for the reader (or watcher) to get into and that is exactly what we get with HP. A world that takes all the cliches of witches and wizards - like cauldrons and potions and familiars and flying on broomsticks - and makes it fun and funny. These books are so clever in the writing and so immensely well thought-out that it really just baffles me. This is Rowling's world and she could make up whatever the fuck she wanted to, but she took it seriously and thought of every minute detail having to do with the characters and especially the plot.

That's what gets me the most about these books. I know Rowling spent like 20 years or something writing them, which gave her plenty of time to plan them all out it, but it's like she knew every major or minor plot point that was going to happen in each book. There's lots of foreshadowing, but there's also weird little details that show up in one book and turn out to be majorly important two books later. Like when Harry hides his Potions book in the Room of Requirement, and he puts that crown on top of the statue's head to remember where it is, then the crown turns out to be Ravenclaw's diadem which Voldemort made into a horcrux that Harry must destroy. Sure, Rowling could have made that shit up in between the books, but based on how everything ties together in the end, I don't believe she did. These books were her life for two decades, so I would imagine that nothing in them is there without reason.

And though the books get more serious and darker as the series progresses, they are still so funny to read. The dialog is hilarious and has a lot of British wit to it that I love. The books also don't seem to dumbed down for their audience, so adults can, and obviously do, enjoy reading them just as much as their 10-year-old kids. The names she gives objects and people alike are also very clever, although to some they may seem too obvious. I can't believe that I never figured out that Remus LUPin was a werewolf.  

Referring back to how serious the books get, however, I'm not sure if that's exactly a good thing or not. The first couple of books and their movies were fun and perfect for kids and adults. But then people started dying. The series really took a turn with the end of The Goblet of Fire and Cedric's death (who, strangely, is the sparkly vampire Edward Cullen from Twilight!). Whoa, is this still a kid's book? Reading the first book, you would never imagine that this is how the story of the cute boy wizard would play out. I mean, the story is amazing and I love how the plot progresses right until the end of the last book, but Rowling was dangerously close to losing her target audience. I don't want to know what the hoards of 11-year-old wannabe wizards out there would have done if Harry had actually died at the end!

The books teach a good lesson about many things: the bonds of friendship, loyalty, doing what's right even when it's dangerous or hard, never letting evil win. What do we learn from Twilight?  Hang on, lemme think for a minute ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Okay I got nothing. But see? HP is a phenomenon that I think will last. It leads itself to discuss so many different topics, both plot-wise and in the way it is written, whereas Twilight doesn't have anything to say. 

But also in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter if the books are good or bad if people enjoy them. Heck, I absolutely love those MEG books, the ones about the giant prehistoric shark that attacks and eats a bunch of people. There is nothing even remotely clever or scholarly about these books but they are a good time, and that's what is important when it comes to reading. Twilight is no classic, but is has kept people, young people especially, interested in books. This is my plea to all: Read books, have fun reading them, read more books, and then teach your children to love books, too.

On a side note, I helped throw a Harry Potter party. I was working at Gerbes and our GM manager got news that she had to throw a midnight release party for the final book in the series. We set up a cute little table, had a cake walk to the HP theme music, asked some trivia questions for prizes, had a guy from our store dress up like Harry so kids could take pictures with him, and had a little Easter egg hunt type thing with these coins I found and little gold trophies that I called Triwizard Cups (if you found those, you got a bigger prize). There were only about five kids that showed up, but it was fun, they were totally into it.