The Witch is a horror movie that will stand the test of time and be talked about an appreciated for decades to come. Similar to horror classics such as Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, and The Thing, it is immersive, thought-provoking, and scary at the same time. It was my favorite movie of the year as well, and especially impressive considering it was from a first time director.

It's definitely a horror film, which is a genre like any other, capable of good movies and bad. There's nothing inherently bad about being a horror film.

Agreed. I wasn't trying to disparage the genre, because on the contrary I'm a huge horror fan.

It's just that when a film like The Witch comes along I feel a lot of folks will pass on it because of the genre preconceptions.

And on the flip side, a lot of genre fans didn't like it it because it 'wasn't scary enough.' Expectations can work both ways and set viewers up for disappointment. Especially when critics start praising a movie. Either way I think it's a movie that people will talk about for years, and that's not a bad thing.

I did. I love unsettling or tense movies, but I'm not a big fan of gore.

Gave this one another viewing. Loved it in the theatre and loved it even more at home with the subtitles and proper framing.
The theatre framed it at 1.85 instead of 1.66 so the top and bottom was slightly cut off.

4.5/5

Maybe it was just me 9 years ago, but I didn't see the big deal about this movie on first viewing. Thought it was slow, ponderous, and took an awful lot of time to get to where it was going. I liked where it went though. At the time I rated The Witch 6 out of 10.

I must have been high.

Yesterday I re-watched the films, subtitles on this time (as I always do now, got some hearing loss in my old age) and HOKEY SMOKES! What a masterpiece of tone, atmosphere, claustrophobic creepiness, patterns of control, trauma, and oppression. Even knowing where the story was going to end up, I didn't want to rush there. And it only about 90 minutes, there's not a split second of fat on this movie.

Revised rating for The Witch: 9 out of 10

I need to see this and The Lighthouse. Loved The Northman and Nosferatu.

Yeah . . . I'd recommend skipping The Lighthouse.

The Witch
Nosferatu
The Northman
An emergency appendectomy performed by beavers in the Saw bathroom with no surgical tools or painkillers

. . .

The Lighthouse

Not me, A.T. I loved The Lighthouse! Great visuals and incredible acting throughout. Will need to revisit this one soon ... November's a great month for it (cold and dreary).

I thought the aesthetic/mood of it was great.