Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti"’s review published on Letterboxd:
The ingrained tales of witchery and witchcraft is ingrained within the origins of America. There are a few dynamic motifs that idealize the historical character of the United States, building around it long winded tales of occurrence that has expanded into items of lore. In comparison, as parts of Europe has times of medieval lore, Scandinavia has its fierce Vikings, or China has its romanticized "Three Kingdoms" era as some considerable examples, it has always been said that much of the American experience in lore is based upon that of the "Westward Gunslinger". This is absolutely true in partial form, but much of America's folklorist history is also built upon the original expansion that occurred in the eastern, original part of the country. This is when colonial ideals were intermixed with a harder based mentality of the fear of "God" and the fear of "The Devil". As such, the broad idealist nature of salvation and damned were constructed in far more stringent terms, and as those ideals were contained within face valued themes of light and dark, the stylistic format of that is intermixed perfectly into the construction of this film.
Shying away from a contextual telling of expansive Puritan settlements and overall history, "The VVitch" (purposeful in its use of two letter V's than that of the singular W due to a spelling appropriate of the time found in a dated pamphlet) tells a seemingly simple story that is deeply entrenched in the surreal. It is a haunting atmosphere that doesn't clearly explain, keeping respect to not contain what is up to this day, continued to be unexplainable. The film's director, Robert Eggers, grew up the former Colonial Northeast (New Hampshire), and being entrenched into a fascination of lore in that respect from a childhood age, you can tell that the continuance of unknowingly fascination is still there. Essentially, there is a feeling that he is inviting you in to tell a formulation of a campfire story blended together with the brevity and girth of the "Old Testament", a proverbial "fire" with an encirclement of sulfuric "brimstone" around it.
The production value of the film is expansive, and many are drawn to its naturalistic qualities. All shots are filmed with the use of natural light or respectively placed candles. As such we get dark and grey tones of mundane, energetically stating that all salvation has been lost and that only darkness remains ahead. The dialogue is also respectfully crafted to respect the era, and the actors, especially the children do it masterfully.
In finality of it all, the film is easily adaptable to engage with upon different levels of complexities. If one is in the avenue to receive a scare, the film will absolutely deliver on that aspect even though it's not really a direct conventional horror film by nature. For those who are craving further engagement, there plethora of symbolism and metaphor than invite the investigation while maintaining the mysticism. It is no surprise that "The VVitch" has such expansive fandom and makes for a perfect viewing experience around the fall time of year when the atmosphere is just right for the occasion.
