The Witch review

Robert Egger’s directorial debut follows a 17^th century Puritan family after they are forced to leave their small New England community for an unspecified crime. 

‘We will conquer this wilderness; it will not consume us,’ says the family’s patriarch (Ralph Ineson) as he surveys the ancient woodland he and his family choose to make their new home near.

A few months pass and then a terrible event occurs when youngest child Samuel is abducted whilst under the care of his sister Thomasin (Anya-Taylor Joy). The uncertainty of his fate tests the faith of the family and begins to push them towards greater behavioural extremes.

Although The Witch can be classed as a horror, it is more interested in atmosphere and the psychology of its characters than it is jumpscares or overt blood and gore. This means the film takes its time to gets under your skin. 

Some excellent cinematography from Jarin Blaschke also lends the forest surrounding the family’s home real immensity and menace, to the extent where it almost becomes a character itself.

Also worth noting are the cast with Ralph Ineson effectively, and disturbingly, portraying a man whose convictions and control of his family are broken down by forces he doesn’t understand. Anya-Taylor Joy also gives a promising and multifaceted turn as the family’s eldest daughter Thomasine.

If there’s one thing that plays against the film, it's its lack of ambiguity. Any mystery as to whether there is or isn’t a real supernatural force in the woods is quickly dispelled in the first twenty minutes. Such explicitness only serves to weaken the film's more psychological aspects.

The ending, whilst interesting on a number of levels, is also not completely unexpected and fails to deliver the knockout punch essential to a masterful horror film.

Star Rating: 3/5

Hail, Caesar! review

The Coen Brothers latest film takes place in Hollywood during the 50’s at a time when big studios strictly controlled the lives of their actors. It follows Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), head of production at Capitol Pictures, as he tries to keep the scandalous behaviour of his stars out of the press whilst also trying to fend off job offers from the Lockheed Corporation.

When big star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is kidnapped during the production of the studio’s new prestige piece Hail, Caesar! A Tale of the Christ, Mannix enlists the help of Western actor Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) to find him.

Hail, Caesar! contains everything you’d expect from a Coen Brothers film: colourful characters, references to classic films of yore, and dollops of tongue in cheek humour.

A sharp script is buoyed by perfectly judged performances from Brolin, Clooney, Eherenreich and a brassy but all too brief turn from Scarlet Johansson as an actress/synchronised swimmer.

If there’s one thing wrong with Hail, Caesar! it’s the persistent feeling that one is watching a sample from a bigger, more ambitious movie. The film’s amusingly outlandish plot seems stifled 

by the gilded trappings of the Hollywood movies it both lampoons and pays tribute to. Indeed, some of the daring shifts in tone seen in other films by the brothers, such as Fargo and Inside Llewyn Davis, would not have gone amiss.

Hail, Caesar! is a worthy addition to the Coen Brothers canon but it is far from their best.

Star Rating: 3/5