Movie Review: The Witch (2015)

Rating: B+/ The Witch is a good example of a film you should go into blind, knowing next to nothing about it’s story. It’s a bit of a slow burn, definitely not for everyone, though those with the patience to soldier through it’s sluggish bits will be rewarded by the film’s eerie, cynical conclusion. In 1630’s New England, a dysfunctional puritan brood, led by the devoutly Christian William (Ralph Ineson) eke out an existence in the middle of fucking nowhere, shortly after leaving their home village due to religious differences with the town elders. No sooner are they living off the grid, so to speak, than the infant son of William and his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie) vanishes seemingly into thin air while their teen daughter (Anya Taylor-Joy) is watching him, and some weird shit starts going down in the woods surrounding their small farmstead.

Movie Review: The Selfish Giant (2014)

Rating: B+/ Yes, this is ‘yet another depressing British movie,’ but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, the world needs these stories just a much, if not more, than we need the candy-colored cathartic ones. The Selfish Giant gives us a unrelentingly real look into a world of poverty and deprivation, a working-class Northern English community where the kids run wild and the adults offer minors no support whatsoever as they eke out an existence of hard luck and toil.