THE VVITCH (Eggers, 2015)

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(Written and directed by Robert Eggers; starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Skrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, and Lucas Dawson. Released 27 January 2015; watched thu/2023019 via HBO Max.

Last of the Eggers trifecta and, were it not for my adoration of THE LIGHTHOUSE, it would certainly be my favorite of his oeuvre. Far more conventional in composition (the stark, natural lighting was particularly potent) and in structure than the LIGHTHOUSE feverdream and, to a less-feverish extent, THE NORTHMAN (which I wish I liked more than I do). Worth noting that, as amazing as Anya Taylor-Joy was in one of her first roles, all of the cast, particularly Harvey Skrimshaw as Caleb and Kate Dickie as Katherine, deserve plaudits. Profoundly disturbing in horrors of the physical and horrors of the fundamentalist Puritan zeal and, yet, as I remarked to a friend (and edited here to make it sound better) I’m deeply moved by how the pure artistry of Eggers et. al made THE VVITCH’s horrors so compelling.