NEW YORK TIMES: THE VERY DARK MAGIC OF ‘THE WITCH’
The story is written by Mekado Murphy.
A part of the reason for linking this, mainstream newspapers and reporters rarely praise horror. This movie, however, has been getting widespread attention not only for the scare factor it presents, but also the historical context in which it was created.
Robert Eggers spent lots of time researching and visiting museums. The movie, it’s said, is true history of the time it was created..
And even Stephen King said it was one of the scarier movies he’s seen..
This from the NYTIMES:
The writer and director Robert Eggers, a native of southern New Hampshire, dug deep into New England history for his debut feature, which unnerved audiences at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and earned the filmmaker the best director prize.
“Growing up in New England, you can’t help but be reminded of its past, with its dilapidated colonial farms and graveyards in the middle of the woods,” Mr. Eggers said by Skype. “I had a very strong idea as a kid about what New England’s mythic past was.”
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In his early research, Mr. Eggers said he found that for many people in the 17th century, the real world and the fairy-tale world were one and the same: To them, witches were a reality. To show how deep a hold the witch had on settlers’ imaginations, Mr. Eggers decided to place viewers in the center of the period, as accurately as he could. He wanted his film to feel like “a Puritan’s nightmare,” he said. But he would have to be creative, working on a modest budget, $3.5 million. Here is a closer look into the detailed research and the handcrafted design that helped bring that nightmare to life onscreen.
Eggers did lots of research before creating the WITCH..
More from the TIMES:
To get a grasp on the thinking and language of the period, Mr. Eggers pored over books, church pamphlets from Cotton Mather, “The Discoverie of Witchcraft” (a 16th-century text that aims to disprove the existence of witches) and various sermons from Puritan ministers. To write the dialogue, he turned to the diaries of John Winthrop, a founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Samuel Sewall, a judge involved in the Salem witch trials, mainly to better understand the Calvinist worldview.
“Those diaries aren’t necessarily riddled with witch stuff,” he said, “but I tried to capture the Puritan mind-set and get the audience to see how this family would think.”
The movie, besides looking visually amazing, looks incredible.