Set in 16th-century rural England, Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit’s Witch dares to ask a new question about the witch-hunting craze: what if the real villain during the witch trials was that purest and most incontrovertible of evils… CGI smoke effects? In the face of otherworldly horror, a Christopher Eccleston lookalike cosplaying as Matt Smith (William the blacksmith – played by Ryan Spong) must work with a Christopher Eccleston soundalike cosplaying as Alan Moore (‘Thomas’ the mysterious old man – played by Russell Shaw) must unite to save William’s wife (Twyla – played by Sarah Alexander Marks) from… err… a demon… or maybe… an extra-dimensional thingy or… just… smoke effects, we guess?
Being nominally about witch trials, the film does, of course, pay the intolerance of the times some due, with a slightly scenery-chewing zealous judge (Daniel Jordan). In spite of his vim for the part (and often being shot like a Caravaggio painting), he is neither scary nor morally interesting enough to earn his screentime.
The period settings are great for the budget. The costumes are clearly lovingly created, if not necessarily always authentic. There is fundamentally something of the cosplay about the whole affair, with the extras’ costumes too neat and unworn to feel authentic, the locations too vague and unlived-in, and the daily routines of the townsfolk apparently revolving around eating apples and walk in main characters’ way. As such, Witch is a folk horror with insufficient sense of place or community to be folk and too little in the way of jump scares or suspense to be horror, a vibe in desperate search of a genuine mythos or plot to tie it all together and sadly coming up short.
WITCH is released on digital platforms on April 29th.
