The Witch - Second Sight 4k UHD (Standard Edition)

I can’t believe how much I love The Witch (sometimes stylized as The VVitch). I got off to a bumpy start with it, and it’s my own damn fault. I saw it some chilly February night and I was, like, “Witches? Horror? This sounds like the perfect movie to see at the drive-in!” And, brother, it was… not a great experience. If you’ve seen The Witch you know how dark it is. And if you’ve ever been to a drive-in, you know how crappy those projectors can be. I saw, I dunno, maybe half of the movie, and even though my car’s speakers were cranked to the max, I heard maybe 40% of the mumbly old-timey Olde English dialogue.

Still, despite being lost, bored, and kicking myself for seeing such a subtle movie in such a grossly inappropriate venue, one thing was for sure. What an ending! Later, I saw The Witch again on some streaming network—Amazon or Netflix or something— and I finally got to see some details, but it still felt lackluster to me. It was on some 1080p HD television with regular speakers. Finally, seeing this version of the movie, with director Robert Eggers’ supervised Dolby Vision HDR grading, I feel like I’ve truly seen it and it’s remarkable. And with the DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, I feel like I was able to hear it, fully, in all its powerful glory.

Some movies can get away with being seen in rougher translations from how it originally appeared. The Witch is a movie that requires much it to be just so. The lighting matters. That eerie cackle over your left shoulder matters. Like so many of my favorite horror movies, it’s not just a story that envelopes you, it’s a whole experience that you get lost in.

The Witch takes place in New England in the 1630s. We see a family banished from a Puritan settlement because their views are too extreme even for Puritanical colonial America. They make their way out to a small settlement where the horror begins immediately. Thomasin (played by Anya Taylor-Joy in her breakthrough role) is watching her young baby Samuel when he vanishes without a trace. In most so-called “subtle” or “slow burn” horror movies, there would be an ambiguity to the child’s disappearance. The Witch has no interest in ambiguity. We know precisely what happened.

And while The Witch has no interest in repeating what worked for The Blair Witch Project it evokes classic films of the genre in interesting, unexpected ways. The musical crescendo in many scenes, with violins that sound like their being stabbed, repeatedly, feels like a nod toward Suspiria. The Witch is wholly unique on its own, as a film, but has a debt of gratitude toward real-life historical documents of the time that chronicle a country’s mass hysteria toward the supernatural and use it as a convenient excuse to rid themselves of people they deemed undesirable. In the narrative of The Witch, however, the supernatural is as real as its Puritans believe it to be, and we watch them struggle in vain, and pray to God, for help against forces that are beyond them. We see a family turn on itself as external forces manipulate them toward their darkest impulses.

Robert Eggers directs a cast that is perfect for his film. Anya Taylor-Joy brings Thomasin to life—a scared girl, out of her element, who fights and fights the whole film through, for herself, her family, and her soul. Ralph Ineson, who has one of the best voices in all of Hollywood right now, plays William with such phenomenal nuance. William, the paterfamilias, wants to do right by his family, and wants to please God, but he has no idea how to do either, and his radicalism opens the door for black magic to cloud his mind. Kate Dickie, as Katherine, the mother of the family, goes from strength to weakness in such powerfully real ways. There’s an authenticity to her and her fears. Harvey Scrimshaw as Caleb, the family’s young son, is at odds with himself in such interesting ways. He’s headstrong and brave, despite himself and wise beyond his young years, but suffers from youth’s stupidity toward self-preservation. He struggles and prays with his sexuality, hinting at an underlying, pre-existing darkness that allowed the witch’s spells the permeate the family so quickly and easily. And the twins Mercy and Jonas, played by Ellie Grainer and Lucas Dawson, are such devilish, impish little sprouts. I absolutely loathe and adore them in equal measure.

The Witch is one of the best horror films of the 21^st century. It knows precisely what to show, when to show it, and how much. It also fundamentally understands that horror isn’t just what goes bump in the night, it’s how people react to that bump.

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Second Sight’s standard edition release of The Witch adorns brand-new artwork for the cover. The movie arrives on a single disc containing both the feature film plus all special features, in a standard case, without any extra bells and whistles. There is no reversible cover, no slipcase or booklet. All of those goodies were saved for the limited-edition deluxe release that I sadly missed out on. 

This is my first time seeing The Witch on physical media, which sounds like blasphemy (because it is), so unfortunately I’m not able to compare it to its previous 1080p and 4K releases from Lionsgate. Academically, I have High Def Digest’s previous reviews of those releases, which both get good marks. Anecdotally, I remember a butt-ugly drive-in viewing and a years-later so-so viewing on some streaming network on a sub-par TV.

So, compared to that, this viewing of The Witch completely blew me away. The 4K presentation is reportedly based on the same master as its previous release, with a brand-new Dolby Vision HDR grading commissioned by Second Sight, supervised and approved by director Robert Eggers. The Witch boasts a very muted color palate, with lots of grays and blacks. In the few scenes with color, they really pop, whether it’s someone wearing a red bonnet running through the forest or a flame flickering from a fire.

Where the film really excels, though, is in the balance of light and dark. I was able to view The Witch on a 65-inch OLED, so certain shots felt almost like a demo reel for what HDR technology is capable of. A single shot represented such extremes in brightness, from absolute zero, a true back void of nothingness, to another section of the screen with levels bright enough to completely light up a room. And everything else in between was allowed to exist without competition. Those scenes in dark rooms at night, seemingly lit only by a single candle, really get a chance to soar. The orange, fiery hues of the skin, contrasted with the neverending darkness, is gorgeous.

While The Witch’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio mix is subdued (and according to previous reviews, it’s like the same mix from those prior releases), it knows when to pack a wallop. Most of the film is going to be a front-stage presentation, but there’s a certain precision to which effects make their way to the rear speakers. Mark Korven’s unnerving score and ambient effects like an eerie wind or falling rain take place across the entirety of the soundstage. Other effects, like a demonic voice, echoing and booming, are more restrained and when they do make their way to the rear soundstage, triggering a low rumble from the subwoofer, it feels more impactful. This is a film that knows how to play its audience, and everything feels meticulously crafted for maximum impact.

Dialogue clarity is absolutely stunning. The actors employ a naturalistic, sometimes mumbly rendition of an archaic manner of speaking, and it was never necessary to tweak the audio or turn it up. I never had to struggle to hear the actors recite dialogue. Mid-range effects, lower frequency noises and high-impact effects are all balanced expertly. This is a very well-designed and engineered soundstage.

Unlike prior releases, The Witch on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Second Sight boasts a wealth of special features to keep fans occupied for hours. The brand-new interviews give the director and the cast of the film an opportunity to talk, at length, about their experience working on the film how meaningful it was to them, and their experiences as artists. Director Robert Eggers speaks at length about how growing up in New England, in a thickly wooded area, planted the seed of the story in his mind that took decades to fully gestate. Other supplements, like Eggers’ audio commentary and the “Primal Folktale” featurette are legacy features that have been carried over from previous 4K/Blu-ray releases.

• Archival Audio Commentary by Director Robert Eggers
• New Audio Commentary by film writer and broadcaster Anna Bogutskaya
• A Puritan Nightmare (HD 26:49) New interview with Robert Eggers 
• Embracing Darkness (HD 13:49) New interview with Anya Taylor-Joy 
• Love Thy Father (HD 21:24) New interview Ralph Ineson
• A Pious Wife (HD 14:31) New interview with Actor Kate Dickie
• Caleb’s Lament (HD 7:00) New interview with Actor Harvey Scrimshaw 
• A Primal Folktale (HD 8:32) Featurette including interviews with Robert Eggers and cast
• BFI London Film Festival Q&A (HD 10:41) With Robert Eggers, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson and Producer Jay Van Hoy
• Brothers (HD 10:40) A short film by Robert Eggers 

The Witch is a horror masterpiece that is uniquely American, looking at a history of religious fundamentalism, mass hysteria and convenient scapegoating. Much more, The Witch understands that cackling servants of Satan aren’t what’s scary, what’s scary is human nature when exposed to that kind of darkness. Second Sight’s release of The Witch in 4K looks and sounds incredible, with a ton of features to enjoy. This release comes Highly Recommended.