We love our metal here at Metal Injection… but we dig movies too! Welcome to Cinema Fix, a movie guide tailored for the metal faithful. Sit back and relax after a long week of work and/or blast beats and enjoy one of our prestigious film selections. This week's pick is:
The Witch (2016)
Quick Pitch:
A haunting psychological and supernatural thriller. Satan approved [literally].
Synopsis:
A Puritan family is hounded by the terrifying internal, and external forces of their 17th century New England farmstead. After being excommunicated from their village for their extreme religious beliefs, they must rely on each other and their devout Christian faith to survive as they struggle to carve out a new life in the unforgiving wilderness. When a string of bizarre and tragic mishaps befalls them, their faith in God and each other are tested like never before. While their parent's devout beliefs blind them from reality, only the children seem aware of the sinister forces lurking in the woods that have targeted their family.
Why it’s metal:
The Witch is a slow burning, dread inducing masterpiece. It's one of the most unsettling, skin crawling cinematic experiences you'll have this side of making Super 8 home movies with Satan himself. The film's protagonist, young Thomasin, is the quintessential black sheep/outsider figure that metal was created for. Uprooted from her normal life against her will, thrown into a bleak subsistence survival setting, mistrusted by her parents and at one point literally bartered away like property, Thomasin's existence is a tortured one. Like most women of her era, Thomasin is a victim of 17th century paternalism and her oppressively dogmatic Puritan society. She is to shut her mouth, obey all male authority figures, and remain fearful of her own thoughts and very body. Of course Thomasin is too smart to buy into this and lashes out when she can, scaring the crap out of her two youngest siblings and even begins to call her parents out on their bullshit. All she needs is a decent stereo to crank some Black Sabbath and Thomasin would be a legit metal head.
Aside from her struggles with colonial society at large, there's also the matter of Satan literally terrorizing her family at every turn. Without going into spoiler territory, the witch in The Witch is very real and does her master's bidding quite well. The God fearing Puritans in 17th century New England were correct in worrying about the devil stealing their souls. Unfortunately for them, their utterly repressive and batshit crazy devotion to their religion created such a miserable existence that jumping in league with Satan doesn't seem like such a bad idea to some. There's a scene in The Witch straight out of Sabbath's "N.I.B." where Lucifer basically says:
Follow me now and you will not regret
leaving the life you led before we met
I won't even get into the awesomeness that is Black Phillip [king of sky and land, king of sea and sand] other than suggesting he and Krampus, get a goat themed Batman V Superman: Dawn of Satan type match up in the future.
Suggested listening:
Candlemass – "Bewitched"
For obvious reasons.
