The Blair Witch Project may have popularised a whole subgenre of movies through its found-footage aesthetic – there’d be no Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, or Late Night with the Devil without it – but the stars and makers of this 1999 game-changer could never replicate the same success. Robert Eggers‘ The Witch, however, has proven to be a very different beast indeed.
Released theatrically 10 years ago after making waves at Sundance Film Festival, The Witch (subtitled A New-England Folktale) was one of the earliest jewels in A24’s crown. Set during the 1630s, the story concerns a Puritan family who are stalked by an evil presence in the forest that hugs their farmland. For his feature-length debut, writer-director Eggers enlisted Ralph Ineson, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Kate Dickie to play the main characters of William, Thomasin, and Katherine.
The Witch earned its $4 million budget back tenfold at the box office, and to this day sits on an impressive 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating. For Eggers, Ineson, and Taylor-Joy, the acclaimed indie was a springboard to even greater professional heights.
Since wielding sorcery in the dark New England woods, filmmaker Eggers has cultivated a solid working relationship with actor Willem Dafoe in his subsequent projects: The Lighthouse, The Northman, Nosferatu, and the upcoming Werwulf, which is due out on Christmas Day. Their partnership on The Lighthouse legitimised Eggers as a master of his artform, to a certain extent, given the fact he’d never worked with a genuine A-lister before. Robert Pattinson‘s involvement only strengthened that notion, too, while Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were all waiting in the wings to collaborate with Eggers across the next decade.
His non-negotiable attention to historical details, language, and constant period settings has allowed Eggers to stand out in an industry lacking auteurs. Only Guillermo del Toro can hold a handle to him in their unique corner of movie production.
Then there’s the curious case of gravel-voiced Ineson, who’d been working regularly in the TV sector for two decades up until The Witch. The actor’s most widely-seen parts occurred in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant‘s original The Office(as Chris Finch), and HBO’s Game of Thrones(Iron Islands soldier Dagmer Cleftjaw), but from 2016 onwards, he’s truly flourished. How about these for some eye-catching credits: the award-winning miniseries Chernobyl, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Green Knight, The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Creator, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and Frankenstein. Ineson is also something of a lucky mascot for Eggers, having appeared in all of the director’s projects to date.
Finally, The Witch gave the world its first proper introduction to future megastar Taylor-Joy, who was still in her teens when it premiered. She would go on to get hired by M. Night Shyamalan (for Split and Glass), Edgar Wright (Last Night in Soho), David O. Russell (Amsterdam), Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Two and Part Three), Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit), and George Miller (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga). For anybody that knows just how highly the latter’s predecessor, Mad Max: Fury Road, is regarded, Taylor-Joy’s casting as the titular heroine illustrates her standing as a performer.
Happy anniversary, The Witch!
