#9. The Witch
Robert Eggers premiered earlier in 2016 than any other film on the list and has not once left my top 10 list as the year progressed. Few films have that kind of staying power, much less modern horror films. I have wondered what gives The Witch its staying power. Could credit be given to the meticulous 17th century detail that Eggers famously insisted on? Maybe it was his resistance to the scare-a-minute format that plagues most horror movies today. It very well could have nothing to do with the genre at all. Anya Taylor-Joy, in a breakout role, was captivating from beginning to end, to that breathtaking end. That is not hyperbole. I literally had to remind myself to breath after the film’s final scene, featuring a young puritan girl in a room with a possibly-possessed goat named Black Phillip. A foreshadowing of the paranoia that would sweep the northeast, resulting in the Salem witch trials? Who’s to say?
Robert Eggers premiered earlier in 2016 than any other film on the list and has not once left my top 10 list as the year progressed. Few films have that kind of staying power, much less modern horror films. I have wondered what gives The Witch its staying power. Could credit be given to the meticulous 17th century detail that Eggers famously insisted on? Maybe it was his resistance to the scare-a-minute format that plagues most horror movies today. It very well could have nothing to do with the genre at all. Anya Taylor-Joy, in a breakout role, was captivating from beginning to end, to that breathtaking end. That is not hyperbole. I literally had to remind myself to breath after the film’s final scene, featuring a young puritan girl in a room with a possibly-possessed goat named Black Phillip. A foreshadowing of the paranoia that would sweep the northeast, resulting in the Salem witch trials? Who’s to say?