Deeply ineffective as any one genre and even worse as a hybrid of them all. Movies don’t need a profound meaning to be enjoyed, but if your film is going to be uneventful and built up with weightless dialogue, I would love for it to all mean something greater. There’s a particular monologue in The Witch that I don’t understand the meaning of, but the scene is so tense and upsetting that I found myself on the edge of my seat regardless. Here, monologues are just words, and I found myself checking the time far more often than I was enjoying what was up on the screen. Dafoe is the greatest part of this mess, but across the board, there was no feeling of truth to this. Bulging eyes and screams are hollow if they’re just loud for the sake of being loud.

I don’t know how to describe this positively. I was curious throughout, but the feeling was never satisfied. I miss Black Phillip.