Director Jason Shurkey’s “The Witch” is light on story and narrative, but it’s a good student film, nevertheless. It garners some really tight editing and an atmosphere that make it a Gothic short horror film that’s very much worth experimenting with. Director Shurkey really knows how to develop a tone from the outset, and follows through with a surreal horror film.
A young witch is being chased through the snow by what I can assume is a killer or hunter. Much of Shurkey’s film is set in the snow, where the young raven haired witch is chased by the menacing man and flees through the harsh white terrain to find a temple of some kind. Director Shurkey’s movie is black and white and completely silent, which is probably due to the low budget.
But Shurkey implements those elements to create a pretty surreal horror film that ends in a bloody chaotic mess. Conceptually, “The Witch” is very well put together, with the characters pursuing one another, and Shurkey staging the finale in a creepy cemetery that acts as a plot device for the finale. Director Shurkey obviously wants to tell a larger story than what we see, and I hope we can watch what he has to offer soon with a bigger budget and more modern method of filmmaking. “The Witch” works on its own as an experimental horror film, with a morbid atmosphere and twisted finale.