“Komorebi” is a Japanese word for which English has no equivalent. Roughly translating to “scattered sunlight filtering through trees,” the word is a symbol of the distinct appreciation Japanese culture has for nature’s delicate beauty; a meditation on the interplay between light and darkness which creates arresting, transient moments all around us.
The cinematic medium is teeming with scenes like this. Sometimes they’re the big swells of the story; often, they’re fleeting moments that might pass right by if not carefully observed. With each entry in this monthly series, we aim to shed dappled light on a beautiful moment in film we’ve recently experienced – a moment that exemplifies the essence of komorebi.
Horror is, at its best, a visceral genre. While other genres can fill a theater with cheers or make you laugh so hard you cry, horror can fill a theater with screams and make you clench your fist so hard you draw blood. If a great film’s goal is to resonate with an audience, a great horror film should burn an image so deeply in the audience’s psyche that closing their eyes offers no relief.
While some years definitely feel lacking in resonant horror, it only takes one great film to cement itself as a monumental year for the genre. For many, examples of monumental years in horror can range from 1922 (F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu) to 1978 (John Carpenter’s Halloween) to even the year 2007 (Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity).
To me, though, while all of those years are valid choices, my mind can’t help but wander to 2015; specifically, one film early that year which not only cemented my love for the genre but made me realize that my interests in horror had irrevocably changed in a way I couldn’t have imagined. That film was Robert Eggers’ The Witch: a phenomenal directorial debut that was also the first film (of many) to introduce audiences to actress Anya Taylor-Joy.
While the whole film affirms that good horror can still make a crowd shiver by emphasizing tension over easy scares, I personally believe that The Witch doesn’t achieve monumental greatness in just its first or second acts. I’d even argue that the third act – while steeped in some fantastic moments – is still actively working toward a bar that so few contemporaries have been able to pass with ease.
That is, until the final five minutes of the film; a finale so visceral, shocking, and incredible that I can’t help but see the whole package as perfection because, funnily enough, all it took to pass that bar was a simple whisper.
(SPOILERS for The Witch from this point forward. It’s one of my favorite horror films of all time, so I highly recommend it. If you get a chance to see it in theaters someday—even better.)
The Witch follows Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) and her family as they isolate themselves from their Puritan community, working toward building something of their own in a nearby wood. Over time, the family begins to unravel as the suspicions of witchcraft and evil begin to not only turn them against one another but also lead some to their deaths. As the film progresses, Thomasin’s parents, William (Ralph Ineson) and Katherine (Kate Dickie), suspect her of being a witch once they realize she was the only one around during the kidnapping of her baby brother Samuel and her oldest brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw). While they attempt to deter the evil, it’s all for naught once William is killed by their goat, Black Phillip, and Katherine goes mad to the point where Thomasin kills her in self-defense. In less than a week, Thomasin has become the sole survivor of her family.
And we enter the film’s final five minutes. Thomasin wakes up after the morning’s brutally traumatic events had made her pass out from exhaustion. A thought pierces her brain: her younger siblings Jonas and Mercy kept saying that Black Phillip speaks to them in private. Would he do the same for her? Regardless of where the voice comes from, it’s the only sense of comfort that grounds Thomasin to the possibility of a future where she survives. Her curiosity is only solidified when Black Phillip appears to motion her toward the barn. In a halfhearted attempt (yet nonetheless desperate), she asks Black Phillip to speak to her like he supposedly did with her siblings. Nothing. She even asks if Black Phillip can understand her. Silence.
Disheartened, she begins to turn away. Then a whisper fills the room:
What dost thou want?
Black Phillip speaks. In an instant, a girl’s desperate plea for help to a farm animal becomes a horrifying, sinister encounter that lulls the audience into the same sense of security Thomasin is feeling now that her suspicions have become true. She pries further, asking what Black Phillip offers. The whispers return:
Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? A pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live…deliciously?
She agrees. As Black Phillip pulls her into a contract, he seamlessly transforms into a gorgeous Cavalier with black gloves, an affluent outfit, and a face that is so obscured in darkness as to appear only broadly human. On some rewatches, I can see his face well enough to discern the whites of his eyes, but when I think back to my first time seeing it in the theater, I remember every hair standing up on my body when I was unable to make out any facial structure. His obscured visage gives him a monstrous aura—all with just a trick of light and shadow. His gloved hand grabs her shoulder as she disrobes.
In what could be her final moment of retaliation, she admits that she cannot even write her own name for the contract. The gloved hand doesn’t waver as Black Phillip utters his last whisper:
I will guide thy hand.
At this point, only two of the final five minutes have passed. The remaining three are chilling to the point where I doubt my ability to properly convey the perfection of their execution, especially when composer Mark Korven drops two of the score’s most haunting tracks back-to-back, as the film soars to horrifying heights up until it cuts to black. I still remember the feeling I had when the credits began to roll: not relief, but pure dread.
The Witch might not be everyone’s choice for a horror masterpiece. The beauty of a genre as vast as horror is that there is something uniquely terrifying for everyone that gives the genre a try. That being said, very little in horror has truly rocked me to my core (and made every hair on my body stand up in fear) like the final minutes of The Witch. There’s a confidence woven into the film that amplifies every tense moment, transforming a straightforward folklore tale into the scariest possible scenario a viewer could conjure up for a person living in that time period. While I love my cerebral or niche horror ventures, there’s just something about a simple scary story that can’t be beat.
Though it’s nearly a decade old now, I frequently find myself coming back to The Witch as a testament to the possibilities of modern horror. The film still resonates with me whether I’m watching it on the big screen, a TV, or even my computer monitor. Hell, I even got chills recounting the scene in this very article. It’s hard not to watch that scene and fully understand just how scary temptation can be when it feels like the world is against you. When your back is against the wall, who wouldn’t want “to live… deliciously?” And with a whisper like that, who could say no?
Freelance writer out of Indianapolis. Co-host of Odd Trilogies podcast. Whether it's films or television, I'm always down to watch!