Fantastic Fest 2024: ‘Witte Wieven’ (Heresy) spreads fear in dreadful doses
Didier Konings guns for somber scares that linger with you.
Folk horror stretches its roots throughout the annals of horror history. From 1922’s Häxan to modern cuts like The Witch and The Devil’s Bath, the genre conjures up crackling witchy things and the sort of woodsy imagery that soaks the skin like an early autumn rain. With Witte Wieven (also known simply as Heresy), director Didier Konings masterfully crafts his own brutal take on folkloric storytelling with a tragic glimpse into one young woman’s downward spiral and dance with the Devil. While many genre treats these days examine innocent women accused of witchcraft (e.g. Nightsiren), Heresy is not one of them – but rather a chilling skip into the haunted woodlands surrounding a tiny village.
Frieda (Anneke Sluiters) wants a child more than anything. She’s prayed on bended knee, performed urine tests, and further committed to her faith. Nothing seems to assuage the misery pounding in her skull and the throbbing ache of her womb. She remains barren. In her desperation to bear a child, her faith wavers, and she turns to the darkened woods for answers. While out on an excursion through the mud and sticky forest floor, Gelo (Léon van Waas), known for beating his wife, attempts to rape her, but his egregious behavior is interrupted by an unseen entity. Beast, witch, or other, the monster drags him offscreen, leaving Frieda trembling and afraid on the cold, hard earth. Crunch, crunch goes Gelo’s body. A gnarled figure crouches in the distance and slowly makes its way up and over a cowering Frieda. In fleeting peeks, we see that the ghost-like aberration is, in fact, a witch with ill intent.
That’s just the beginning of Frieda’s journey into darkness. With the village already suspecting Frieda of conspiring with the devil, due to her inability to conceive a child, Frieda gives them the witch they so clearly desire. She ventures into the woods numerous times throughout the film, eventually becoming impregnated by the sorceress that lurks behind trees and in the grey spaces between the shacks. Even before this incident, townsfolk, including her supposed husband Hikko (Len Leo Vincent), demand she pay for her sins and truly suffer. The Father urges her to torture herself if she wants to be redeemed. But her pain becomes Hikko’s pleasure after he insists she hand over some rope so he can whip her bloody.
The villagers don’t know what they’ve done. They’ve got a big storm coming with Frieda crossing the point of no return. She grows increasingly violent, as though possessed by Satan himself, and proves that nothing, not even fire, can deter her from seeking retribution upon the same people who, misguided as they are, begged for her salvation.
Heresy clocks in at a clean one hour. As part of a collection of TV movies, it’s not a shocking runtime and serves the story quite well. Where many folk horror films often push two hours, it’s quite refreshing for an entry to dive right into the story. It’s lean with no fat on the bone. In giving the audience very little distraction from the film’s main action, Konings keeps your gaze firmly on the screen. The cinematography, courtesy of director of photography Luuk de Kok, drips with mood and atmosphere. Such visual flare deepens the emotional richness of the story. From static shots of the cottages dotting a grassy ravine to expansive angles detailing the woods’ imposing presence, the camera work operates to accentuate the story and stakes.
Konings sprinkles well-placed scares, including background frights, throughout the film. He always keeps the audience on their toes, urging them to scan every corner of the frame for something to emerge from the shadows. When he’s not trying to scare you outright, he crawls under the skin with immense dread that blankets like a cold cloth. It doesn’t matter if nothing particularly thrilling is occurring onscreen; you just know something terrifying is coming around the next tree trunk. That’s the mark of a film that grips you and won’t let go. Consider Heresy one of modern folk horror’s brightest spots.
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