It is an OK horror movie with some gems and some apparent flaws.

Rating: 6/10 (12 May 2016)

I decided to watch this movie after reading some terrific reviews and praises that it received. In the past, I have enjoyed slow-burn horror movies such as "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Anti-Christ" tremendously, and "The Witch" appears to be in the same league. However, after watching this movie several times, I cannot help but feel like it leaves much to be desired. Overall, is it a terrific movie? I do not think so. It is enjoyable but not that great. I really wanted to like this movie but I simply cannot. Allow me to explain myself (mild spoilers ahead so please continue at your own risk).
First of all, let me discuss the PROS.
+ The female lead Thomasin is the brightest gem of the movie. The actress did a fantastic job portraying a naïve, pure, struggling yet strong and loving teenage daughter. I could not help but feel pity and sympathetic for her and the situations that she was pulled into. In my opinion, any actress that can provoke such a feeling from the audience deserves praise.
+ The twins Jonas and Mercy are also well-acted. They did exactly what they were supposed to do: be an annoying and hellish pair. I felt very uneasy whenever they delivered their lines or sang their Satanic songs. They create some pretty strong hatred in me right off the bat. Again, in my opinion, this is terrific because it shows that the actors know what they are doing by invoking the right emotion response from the audience.
Now, I will discuss the CONS.
+ The choice of speech: this movie suffers from poor choice of speech/dialects. The director chooses to use Old English in this movie to give it a more realistic feel. I think this is fine in itself. However, I feel like this choice has backfired. And the actors' talking manner does not help either. They sound incoherent and some of their conversations just do not flow well. More on this later. A lot of the dialogues are very hard to understand. I had to turn on the subtitles and I still had problems following some of what they are trying to say. First, I thought maybe the problem was because I was not a native speaker but then, I found out that even native speakers had trouble understanding the speech in this movie.
+ The mother: this character, in my opinion, is a failed attempt and really impaired the experience. Early on, the audience know that she is in pain due to the mysterious disappearance of her infant child. The audience are supposed to feel sorry for her and sympathize with her behaviors. However, I doubt anyone could pity her because she had very little character- development. All she does in this movie is be unreasonable, grieve, and complain in a high-pitched voice. Her speech is also incoherent because she 1) speaks too fast, 2) jumps from one point to another without using any conjunction, and 3) ends her sentences abruptly. I find her voice and character to be increasingly irritating upon repeated viewings.
+ The pace: for a horror movie, this movie lacks scare scenes. While I do appreciate how the director took time to deliver some good unnerving scenes, this movie is too slow and fails to keep the audience anticipated. It has almost no scary moments until the very end. And even then, the scenes are not that scary except for one or two of them (the crow being the best scene of the entire movie, in my opinion). I firmly believe that a few more scary moments and a less slow pace would help the movie tremendously.
In summary, this movie is decent. It is in no way a mindless average horror movie, but it is not that great either. I give it a 6/10.
PS: Sorry for any bad English in my review.