Tense and haunting

Rating: 8/10 (13 July 2016)

When I think of witches, I think of Halloween and Harry Potter. I remember cartoons on TV about plucky young girls casting spells and saving the day, before speeding away on a broomstick. Excitement, fun and melodrama. I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too! My point is that witches no longer frighten us. Homicidal maniacs and evil spirits tend to terrorise the protagonists of horror films today, while the witch is considered so harmless she appears almost exclusively in stories that we tell to children. The original meaning of witches, and the sinister source from which they were thought to take their magical abilities, has largely been forgotten.
The Witch succeeds as a horror movie, because instead of attempting to modernise the witch, Roger Eggers' debut film reminds us of what witches once signified to people â€“ and of how very real they seemed.
The year is 1630. William and Katherine are devout Puritans who have recently emigrated to New England with their five children. Living alone on the outskirts a vast wood, they want to find the kingdom of God. When their infant son vanishes one day, the parents are distraught. They pray. They repent of their sins. But the family has unwittingly entered the domain of a witch, and evil closes in around them.
The fascinating thing about The Witch is that most of the story and the dialogue is taken directly from 17th century documents and reports, meaning that people claimed to have actually witnessed the horrifying things that we see on screen. The film's events unfold to chilling music, with such a matter-of-factness and at such a steady pace that the overall effect is not only one of dread, but of mounting despair. On his knees in the rain, William pleads with God to save his children. But just like that, due to no obvious fault of their own, God has forsaken the family.
Immersed in the tense, haunting world of the film, I found myself suddenly understanding the hysteria that once surrounded witches a lot better. The family disintegrates, because of the belief that witches are not born, but created when a human being pledges themselves to the devil in exchange for power. They begin to suspect that one of their own could have become a witch. Fear ultimately conquers love.