The Witch

Rating: 7/10 (8 November 2018)

I must have heard about this scary movie, based on Puritan folklore, during the time of its release, I knew it got positive feedback from critics, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to watch it on television, it was broadcast on Halloween night. Basically set in the 17th century (the 1630s), a New England family: William (Ralph Ineson), his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie), teenage daughter Thomasin (Morgan's Anya Taylor-Joy), young son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), and twins Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas (Lucas Dawson), are banished from a Puritan plantation over a religious dispute. Near a large, secluded forest, the family build a farm, there Katherine gives birth to a son, Samuel (twins Axtun Henry and Athan Conrad Dube). One day, Thomasin is playing peekaboo with Samuel, during which the baby suddenly vanishes without trace. It is revealed that a red-cloaked Witch (Bathsheba Garnett) has stolen the unbaptized Samuel, that night she kills him and uses his blood and fat to make a flying ointment. A devastated Katherine spends the next few days crying and praying, while William insists it was a wolf that took the baby away. Katherine forbids the children from going into the forest, but William takes Caleb into the woods to lay a trap to catch an animal for food. Caleb asks his father if Samuel's soul will go to Heaven, William disciplines Caleb for asking this question and later reveals to his son that he traded Katherine's silver cup for hunting supplies. That night, Katherine questions Thomasin about the missing cup, and implies that Thomasin was responsible for Samuel's vanishing. After the children go to bed, they overhear their parents discussing sending Thomasin away to serve another family. Early the next morning, Thomasin finds Caleb preparing to check the trap in the forest, she threatens to wake up their parents unless she goes with him. While walking in the woods, they spot a rabbit near the trap, suddenly the horse Bert panics and the dog Fowler promptly chases the rabbit, Caleb runs after them, while Thomasin is thrown off the horse and knocked unconscious. Caleb gets lost in the woods and stumbles upon the dog's disembowelled corpse, going deeper into the wood he comes across a hovel, a beautiful young woman (Sarah Stephens) emerges from it and seduces him. William finds Thomasin and takes her home, Katherine is angry at Thomasin for taking Caleb into the woods, while William reluctantly admits that he sold Katherine's silver cup to save Thomasin. Caleb is found outside in the rain that night, naked and delirious from an unknown illness, when he wakes up next day, he vomits a bloody apple, Katherine believes this to be witchcraft, Caleb passionately proclaims his love to Christ before he dies. The twins then accuse Thomasin of witchcraft, their older sister had previously teased them pretending she is a witch, so she retaliates and tells the parents that the twins were having conversations with Black Phillip, the black goat. In rage, William puts both Thomasin and the twins inside the goat house, boarding it up, he plans to return to the plantation the next day. That night, the elderly and hideous witch enters naked into the stable and drinks milk from the goats, the twins and Thomasin are terrified. Katherine has a haunting vision Caleb holding Samuel, in it she takes the baby and breastfeeds him, this is fact a dream, it is a black raven pecking at her bare and bloody breast. William wakes up the next day to find the stable destroyed, the goat mutilated, the twins missing and an unconscious Thomasin with blood on her hands. As Thomasin wakes up, the black goat starts charging at William, impaling him with one of his horns. The commotion wakes Katherine, she is unhinged and blames Thomasin for all the recent tragedies that have beset the family and tries to strangle her, in self-defence Thomasin kills her with a billhook. Alone, Thomasin enters the stable and urges Black Phillip to speak to her, the goat appears to ask her if she would like to "live deliciously", then transforms into a tall dark man. The figure orders Thomasin to remove her clothes and to sign her name in a book that appears, she says she does not know how to sign her name so Black Phillip helps her to do so. Now naked, Thomasin follows Black Phillip, back in goat-form, into the forest, she sees a coven of witches holding a Witches' Sabbath around a bonfire. She joins the coven as they begin to levitate, laughing and convulsing, Thomasin goes catatonic, and ascends above the trees, disappearing into the darkness. Also starring Julian Richings as Governor and Daniel Chaudhry as the voice of Black Phillip. Taylor-Joy gives a terrific performance as the adolescent going through many emotions brought on by horrific incidents, Ineson often does TV voiceovers and is impressive as the put-upon father, and Dickie does well also. This is not necessarily a terrifying watch, there are no real jump scares, it is certainly tense, with some darkly strange moments, while the use of drab colouring, and the choral score by Mark Korven add to the atmosphere, and the themes of grief, suspicion and hysteria work well, it is a most interesting alternative kind of period supernatural horror. Very good!