Excellent performances, production design and cinematography in slow, tedious and self-important period horror

Rating: 7/10 (23 March 2016)

The Pilgrim Fathers have set up shop, but devout William falls out with them and sets up a homestead miles away with his wife and 6 kids, going from teenager Thomasin down to a baby. But a couple of the kids disappear, and others are at odds with each over as to who is a witch and how witchcraft is affecting the family. Since the family all believes very strongly in witchcraft, this has a major bearing on relationships within the family.
It almost doesn't matter whether the witchcraft here is real or not: what matters is what happens to the family, and I'm certainly not going to spoiler whether the goat really is the devil, or whether Caleb really does fall foul of a witch, or whether it is all mind tricks and excessive devoutness. To do that would spoil what little enjoyment you might get from this film.
Because this ponderous movie takes itself very seriously indeed. The dialogue is archaic and delivered in Yorkshire accents, and is often very difficult to follow. The images are carefully composed and captured on film, and give a convincing impression of how hard, drab and dark life must have been. Yes, there is a slowly building sense of an awful fate in the offing, but the emphasis here is on "slowly", and the starting point is pretty depressing to start off with.
On the plus side, the performances are all excellent and great effort has been put into what the film looks like. It just isn't very entertaining.