Tense and atmospheric, The Witch is a period piece that inhabits the ideas of the time, for better or worse

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2019)

The Witch is a slow burn that pays off with a shocking but gratifying ending. Prioritizing a clear establishment of family dynamics and religious ideas over plot machinations, Eggers creates a movie that is challenging both to watch and stop thinking about. Taylor-Joy is as excellent in the lead as I would hope, and the cinematography and music really put the audience in a creepy, anything can happen mental space fitting for the witch-fearing setting. The primary focus is on Thomasin's development, as she is used or mistrusted by all of her family. The fear of witches does make it clear how people are eager to find a scapegoat and how the family falls apart so quickly as bad things start to happen. The ending where the goat talks and she goes to join the witches was extremely well done - she had played her part as a proper daughter and everything went wrong, so when she is finally free of obligations with her parents dead, she decides to see what lies on the other side. It's a dark movie and leaves plenty of questions unanswered and open to interpretation - what exactly happened to Caleb? Did the mom or the twins do anything wrong? Are the Satan people/creatures real, imagined, or inhabited by his spirit? As a story of Thomasin's development and family struggles in the time period, it's a good one, but so much of the evil is uncertain. That may be an intentional choice - nobody knew anything or had more than suspicions and fears in the 17th century, so this is a folktale playing off those ideas. It succeeds in its main focuses and brings that dark, heavy atmosphere in spades.