Great movie

Rating: 8/10 (8 November 2016)

A Puritan family is booted off the island, or in this case off the Puritan plantation. Now they are in dire straits by themselves on their dry little farm. One day the baby son suddenly vanishes basically right in front of the teen daughter's (Thomasin's) eyes. We see that a witch puts him to sinister use. The father thinks that a wolf took the baby.
We learn that the father isn't particularly good at anything but chopping wood and being pious. That forces the early teen son to man-up to to speak. For some reason they don't seem to be able to plant anything and have to make do with three goats, two white ones and a black one. The mother doesn't also do much but complain to god and dream of going back to England. At some point the father sold a silver cup that belonged to the mother's father, something that he doesn't disclose to her.
Their two strange toddlers are a little creepy and talk to the black goat and even sing its praises! One day in jest, Thomasin threatens the unruly kids pretending to be a witch. One night the son decides to leave at night with the horse and dog to find food to avoid the family's decision to sell Thomasin away to work for someone else. Thomasin comes along. The dog off course ends up dead, the horse runs away, and the kid is seduced by a beautiful woman. Later he appears at the farm naked and ill. He's somewhat possessed and this pushes the family to the limit. The kids accuse Thomasin of being a witch, which the mother quickly believes, Thomasin throws the father's uselessness in his face. The day after the kids are forced to spend the night with the goats, things have a bloody unraveling. And we learn why the movie is called "The Witch."
The Witch is a lovely atmospheric even claustrophobic little movie written and directed with subdued confidence and charm. It sets a great tone with the accented overly pious language but the obsession the God and scripture does get tiring after a while. It's supposed to be an independent movie but it eagerly follows the standard Hollywood political agenda. The father's incompetence is just too unrealistic, so is the overly democratic household. Things improve markedly from the monotony once things unravel and the two final revelations regarding the goat and the witch raise this movie several notches in quality and leave one with a very favorable impression of the movie as a whole. The Witch is original in a very good way.