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Review: In ‘The Witch,’ a Family’s Contract With God Is Tested

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By Manohla Dargis

Feb. 18, 2016

A finely calibrated shiver of a movie, “The Witch” opens on a scene of religious wrath. On a New England plantation, around 1630, a true believer, William (Ralph Ineson), and his family are facing a grim assemblage. The setting is a kind of meeting house crowded with men, women and children, a congregation whose silence and unsmiling faces imply disapproval or perhaps fear. Whether they’re standing in judgment doesn’t matter to William, whose arrogant faith in his own notion of Christianity is as deep and darkly unsettling as his sepulchral voice. It’s the sort of soul-and-earth-quaking voice you can imagine one of the biblical patriarchs having, the kind that Abraham used on God and Isaac alike.

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘The Witch’

Robert eggers narrates a sequence from his film..

Written and directed by Robert Eggers, “The Witch ” takes place in an America that in its extremes feels more familiar than its period drag might suggest. It’s set a decade after the Mayflower landed in Plymouth and tracks William’s family as it leaves the plantation to settle down alone at the edge of a forest. There, the family members build a farm, grow corn and commit themselves to God, a contract tested by a series of calamities that turn this story of belief into a freak-out of doubt. As the wind stirs the trees and the children taunt one another with talk of witches, you may remember that the movie’s subtitle is “A New-England Folktale.” Something wicked this way comes?

Mr. Eggers knows how to dress a room beautifully and establish a mood quickly. He has a background working on sets and costumes across the arts (his credits include “Sesame Street” and the theater group La MaMa), and the world he and his team conjure in “The Witch” is meticulous and immersive. From the start, with antiqued detail, naturalistic lighting and tightly packed bodies, he signals the claustrophobia of the plantation, where religious fanaticism meets groupthink. Within minutes William’s family is on its lonely road, an exodus that — underlined by the image of the colony gates closing — instills a tremor of anxiety. With a gentle rap-rapping, Mr. Eggers intensifies the shivers with art-film moves, genre shocks and an excellent cast that includes a progressively rowdy menagerie.

At first, these creatures skitter around the edge of the story, their baaing and barking creating a homey cacophony with the giddy squeals of the family’s children. From afar the farm looks as pretty as a needlepoint sampler, with its belching chimney, stacks of corn and quaintly dressed figures. Closer up, though, the scene appears harder, tougher, and so do William and his wife, Katherine (Kate Dickie), a pair of Grant Wood prototypes. Their pinched and planed faces make a graphic contrast with that of their eldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), whose peaches-and-cream complexion looks too insinuatingly succulent for a world of such punitive austerity. Even when their corn blackens — William and Katherine prove to be terrible farmers — Thomasin remains in bloom.

Movie Review: ‘The Witch’

The times critic manohla dargis reviews “the witch.”.

The story of the New England Puritans is itself a folk tale that’s been told, retold and fought over through generations of Thanksgiving school pageants, endless productions of “The Crucible” and historical revisionism. Mr. Eggers has looked elsewhere for inspiration, including period accounts like those of Cotton Mather , the Boston minister who influenced the lethal 1692 Salem Witch Trials that Arthur Miller turned into McCarthy-era theater. It wouldn’t be surprising if Mr. Eggers was also familiar with “The White Ribbon,” Michael Haneke’s 2009 film about God and patriarchy, authority and domination in Germany before World War I. There are gods and fathers in “The Witch” as well, even if this movie finally settles into a specifically American story about a catastrophe of faith.

Good horror movies make fright palpable, which Mr. Eggers does with dependably spooky stuff like abrupt edits that fall as heavily as William’s ax and shifts in sound levels that fill silences with a choral caterwauling. But Mr. Eggers’s sharpest decision, what makes you and the movie jump, is that he stays inside the characters’ worlds and heads, all disastrously close quarters. These are people who fervently believe both in the Devil and in God, and for whom witches are as real as trees; it’s no wonder that their inability to tame the New World blurs with their fears. The finale is a trip, but Mr. Eggers suggests that when crops and sanity each fail it misses the point to ask if the Devil exists. Of course he does — just read Cotton Mather or talk to the scene-stealing goat called Black Phillip.

“The Witch” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for toil and trouble. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes.

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Common Sense Says
Parents Say 14 Reviews
Kids Say 38 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Intense, fascinating Puritan horror tale has blood and gore.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 17+?

Frequent blood and gore. Characters die, including children. Slicing with a blad

Brief nonsexual full-frontal female nudity. Naked witches' breasts and bottoms.

"Hell" and "damn."

Any Positive Content?

Subtly asks viewers to wonder whether believing in something is good or bad, and

No clearly positive role models, though Thomasin is complex and interesting, sho

Parents need to know that The Witch , while fascinating, is very intense and has quite a bit of blood and gore. Guns and blades are briefly shown, and characters and animals are harmed and killed. A crow pecks at a woman's breast, a goat gores a man, a bloody chicken fetus is shown, and a girl is thrown from a horse. A baby is kidnapped, and it's implied that witches have ground him up. There's also full-frontal female nudity (nonsexual in nature), and witches' bare breasts and bottoms are seen. A pre-teen boy ogles his sister's cleavage. The same boy appears naked, but nothing sensitive is shown. Swearing is limited to "damn" and "hell." While the movie's slow, thoughtful nature may turn off some gorehounds, it could actually help it appeal to more thoughtful audiences as well.

To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Violence & Scariness

Frequent blood and gore. Characters die, including children. Slicing with a blade. Suggestions of a kidnapped baby being ground up by witches. A crow pecks at a woman's breast. Brief guns and shooting; a gun backfires. Bloody chicken fetus on the ground. Animals sliced open. Girl thrown from horse. Man gored by a goat.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Brief nonsexual full-frontal female nudity. Naked witches' breasts and bottoms. Boy ogles his older sister's cleavage; he's later seen naked, but nothing sensitive is shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Subtly asks viewers to wonder whether believing in something is good or bad, and offers complex ideas about belief and tolerance.

Positive Role Models

No clearly positive role models, though Thomasin is complex and interesting, showing her own brand of strength and free thought within the confines of her time period and the story.

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents Say (14)
Kids Say (38)

Based on 14 parent reviews

Brilliant and dark but definitely not for kids

What's the story.

In 17th-century New England, a Puritan family is banished from a settlement for holding religious beliefs that differ from the majority's. Setting up their own farm in an isolated area near a spooky woods, the family struggles with not having enough food for the winter. One day, eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) is looking after the baby when it suddenly disappears. Then other mysterious, terrible things start happening, sending the fearful family into panic. Thomasin's mother (Kate Dickie) and father (Ralph Ineson) begin to grow suspicious of their children, especially after Thomasin is caught playing "witch" games with her younger brother and sister. Is there really an evil witch in the woods, and what's happening to the family?

Is It Any Good?

This exceptionally intelligent, atmospheric horror movie more closely recalls Ingmar Bergman than Wes Craven , as it centers on human foibles as well as dealing with a hint of the supernatural. In his feature debut, director Robert Eggers goes the extra mile to create authentic-sounding dialogue for the early 17th century, as well as costumes and sets, not to mention behaviors and beliefs. Even Mark Korven's eerie music sounds like something from another time or world.

Weirdly, THE WITCH isn't quite as flat-out scary as it might seem, despite the shocking "peek a boo" moment heavily used to promote it. It's more fascinating and transporting as we navigate this seemingly primitive world that truly believes in witches. Eggers refrains from any kind of modern commentary as the movie immerses us in a gloomy, harsh existence, challenging us to find parallels -- and trace pathways -- to our current life. Primal and challenging, it could someday stand with the horror classics.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Witch 's violence and gore. How much is shown, and in what context? What effect does it have? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

Is the movie scary ? What makes something scary? How does this one compare with other horror movies you've seen?

In this movie, is religious faith portrayed as a good thing, a bad thing, or both? What about belief in witches?

Movie Details

In theaters : February 19, 2016
On DVD or streaming : May 17, 2016
Cast : Anya Taylor-Joy , Ralph Ineson , Kate Dickie
Director : Robert Eggers
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
Studio : A24
Genre : Horror
Topics : History , Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
Run time : 92 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : disturbing violent content and graphic nudity
Last updated : September 13, 2024

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Film Review: ‘The Witch’

Writer-director Robert Eggers makes an impressive feature debut with this gripping historical horror-thriller.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

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A fiercely committed ensemble and an exquisite sense of historical detail conspire to cast a highly atmospheric spell in “ The Witch ,” a strikingly achieved tale of a mid-17th-century New England family’s steady descent into religious hysteria and madness. Laying an imaginative foundation for the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials that would follow decades later, writer-director Robert Eggers ’ impressive debut feature walks a tricky line between disquieting ambiguity and full-bore supernatural horror, but leaves no doubt about the dangerously oppressive hold that Christianity exerted on some dark corners of the Puritan psyche. With its formal, stylized diction and austere approach to genre, this accomplished feat of low-budget period filmmaking will have to work considerable marketing magic to translate appreciative reviews into specialty box-office success, but clearly marks Eggers as a storyteller of unusual rigor and ambition.

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A New England-born, Brooklyn-based talent who started out in the theater, Eggers has several film credits as a production/costume designer and art director, as evidenced here by his subtle yet meticulous visuals and bone-deep sense of place. The verisimilitude is striking: Produced in the abandoned lumber town of Kiosk in a heavily wooded region of Northern Ontario, and lensed by d.p. Jarin Blaschke in beautifully muted, mist-wreathed shades of gray, “The Witch” (which bears the subtitle “A New-England Folktale”) confines most of its fleet 92-minute running time to a small farm at the edge of a dark forest circa 1630 — a setting whose atmosphere of mystery and menace is no less unsettling for being possibly imagined.

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This isolated backdrop is no place to build a home or raise a family, yet that is what farmer William (Ralph Ineson) is forced to do after being banished from his plantation for some vague but religiously motivated clash of wills. Now he lives in exile with his severe wife, Katherine (Kate Dickie), and their five children, each of whom will have his or her part to play in the tense, sparely plotted drama that unfolds — starting with the youngest, the infant Samuel, who suddenly vanishes from the farm while being watched by his sister, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy). Almost immediately we glimpse a disturbing image of the boy’s fate in the form of some unspeakable blood rite, though it’s unclear whether something satanic is actually taking place, or whether these are merely the nightmarish visions of William and Katherine, who fear that their unbaptized son is not just lost but damned.

As the firstborn child and the one ostensibly to blame for Samuel’s disappearance, the suggestively named Thomasin quickly becomes the family scapegoat, as well as a convenient symbol of female iniquity. When the inconsolable Katherine isn’t burying herself in weepy, wailing prayers for Samuel’s soul, she’s bitterly lashing out at Thomasin for her perceived negligence, despite the girl’s protests that she has done no wrong. William, though no less intense in his Christian devotion, is somewhat more forgiving, not least because he’s acutely aware of his own failings as a husband and father; it’s because of his stubborn pride that he and his family are now forced to fend for themselves, with a failing crop and no community support to help get them through the difficult months ahead.

Striving to help out as best he can is the second eldest child, Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), a God-fearing lad who’s not too afraid to venture into the nearby woods in search of food and animal pelts. But if there’s a thematic constant here, it’s that even the most good-hearted children are susceptible to impure thoughts and worldly temptations. Certainly that’s true of the younger twin siblings, Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas (Lucas Dawson), two pint-sized mischief makers who become convinced that Thomasin is the Devil’s handmaiden, even as they seem to have formed a rather unhealthy attachment to the family goat, the ominously named Black Philip.

The goat, of course, is a widely recognized symbol of Satan, and the presence of Black Philip is but one of many winking horror tropes that Eggers skillfully puts into play here: Between the bad-seed moppets and the ruined harvest, the mysterious disappearances and the frightening instances of animal misbehavior, “The Witch” is rife with intimations of inexplicable evil, of something deeply twisted and unnatural at work. At the same time, the film grippingly ratchets up the family tension on multiple fronts, to the point that it could almost be read as a straightforward portrait of emotional and psychological breakdown — exacerbated by the parents’ certainty that every setback is a test from the Lord. “Place thy faith in God,” William instructs his children more than once, though the implication is clear that unchecked piety, far from warding off demons and monsters, can merely wind up creating new ones in their place.

The result plays like a sort of cross between “The Crucible” and “The Shining” (which Eggers has cited as a key inspiration), with a smattering of “The Exorcist” for good measure. But in peering ahead to the Salem trials, “The Witch” also faintly echoes Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon,” another drama in which the forces of patriarchal repression and the cruel realities of agrarian life will exact a devastating future toll: We’re watching not just a private tragedy but a prequel to a larger-scale catastrophe, sowing seeds of suspicion, violence and fanatical thinking that will be passed down for generations to come.

At the same time, Eggers isn’t content with a strictly rational interpretation. He seems fascinated by the lore and iconography of the period (written accounts from which directly shaped the film’s archer-than-thou dialogue); by the terror and superstition that flourished in the wake of widespread starvation, illness and infant mortality; and above all by a grand tradition of supernatural horror filmmaking that has long preyed on those specific fears. If “The Witch” is ultimately a cautionary tale of Christian belief run amok, it also seeks to give the Devil his due — to illuminate a collective paranoid nightmare by blurring the line where grim reality ends and dark fantasy begins.

A certain teasing ambiguity remains, not always to satisfying ends. There are moments when the story simply seems to be having it both ways by willfully obscuring the truth of what’s going on, and post-screening debates will center heavily around the meaning and necessity of the coda, which puts a hair-raising spin on a classic thriller convention. But at its core, this is a searing, credible portrait of fraught emotional dynamics at war with unyielding spiritual convictions, fearlessly played by a cast that shares Eggers’ dedication at every step.

Not least among the director’s smart decisions was the casting of two excellent, under-the-radar British actors as the parents, whom we learn emigrated from England not too long before the events in question. Ineson brings tremendous gravitas to the role of the well-meaning but self-deluding William, and Dickie, still best known outside the U.K. for 2007’s “Red Road,” is all but unrecognizable here, allowing the odd moment of vulnerability to flicker across her pale, careworn face when it’s not twisted into a scowling mask of resentment.

The two child leads more than hold their own; whether he’s walking quietly through a clearing or, at one point, violently speaking in tongues, Scrimshaw commands the screen with magnetic ease. But if there’s any one performer to whom the movie belongs, it’s Taylor-Joy as the grievously misunderstood young woman who may or may not be the witch of the title. Capable of looking at once beamingly innocent and slyly knowing, her Thomasin increasingly becomes the movie’s voice of conscience and reason, precisely because she threatens to complicate and subvert her parents’ rigid moral universe.

The hushed intensity of the drama is bolstered at every turn by the precision of the filmmaking, which bespeaks exhaustive research and painstaking execution in all departments, from production designer Craig Laithrop’s sets (detail-perfect down to the oak clapboards and reed-thatched roofs) to the hand-stitched costumes designed by Linda Muir. Blaschke favors carefully framed, naturally lit compositions, while Louise Ford’s sharp editing, though not without its elliptical moments, never lingers at the expense of narrative drive. Crucial to establishing the film’s mood is Mark Korven’s something-wicked-this-way-thrums score, which blends eerie choral performances and dissonant strings into an unnervingly cacophonous whole.

Reviewed at William Morris Endeavor screening room, Beverly Hills, Jan. 20, 2015. (In Sundance Film Festival — competing.) Running time: 92 MIN.

Production: A Parts & Labor, RT Features, Rooks Nest Entertainment, Maiden Voyage Pictures, Mott Street Pictures presentation in association with Code Red Prods., Scythia Films, Pulse Films, Special Projects. Produced by Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Jodi Redmond, Daniel Bekerman, Rodrigo Teixeira. Executive producers, Lourenco Sant’Anna, Sophie Mas, Michael Sackler, Julia Godzinskaya, Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus, Alex Sagalchik, Alexandra Johnes, Jonathan Bronfman, Thomas Benski, Lucas Ochoa. Co-producers, Joel Burch, Rosalie Chilelli, Lauren Haber. Co-executive produers, Mark Gingras, Ethan Lazar, Lon Molnar.
Crew: Directed, written by Robert Eggers. Camera (color, Arri Alexa digital), Jarin Blaschke; editor, Louise Ford; music, Mark Korven; production designer, Craig Lathrop; art director, Andrea Kristof; set decorator, Mary Kirkland; costume designer, Linda Muir; sound, Rob Turi; sound designer, Adam Stein; re-recording mixers, Orest Sushko, Chris Guglick; special effects coordinator, Max MacDonald; visual effects supervisor, Geoff D.E. Scott; visual effects executive producer, Lon Molnar; visual effects producer, Sarah Wormsbecher; visual effects, Intelligent Creatures; stunt coordinator, Robert Racki; line producer, Brian Campbell; assistant director, Beau Ferris; casting, Kharmel Cochrane, John Buchan, Jason Knight.
With: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson, Bathsheba Garnett, Sarah Stephens, Julian Richings, Wahab Chaudhry.

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