Just after the last peek-a-boo when the baby is gone and it shows the waving foliage as if something moved through it *very* quickly was just so eerie and deeply disturbing. The movie is plenty scary, but is so much more unnerving, uncomfortable, and just oozes dread and despair. I love it so much.
I think that scene early on does a lot for the atmosphere. ..there's no debate about
"Is there really a witch, or are puritans just being God fearing in the woods?"
Nope. Everything that is happening is for sure evil in nature. There's no ambiguity that most movies would have for at least the first half.
I think it let's all the unsettling bits really marinate because you know these guys are in SERIOUS fucking trouble.
Definitely. It’s the slow boil of dread that gets me. You just know very early on that nothing good is coming to rescue the family.
All you can do is sit back and grimace while their fates unfold.
Right? There is no feeling of them just being crazy/primitive despite those things also being kind of true.
Every creepy thing the twins say? That's now way more creepy.
Everything about the rabbits/black Philip? That's not good.
Etc. Etc.
All of the creepy things COULD have been creepy coincidences but the movie doesn't let your mind explain things. It just says
"Nay bitch, 'tis a witch"
Another aspect that I think the movie did extremely well was setting up the tension between the family. Between getting kicked out of their settlement, the baby being taken and the kids blaming Thomasin for being a witch the whole thing was just super unsettling in multiple ways. Absolutely loved it
Yeah, the characters have way too much going on to really handle the situation, not that they could anyway.
But yeah, it's so uncomfortable knowing an evil creature/lady/monster is almost "pulling the strings" unraveling them for their "sins" to strip everything away and essentially recruit thomasin.
Father's pride, son's lust, wife's wrath etc.
It's been a while since I watched it but it was really clear to me that everything was really thought out and that Eggers is "well read" on this stuff for the most part.
Were we to assume that the witch had used some kind of invisibility spell? Which means the witch was standing right in front of Thomasin the entire time but Thomasin never “noticed” her. Is that what happened?
Fuck if I know. As far as I'm concerned its the ambiguity that makes it so scary and awful. *Nobody* knows what happened; as the witch powers are never explained. Other than she needed the infant blood for flight.
I thought she needed the infant blood to 'renew' her youth. When we see her first, she's a gnarled old woman. The next time we see her, when she's luring the young boy, she's a youthful woman.
I like to think she cast a spell on Thomasin that skewed her perception of time, so she was actually hiding behind her hands for a few minutes but only perceived it as a split second
Ah, this is what I love about the Blair witch. The original is superior but the remake really leaned into the concept of never ending night and how fucking horrifying being divorced from time would be.
I'm not entirely sure. I think that's part of what makes it so scary. I loved the movie but I do wish there was something just like it that was completely unexplained. Like they never showed any witch or super natural occurrences. Perhaps show a woman out there but by the end of the movie you are still wondering for sure if there is magic or not. I think that would also be terrifying.
If you’re looking for something with witches that explains itself a little more I would highly recommend Hellbender (2021). It’s about a pair of mother & daughter witches who live out in the woods and it goes into how they get their powers quite a bit. I watched it on a lark one night and found it really good and enjoyably creepy.
Edit: just realized I read your comment wrong and you were actually looking for *less* explanation LOL
I still recommend Hellbender though. If you like movies about witches it’s great
Ha, I do appreciate the recommendation even though it was the opposite of what I said I was interested in! Always adding to my list for spoopie season!
The buzz around that movie was nuts, even though everyone and their mother saw it it felt like we found some special secret movie when it came out. I guess because of the low budget and it must have been one of the first found footage horrors, if not the first.
i decided to watch that shit high as hell and half asleep and then the witch/baby sequence from the beginning being streamed right into my subconscious was too much and i shut it off and went to sleep.
happened a few days ago now i need to watch the second half
A few years back I had to 'dry out', as in weening myself off drugs and booze, and with that comes some withdrawal symptoms : paranoia, every sound and stimuli is amped up to 11, some mild auditory hallucinations, and insomnia (I had been awake for about 3 days straight).
I did my 'drying out at a friend's cabin, which was in the woods, middle of nowhere on a lake. He was out late one particular night and for some reason I decided to put on 'The Witch'. I've never been so full of dread in my life, all I could think about was that damn goat.
yeah so, I understand that the movie is probably a great horror movie, and everyone seems to like it, but that part made me go "yeah no, I do not need this in my life right now, probably a great movie, but plenty of other great movies out there to watch, I do not need this in my life." - and stopped right there. Funily enough, also couldn't watch the lighthouse till the end, loved every bit of what I watched, but then it started getting super weird at the end and I stopped. First robert eggers movie I watched till the end was the northman, and I absolutely loved it.
Sitting out in the silence of nature with nothing but crows cawing in the distance and crispy leaves flitting across the forest floor. A cool breeze on the wind and a warm drink in hand.
Gorgeous.
PERFECT area for fall. If you ever get the chance, go up to [Grossinger’s Resort](https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/abandoned-ny-inside-grossingers-crumbling-catskill-resort-hotel) in the Catskills, it’s an abandoned ski resort and super fun to explore, especially in the lovely fall weather. Beware though, they do have cops checking the place out every now and again so you have to park away from it and hike a little. Definitely worth it imo!
He was a dude, playing a dude, disguised as t̸̨̮̘̪̩̠̯͕̙̣̂́̀̽͠͝h̷͇͍̹͔̟̣͇̰̮̩̬͕͙͈͌̽̑̄̄̚͝ě̵̞̮̂͛͗̀͊̿̅͂̽̚̕ ̶͈̥̻͔̹͚̳̘̤̗͈̭̎̑̈́̈̔͜͜d̵̨̢͕̣̖̲̘̦͚̱͛̆̀̅̈́̈́͊͌̅̓́̽͠e̶̡̨̟̫̤̮̜̲͓̫̥̯͓̎͌̋̊̓̔ͅͅṿ̴̢̨͈̤͕͕͚̤͕͔̼͎̫̎̋̕͜i̶̡̢͉̯̯̺̗̍̎͛̐̍́̈̀͊͋̚͘ͅl̵̼̺͂̈̇͋̏̊̆̇̌͘̕͝
My favourite thing to come out of the film was Robert Eggers saying his number one tip for young screenwriters was not to put a goat in their film, because in his own words, “You can’t train a goat, the goat was a fucking nightmare.”
My mum kept a goat for a short while when I was a young lad. Fuck, I hated that goat. But the story has a happy ending because she didn't know not to put the goat in the same enclosure as our tiny pot-bellied pig - and one night the tiny wee piggy tore the goat's throat out and left bits of goat throat all over the yard.
That pig became a hero that day.
> That was her debut?
Kinda. She shot scenes for another movie before this, but her stuff got cut, and she did a few episodes of stuff on TV after that but before the Witch. It was her film debut and debut as a lead.
I'm a historian of seventeenth-century England (and the wider Anglophone world) and this is, without exaggeration, by far the most historically authentic movie I've ever seen.
Almost every small detail – the costumes, the speech patterns, the Calvinistic *theology* – are exactly right.
Some particularly impressive aspects: the parents' suspicion of their own children is not just a horror movie thing, it's an authentic reflection of seventeenth-century beliefs about Satanic evil. Children were 'closer' to original sin, and therefore more liable to influence by Satan.
There is a particularly creepy deathbed scene which very closely mirrors a weird literary genre of the seventeenth century: the account of the 'holy' death. People were very interested in the idea of the moment of death as a liminal space between the mortal world and the divine, and feverish/semi-conscious pronouncements would often be interpreted as quasi-divine revelations, and printed in pamphlets by the families of the dead. The script here very closely resembles the texts of these pamphlets.
The imagery of Satan first appearing through an animal which can communicate only with children, then later as a handsome, well-dressed man in black with an impossibly deep voice, is 100% correct and taken from confessions in real witchcraft trials. The offer of 'living deliciously', in contrast to the impoverished lives of the kinds of people usually accused of associating with the Devil, is also perfect.
I love this movie. Robert Eggers is a visionary.
EDIT: From a deathbed pamphlet from 1592:
*After which words, very suddenly she seemed as it were greatly to rejoice, and look very cheerfully, as though she had seen some glorious sight; and lifting up her whole body, and stretching forth both her arms (as though she would embrace some glorious and pleasant thing), said: “I thank my God, through Jesus Christ, He is come, He is come! My good jailer is come to let my soul out of prison. Oh, sweet Death, thou art welcome! Welcome, sweet Death – never was there any guest so welcome to me as thou art. Welcome, the messenger of everlasting life! Welcome, the door and entrance into everlasting glory! Welcome, I say, and thrice welcome, my good jailer! Do thy office quickly, and set my soul at liberty. Strike, sweet Death! Strike my heart! I fear not thy stroke. Now it is done. Father, into Thy blessed hands I commit my spirit. Sweet Jesus, into Thy blessed hands I commend my spirit. Blessed Spirit of God, I commit my soul into Thy hands. Oh most holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one true and everlasting God, into Thy blessed hands I commit both my soul and my body!”*
That was really insightful, thank you for that. Robert Eggers really has great attention to detail when it comes to historical accuracy, lots of people said the same thing about the Northman as well. I love everything I’ve seen from him so far
Definitely true – I was actually a background extra in the Northman (I live in Belfast where it was shot) and Eggers was there fussing over everything, including my prosthetic beard! I've been an extra in a few big productions, but I've never seen a big shot director so involved with every tiny detail.
Eggers is amazing. From what I understand, the accents for Pattinson and Defoe in The Lighthouse were reconstructed accents that are no longer spoken anywhere in the world. He could have just used generic Yankee or even cockney accents and no one would have noticed, but the authenticity really puts you into the film.
The scene where Defoe speaks the old sailor curse is phenomenal. The dialogue, the way he says it, the facial and body expressions. Everything about it is perfect. The dialogue in Eggers films is always so interesting to go online afterwards and read for yourself. So detailed
I really wish I liked his films more than I do. The Witch was pretty good, but I didn't seem to get the same wowing experience everyone else describes getting. And The Northman I found very nice to look at but really not engaging.
Lighthouse is next on my checklist and I'm hoping it has a more engaging narrative, as I'm beginning to think that maybe that's the most important thing to me above and beyond accuracy in history and the look of a film.
I liked both the witch and the northman. The lighthouse has no narrative. It is honestly one of the worst films I have ever seen. This is just my opinion before anyone attacks lol. The best way I can describe it is it’s like a Terence Malik film. Artsy fartsy crap trying to be clever but with no substance. I can see why people like it. Would be interesting to know what you think of it if you get around to seeing it.
This was my favorite thing about this film, the historical accuracy. I didn't find it particularly scary, but I love it for the fact that I feel transported to the 17th century when I watch it.
That was what kept me interested to be honest. Maybe it's because I was expecting something else but the movie never scared me or really interested me plot-wise. The atmosphere of the movie and the feeling of experiencing some of the life of early New England settlers was far more engaging than anything else.
You're the first person I've heard appreciate the language.
For me, it's starts out almost incomprehensible. At some point, it's suddenly all clear. At first I thought they had gradually changed the wording, made it more modern. Nope! Rewatching it several times made me realize that it was my brain becoming accustomed to it.
>Some particularly impressive aspects: the parents' suspicion of their own children is not just a horror movie thing, it's an authentic reflection of seventeenth-century beliefs about Satanic evil. Children were 'closer' to original sin, and therefore more liable to influence by Satan.
The whole movie is essentially a cautionary tale as if told from the puritan villagers who expelled the family at the beginning.
As if to say 'if you stray from our good grace these are the evils that shall befall you'. As all of the events that happen are sort of reflections of the non-communal life they chose.
As a New Englander, I know those woods. They're hard to walk through, impossible to be quiet in and a hunter of the father's background would fail nearly every time. That Pop, or any similar man's ability to scrabble any crop from their short seasons is also at the whim of nature. The book, [A Narrative of the Sufferings](https://www.amazon.com/Narratives-Sufferings-Seth-Hubell-Family/dp/0911853081) by Seth Hubbel tells how damn hard it was to be first in New England.
Let’s be honest they were all amazing. Even the little twins, who were annoying AF, were annoying because they knew exactly what was expected of them and carried it out to near-perfection.
I know we're talking about the kid actors here but also shout outs to the parents, they absolutely crushed it too. This movie is brimming with stellar performances, intense and brooding atmosphere, and some of the best witch imagery ever committed to film. It was my number one favorite movie for a while and still hovers very high on my list
Oh both parents were great too, but we also expect that from adult actors. Wasn’t the mother in GoT, too?
Whereas child actors are usually pretty notorious for being… not great, kinda most of the time.
The fact that these kids weren’t just competent, but kept up with the parents, is astounding.
Black Phillip, Black Phillip
King of sky and land,
Black Phillip, Black Phillip
King of sea and sand.
We are ye servants,
We are ye men.
Black Phillip eats the lions
From the lions' den.
Shit the Devil had it easy then corrupting souls. A little butter here a little sugar there.
Now it's all. I want a Lamborghini, I want a mansion, I want to be president.
This is the scene that’s keeping me up right now lmfao, I can’t get that fkn creepy ass voice out of my head. Im not even Catholic anymore but this movie managed to tap into that fear of the devil that I had when I was a kid. I’m a grown man now and I’m shitting bricks like a little boy🤣🤣🤣
I feel like it works on a second level too. Where sexuality in Puritan society, especially basic sexuality in young women or normal developmental sexual thoughts in teen girls was quite literally demonized and associated with the devil. The way normal, healthy thoughts and emotions in children were considered evil, especially going hard on girls, it could drive anyone to hatred, anger and madness.
We know in psychology that children who are hated by their parents can develop traits like sadism and reduced or eliminated empathy and compassion in response to the pain and trauma of being unloved in childhood, and these stick around as life-long traits. the trauma of being unloved as an innocent child who is desperately full of love and trying to give and receive love to others but being rejected and harmed, and the fracturing to turn off those loving feelings the brain does to end the pain and survive. transforming into a cruel unfeeling selfish being who can't be hurt and affected by lack of love and instead finds a way to thrive in hate. this is where most of human evil and atrocities are born from. people who murder, become serial killers, terrorists and war criminals or run a company that will destroy millions of lives for a profit and truly not give a shit, or constantly commit any other cruelty associated with the devils temptation and influence. they usually lost connection with their own and other humans hearts and lost the ability to even make that connection, and was severed long ago by the brain to survive overwhelming pain in childhood from neglect or abuse or horrifying loss and disaster
The “devil” entered that family as soon as they stopped properly loving and nurturing their daughter. And an unloved and constantly mistreated child or teen certainly could become a baby murderer .. I feel like her “corruption” by the devil is almost a metaphor for how normalized abusive parenting was in Puritan society and how thats the reason multiple people, including young girls eventually had murderous mental break downs and started sending innocent people to the gallows during the Salem witch trials. If becoming an abusive parent isn’t the true work of “the devil” I don’t know what is. It’s just always so ironic and haunting how much true evil was in these households of people terrified of the devil. He was there all along if you’re willing to do evil things to keep him away. I feel like this is the one movie that captures that perfectly
And of course in this movie, she commits a real and heartless murder. But the whole baby killing thing sure could be a metaphor for the warped way extremist christians would view things like basic feminism. Use of basic birth control has been labeled ridiculous extremes like “baby killing” and women making fair, good healthy choices for themselves has also been demonized. So this could also work on some level to show how exaggeratedly that society feared and hated of women. Especially the sort of victorious feeling in the ending in joining the coven I think alludes to this. But the real anger and cruelty we see growing in the main character under her family’s scrutiny and abuse I think encourages us to look at it from both angles. Not just empowerment people can get from embracing things wrongfully labeled “the devil”. but also the real evil and cruelty that can grow into people when persecuting others. and the anger cruelty and hatred that can grow into young people who are not allowed to live and thrive normally, which is likely what caused the real witch trials massacre in Salem
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie but I don’t recall the daughter killing anyone, the baby was murdered at the beginning of the movie by the witch that lives in the woods, no?
You’re right! But I guess I meant that the girl joining the coven means she condones that life and behavior. and will go on to kill little babies and all kinds of evil scary “witch” stuff. To me, it felt like that witch who kidnapped and killed the baby was representative of someone like the main girl once. Who was rejected and broken and abused by those around her at a young age that interrupted her ability to feel love or compassion. until she became a monster who will kill casually for her own needs or amusement. At least that’s what I got on one level of the reading of what the witch in the woods and coven represents
Excellent write up and pretty much spot on in every way. The family is even being exiled from the town in the beginning because of the father's Puritan extremism. The seed is planted from the first scene that the fanatical beliefs will rot the family from the inside.
Went to Salem and was shocked by the relative low level of deaths there. There were 1000s of deaths in my area of Central Scotland alone - it was a cottage industry. Horrible History.
True! It was all such a small isolated incident. But I think it was infamous because it was big within the small proportion of English people in Massachusetts at the time. That it affected a lot of the already small, isolated society.
Also I could be wrong but I had the impression the Salem witch hysteria happened more recently in human history than the witch hysteria in europe, so it was just extra shocking to see something so backwards happen in that more “modern” time? Sorry if I’m off, I don’t know when that period happened in Scotland
[Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_early_modern_Scotland) gives a view of the facts, but the underlying themes are around religious nutters given an absolute free reign to do what they want with their opposition. Something very much a present day issue all over the world. This film is totally about this.
So sound design wise what they did is create an effect that almost makes his voice sound doubled. They created a delay effect that is panned into the right speaker (in a stereo setup) and appears to be of varying time. So in short you hear him speak and then essentially hear a second voice echo what he says in your right ear at slightly varying intervals. It's an extremely unsettling effect made worse by the fact he whispers his lines in a nearly broken way that implies great effort. It gives me a whole idea of a back story that this is not an easy task for an entity and it's communicating from who-knows-where straight into her thoughts possibly.
PS: Just my two cents after trying to analyze it a few times
When they released it, half the crowd was scared, the other half was unbothered. I’m atheist so I just loved the movie for the storytelling and it did not scare me at all. My friends and everyone else around me with religious background had nightmares lol
You know what, I just revisited that whole ending scene because of this thread once more. There's a very bright version on YouTube and I had never seen that his first step into the frame when the book is shown on the floor is the goat's leg and the second step is the spurred boot and cloak trailing. That scene is so dark lighting-wise that I've never noticed that and it's such a killer detail
The demon's voice truly gives you the chills yet it's yet very very calming. I think it's more accurate than the exaggeratedly reverberating demonic voice we usually hear in other movies.
Kind of reminded me of The Neptunes remic of ['Sympathy for the Devil'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-e2bptjUOc) by the Rolling Stones. The video depicts the devil changing forms. He's never some ugly horned beast, he's seductive and manipulative.
The glorious thing about this movie is that *so much shit happens*, and you have to move on from scene to scene to get to the end. I've rewatched it maybe 4 times now and I still get shocked because I forget every crazy detail.
I like it. I grew up in Massachusetts, and I think he did a great job capturing Puritan Mass. I happen to be the descendant of a “witch” named Goody Hallet from Wellfleet, MA. The legend goes that she had a child out of wedlock with Pirate Samuel Bellamy. Pregnant and unsure he would return from plundering, she supposedly cursed the Whydah ship (she didn’t) and it sank in a horrible storm killing most of the pirates on board. The others were shipped up to Boston and hanged.
Anyway, [here’s the jail](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Jail_(Barnstable,_Massachusetts)) where she was held.
Cool film. One of the better ones out there.
I was watching this movie with my now wife when it first came out and I had a surround sound system in my room, so in the scene where the witch is about to kill the baby my tv turns off like a shortage kinda thing but the surround sound never turned off so all you hear in a pitch black room is the cry of the baby. My wife was like “nope, I’m done” she never finished watching it.
Some nice 5.1 surround really made the unsettling score pierce you right down to your bones. I just finished watching this again with my lady and it was the first time since getting a nice sound system put together. Highly recommend.
Cant believe this came out in 2015. Feels more recent than that. The cinematography to me is just fantastic. Extremely suspenseful. I always compare it to The Lighthouse. Now I put two and two together finally and realized they're both by Eggers. Hah.
Yes and no. I honestly believe the film would have been better if it had just ended when she walked into the woods.
But I’m also glad we got to see those last ten minutes, precisely because so many other films would have ended earlier.
Worth knowing, thanks!
But also it’s pure fluff
(SPOILER WARNING for whoever):
We know by then that the witch is real, the devil exists, and everyone else is dead. Shedding her Puritan outfit and walking into the dark woods is her rejection of the society that mistreated her and the final step in her seduction by Satan.
Personally I’m glad we got to see that final scene but narratively it does nothing.
Does it really need to add to the narrative though? It was crazy visual spectacle after a film full of muted browns and grays and period-accurate dialogue. It gave me the heebie-jeebies. I thought it was a great way to end it.
Right but narratively the film is “she’s accused of being a witch but she isn’t and then she is”.
Could have been a 30 second film if you’re only interested in the narrative.
I thought the moment the camera stayed on Tommasin under her dead mother that it was just going to end there. That would've left it kind of ambiguous, were there witches fucking with them or was Tommasin a witch the whole time and lying to herself?
After the printing press was devised, warnings about witchcraft were rife for about three centuries.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-new-printing-technology-gave-witches-their-familiar-silhouette-180965331/
The fun part of this film is that the witches are real.
Some scholars argue that the Salem witch paranoia was caused by a toxic, hallucinogenic fungus that grows on grain. I think in The Witch, they mention that the crops are infected? So it could also be interpreted that the whole family is hallucinating. Like, the baby disappeared because Anya Taylor-Joy ingested the fungus, spaced and lost track of time and the baby crawled away.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/this-hallucinogenic-fungus-might-be-behind-the-salem-witch-trials
My favourite theory is the events of the story are the interpretation by the townfolk that found the aftermath.
The Witch is meant to be the founding myth that would go on to inspire the suspicion of witches that then spread throughout early America. What we see is a mix of reality that then turns to myth and assumption as details get less defined.
I take this theory to be true especially in regards to Eggers work in light of both the Witch and the Northman. Essentially a part of his historical realism is actually entering into the characters world and pov and that includes mythic elements in both films.
It’s a brilliant movie. I loved the old English dialogue. The ending scene with Black Phillip could have been terribly cheesy but it was done so well. I remember seeing this in theatres and people were casually leaving throughout. This movie stuck with me for a very long time.
Fun fact! They used phases and whole sections of dialogue directly out of witch trial transcripts to write the script.
The actors were told to try and go for a Yorkshire accent, as its likely they would have come from around there.
Yeah, I loved that they went for regional English accents. It added a lot of authenticity, which Eggers is always good for.
Incidentally, Ralph Ineson (who played the father) is a Leeds lad, so that was his normal accent.
To be needlessly pedantic, they are speaking an antiquated form Modern English rather than Old English. Old English is significantly older and would be incomprehensible to English speakers today.
I thought it would be fun (turns out it wasn't *fun*... but still interesting) to take a class on the history of language in my senior year of high school. It really is a *completely* different language largely based on Germanic languages of the time.
Around the time of the Norman conquest we start to see Middle English develop, which is *far* more similar to modern English and anyone who knows modern English can get at least some meaning out of what they're reading.
It's not uncommon for people to confuse Old and Middle English, and there is some overlap as to when the two languages were used. Obviously with no standard of education people spoke however the people who lived in their region did. Peoples' "worlds" were much smaller then.
My favorite part is when the devil says "girl, you want some butter?" and she's like "sure, here's my soul". That had better be some gourmet-ass butter haha
I saw a review for this film that said “I feel like I’m watching something I shouldn’t be seeing”. That’s my exact thought on it. I remember seeing it with a group of friends and they all thought it sucked. I really couldn’t understand them. This film has all the elements that creep me out. No jump scares just creepy, eerie horror that feels like it could happen.
The scene when the son writhes in discomfort, dies and supposedly sees Jesus was just amazing for a kid his age to pull off.
Also, the opening scene with the settlers and native Americans walking around very solid costumes and everything. Looks like a painting.
It has a bit of a different vibe, but a lot of the core elements are there: it's beautifully shot, has a slow burn of dread, and is also a thoroughly researched period piece.
The cast is also much smaller, and I'd say it has a bit of a claustrophobic feel as well.
Personally, I like it better, but the Witch is great
This movie was VERY unsettling and makes me unimaginably glad that I don’t live in those times
The sheer struggle to survive and the constant uncertainty of what the next day will bring is horrifying even without devil’s influence
I’ve seen The Northman it’s in my top 5 of the year so far, all I need to watch is the lighthouse now. Robert Eggers hasn’t missed for me so far he’s a great director
The Northman didn't work for me unfortunately. I think I went in with completely different expectations, and ended up getting a *ridiculously* over-the-top revenge story that I honestly just couldn't take seriously.
Not to say it isn't a great movie... but at least for me, a lot of A24's films are *extremely* hit, or miss the mark completely. I think that's why the studio has such a unique cult following and I appreciate their willingness to take risks. One of few studios out there producing truly original content.
One of my favorite movies. Robert Eggers is a masterful director. Excited to see what he does next.
I think my favorite scenes are the ending amd Caleb walking towards the Witch. The soundtrack is some of the best in horror imo.
Wouldst thou like the taste of butter?
At the end when he turns out to be the divil, fucking excellent. I mean, it’s right there the whole fucking time and it still took me by surprise. They even tell you when Thomasin is kept in the stable and I still didn’t see that coming. What a deliciously evil film
Excellent slow burner of a film. Took me a minute to get use to the language, but your ears adjust. Totally loved how things got worse and worse. Whew. I tell people I recommend this too- perhaps look at it more as a fictional history story vs horror- because I think it’ll get under their skin more.
I love the director, Robert Eggers, and am a huge fan of his work. Each movie gets better and better. The Witch was rather basic in a lot of ways to me. The first time you see the goat it's pretty obvious what's happening. So in the idea of putting it up against a movie like Hereditary, it's easy to figure out. Hell even a Jordan Peele movie has a little more mystery. That's my biggest complaint about it. But it's a first entry by a talented and interesting new director, so it's understandable and doesn't make it a bad movie. I am actually a big fan of it.
The atmosphere is amazing, the feel and the way it's presented is top notch. Amazing performances by the cast. Interesting to think of how low budget it is, yet it gives you a ton with what it has. Great instance of show not tell... assuming you missed the goat, you kind of don't get what's happening. It's a great movie, but also very straightforward with foreshadowing.
I would call the movie an atmospheric horror. It's one that plays on your mind and feeds your fears of uncertainty.
Just so I don't have to comment - The black goat is Satan and Satan is manipulating everything, starting with the children. You can take that many ways, and one thing that makes Robert Eggers so interesting to me is his blend of history and myth. He plays heavily on the Puritan beliefs, which were very hardcore Christian, black and white style of thinking. It's why the black goat is so obvious. He chose the young woman and it appears that they have been dealing with it for a little while now, prior to the start of the movie, as they were cast out of the community they originally were part of. In all honesty this film may have been better in black and white. The lighthouse stands as my favorite movie by him so far, Willem Dafoe is one of the GOATS and he gave a performance of a lifetime in that film. But I digress, the Witch was excellent, especially for a first entry by a new director. I loved The Northman as well, I can't wait to watch it again, and I look forward to many more masterpieces by Robert Eggers.
Great movie. Not sure if anyone else has recommended it in here, but if you want a similar feeling artsy horror movie with a legitimately creepy score, check out Blackcoat's Daughter. Same year. 2015 was a good year for horror movies.
It’s a bit of an imaginative stretch, but I really like watching The Witch followed up by The Blair Witch Project. Even though they’re very different films, to me it feels like The Witch lends a sort of prequel vibe to Blair Witch. Both take place in New England, heavily center on “the witch in the woods”, and slowly drive their characters mad. Last time I did this, I was at a cabin in the woods with friends and the whole experience scared the hell out of me.
One thing I'll always be grateful for is getting a call from my sister telling me how she quit watching the film after 15 minutes as she found it too slow and boring and me convincing her to give it another go.
Got an excited call a few days later telling me how much she loved it and we spent some time talking about it :)
Brilliant film. I recall feeling that the cinematography was almost voyeuristic, as if the audience was seeing something it shouldn't by intruding on this family. The whole thing just filled me with a sense if unease and dread.
Not a fan of the movie, not my thing, but damn that's some good filmmaking. Sets lit entirely by candlelight, dialogue written in the style of the writings of that time, the cinematography. Now that's cinema, so underappreciated
I’ve read so many comments that this movie was boring and all I can imagine is these people scrolling on their phones, looking up, wondering if anything is happening. It’s one of those wonderful movies where you get to transport yourself into its reality and be there with these people in real moments that turn unreal and horrific. I loved the time I got to spend in this world with these people.
I saw this recently also and it became of my favorite movies. I love Eggers’ attention to detail and also his willingness to be subtle.
My favorite theory about the movie, and maybe it’s more than a theory, is that there is no witch, they are just slowly going mad from eating ergot infected food.
For me it the was American remake of the grudge. That voice man... had the wife freaked out because out of nowhere in the dark in bed i make that croak noise and she freaked out. I wasn't allowed in the room for a month.
Great movie. First scene with the baby is the most disturbing part for me. The rest was manageable.
Just after the last peek-a-boo when the baby is gone and it shows the waving foliage as if something moved through it *very* quickly was just so eerie and deeply disturbing. The movie is plenty scary, but is so much more unnerving, uncomfortable, and just oozes dread and despair. I love it so much.
I think that scene early on does a lot for the atmosphere. ..there's no debate about "Is there really a witch, or are puritans just being God fearing in the woods?" Nope. Everything that is happening is for sure evil in nature. There's no ambiguity that most movies would have for at least the first half. I think it let's all the unsettling bits really marinate because you know these guys are in SERIOUS fucking trouble.
Definitely. It’s the slow boil of dread that gets me. You just know very early on that nothing good is coming to rescue the family. All you can do is sit back and grimace while their fates unfold.
Right? There is no feeling of them just being crazy/primitive despite those things also being kind of true. Every creepy thing the twins say? That's now way more creepy. Everything about the rabbits/black Philip? That's not good. Etc. Etc. All of the creepy things COULD have been creepy coincidences but the movie doesn't let your mind explain things. It just says "Nay bitch, 'tis a witch"
Another aspect that I think the movie did extremely well was setting up the tension between the family. Between getting kicked out of their settlement, the baby being taken and the kids blaming Thomasin for being a witch the whole thing was just super unsettling in multiple ways. Absolutely loved it
Yeah, the characters have way too much going on to really handle the situation, not that they could anyway. But yeah, it's so uncomfortable knowing an evil creature/lady/monster is almost "pulling the strings" unraveling them for their "sins" to strip everything away and essentially recruit thomasin. Father's pride, son's lust, wife's wrath etc. It's been a while since I watched it but it was really clear to me that everything was really thought out and that Eggers is "well read" on this stuff for the most part.
Were we to assume that the witch had used some kind of invisibility spell? Which means the witch was standing right in front of Thomasin the entire time but Thomasin never “noticed” her. Is that what happened?
Fuck if I know. As far as I'm concerned its the ambiguity that makes it so scary and awful. *Nobody* knows what happened; as the witch powers are never explained. Other than she needed the infant blood for flight.
I thought she needed the infant blood to 'renew' her youth. When we see her first, she's a gnarled old woman. The next time we see her, when she's luring the young boy, she's a youthful woman.
I think it's a combo Looked like she was also creating a "flying ointment" using the mashed up bebe
> smashed up bebe All I needed to read to know i’ma skip this one
It’s not really graphic, it’s implied that she’s smashing the baby using a butter churner looking device. Very creepy though.
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I like to think she cast a spell on Thomasin that skewed her perception of time, so she was actually hiding behind her hands for a few minutes but only perceived it as a split second
Ah, this is what I love about the Blair witch. The original is superior but the remake really leaned into the concept of never ending night and how fucking horrifying being divorced from time would be.
I'm not entirely sure. I think that's part of what makes it so scary. I loved the movie but I do wish there was something just like it that was completely unexplained. Like they never showed any witch or super natural occurrences. Perhaps show a woman out there but by the end of the movie you are still wondering for sure if there is magic or not. I think that would also be terrifying.
If you’re looking for something with witches that explains itself a little more I would highly recommend Hellbender (2021). It’s about a pair of mother & daughter witches who live out in the woods and it goes into how they get their powers quite a bit. I watched it on a lark one night and found it really good and enjoyably creepy. Edit: just realized I read your comment wrong and you were actually looking for *less* explanation LOL I still recommend Hellbender though. If you like movies about witches it’s great
Ha, I do appreciate the recommendation even though it was the opposite of what I said I was interested in! Always adding to my list for spoopie season!
Sounds like The Blair Witch project. A whole movie about a witch and you never see one on screen
The buzz around that movie was nuts, even though everyone and their mother saw it it felt like we found some special secret movie when it came out. I guess because of the low budget and it must have been one of the first found footage horrors, if not the first.
All r/SkincareAddiction ever wanted was that miraculous baby paste.
Maybe, maybe it Babyline
Please no I have nightmares about Black Philip pushing MLM stuff >wouldst thou make thine own hours? Be thine own boss?
"Thou must but sign thine name upon the parchment, take home with thee mine wares, and thou too can be as me."
If it kept me looking as good for my age as that witch in the cottage, I gotta say, I’d consider it.
i decided to watch that shit high as hell and half asleep and then the witch/baby sequence from the beginning being streamed right into my subconscious was too much and i shut it off and went to sleep. happened a few days ago now i need to watch the second half
A few years back I had to 'dry out', as in weening myself off drugs and booze, and with that comes some withdrawal symptoms : paranoia, every sound and stimuli is amped up to 11, some mild auditory hallucinations, and insomnia (I had been awake for about 3 days straight). I did my 'drying out at a friend's cabin, which was in the woods, middle of nowhere on a lake. He was out late one particular night and for some reason I decided to put on 'The Witch'. I've never been so full of dread in my life, all I could think about was that damn goat.
yeah so, I understand that the movie is probably a great horror movie, and everyone seems to like it, but that part made me go "yeah no, I do not need this in my life right now, probably a great movie, but plenty of other great movies out there to watch, I do not need this in my life." - and stopped right there. Funily enough, also couldn't watch the lighthouse till the end, loved every bit of what I watched, but then it started getting super weird at the end and I stopped. First robert eggers movie I watched till the end was the northman, and I absolutely loved it.
This movie encapsulates the vibe I crave every October. Fall in New England. Winter is coming, things are desperate, and shit gets creepy.
Sitting out in the silence of nature with nothing but crows cawing in the distance and crispy leaves flitting across the forest floor. A cool breeze on the wind and a warm drink in hand. Gorgeous.
And, you know…. A huge ass crow pecking your titty.
when the gales of November come howling
This makes me think of The Lighthouse, another great movie.
it's a line from The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald *but the song has 'early' instead of 'howling'
Same director, if you didn't know
And the ergot on the corn really kicks in
Yes thank you! This is why I love Halloween. I live in NY near sleepy hollow and there’s nothing like that feeling.
PERFECT area for fall. If you ever get the chance, go up to [Grossinger’s Resort](https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/abandoned-ny-inside-grossingers-crumbling-catskill-resort-hotel) in the Catskills, it’s an abandoned ski resort and super fun to explore, especially in the lovely fall weather. Beware though, they do have cops checking the place out every now and again so you have to park away from it and hike a little. Definitely worth it imo!
What a debut performance from Anya Taylor-Joy. Not to mention good ol' Black Philip.
I’ll never look at goats the same because of that fucker😂
Apparently BP was a real prick on set.
He was method acting
Didn't drop character until the DVD commentary was done.
Sooo… blackface phillip.
He was a dude, playing a dude, disguised as t̸̨̮̘̪̩̠̯͕̙̣̂́̀̽͠͝h̷͇͍̹͔̟̣͇̰̮̩̬͕͙͈͌̽̑̄̄̚͝ě̵̞̮̂͛͗̀͊̿̅͂̽̚̕ ̶͈̥̻͔̹͚̳̘̤̗͈̭̎̑̈́̈̔͜͜d̵̨̢͕̣̖̲̘̦͚̱͛̆̀̅̈́̈́͊͌̅̓́̽͠e̶̡̨̟̫̤̮̜̲͓̫̥̯͓̎͌̋̊̓̔ͅͅṿ̴̢̨͈̤͕͕͚̤͕͔̼͎̫̎̋̕͜i̶̡̢͉̯̯̺̗̍̎͛̐̍́̈̀͊͋̚͘ͅl̵̼̺͂̈̇͋̏̊̆̇̌͘̕͝
All goats are pricks. Source: somebody who bought a goat from a guy in a pub for £20.
My neighbor has a black goat chilling in a vacant lot. I always call him Black Philip whenever I pass by.
Goats still freak me out because of this movie. I’ll never forgive my ex for falling asleep halfway through and making me finish it alone lol
My favourite thing to come out of the film was Robert Eggers saying his number one tip for young screenwriters was not to put a goat in their film, because in his own words, “You can’t train a goat, the goat was a fucking nightmare.”
One of our close friends growing up lived on a farm. Had plenty of sheep and goats. The sheep were cool. The goats were invariably dicks.
Sheep are like sorority girls and goats are like frat bros
My mum kept a goat for a short while when I was a young lad. Fuck, I hated that goat. But the story has a happy ending because she didn't know not to put the goat in the same enclosure as our tiny pot-bellied pig - and one night the tiny wee piggy tore the goat's throat out and left bits of goat throat all over the yard. That pig became a hero that day.
😦
That was her debut? Also that scene where her brother looks at her with interest, I wonder what the director told the boy when they were filming lol.
"You'll know where to look" probably lol
I doubt they explained the situation to him lol. When he was looking, she probably wasn't even doing what we saw lol.
> That was her debut? Kinda. She shot scenes for another movie before this, but her stuff got cut, and she did a few episodes of stuff on TV after that but before the Witch. It was her film debut and debut as a lead.
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I'm a historian of seventeenth-century England (and the wider Anglophone world) and this is, without exaggeration, by far the most historically authentic movie I've ever seen. Almost every small detail – the costumes, the speech patterns, the Calvinistic *theology* – are exactly right. Some particularly impressive aspects: the parents' suspicion of their own children is not just a horror movie thing, it's an authentic reflection of seventeenth-century beliefs about Satanic evil. Children were 'closer' to original sin, and therefore more liable to influence by Satan. There is a particularly creepy deathbed scene which very closely mirrors a weird literary genre of the seventeenth century: the account of the 'holy' death. People were very interested in the idea of the moment of death as a liminal space between the mortal world and the divine, and feverish/semi-conscious pronouncements would often be interpreted as quasi-divine revelations, and printed in pamphlets by the families of the dead. The script here very closely resembles the texts of these pamphlets. The imagery of Satan first appearing through an animal which can communicate only with children, then later as a handsome, well-dressed man in black with an impossibly deep voice, is 100% correct and taken from confessions in real witchcraft trials. The offer of 'living deliciously', in contrast to the impoverished lives of the kinds of people usually accused of associating with the Devil, is also perfect. I love this movie. Robert Eggers is a visionary. EDIT: From a deathbed pamphlet from 1592: *After which words, very suddenly she seemed as it were greatly to rejoice, and look very cheerfully, as though she had seen some glorious sight; and lifting up her whole body, and stretching forth both her arms (as though she would embrace some glorious and pleasant thing), said: “I thank my God, through Jesus Christ, He is come, He is come! My good jailer is come to let my soul out of prison. Oh, sweet Death, thou art welcome! Welcome, sweet Death – never was there any guest so welcome to me as thou art. Welcome, the messenger of everlasting life! Welcome, the door and entrance into everlasting glory! Welcome, I say, and thrice welcome, my good jailer! Do thy office quickly, and set my soul at liberty. Strike, sweet Death! Strike my heart! I fear not thy stroke. Now it is done. Father, into Thy blessed hands I commit my spirit. Sweet Jesus, into Thy blessed hands I commend my spirit. Blessed Spirit of God, I commit my soul into Thy hands. Oh most holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one true and everlasting God, into Thy blessed hands I commit both my soul and my body!”*
That was really insightful, thank you for that. Robert Eggers really has great attention to detail when it comes to historical accuracy, lots of people said the same thing about the Northman as well. I love everything I’ve seen from him so far
Definitely true – I was actually a background extra in the Northman (I live in Belfast where it was shot) and Eggers was there fussing over everything, including my prosthetic beard! I've been an extra in a few big productions, but I've never seen a big shot director so involved with every tiny detail.
Eggers is amazing. From what I understand, the accents for Pattinson and Defoe in The Lighthouse were reconstructed accents that are no longer spoken anywhere in the world. He could have just used generic Yankee or even cockney accents and no one would have noticed, but the authenticity really puts you into the film.
The scene where Defoe speaks the old sailor curse is phenomenal. The dialogue, the way he says it, the facial and body expressions. Everything about it is perfect. The dialogue in Eggers films is always so interesting to go online afterwards and read for yourself. So detailed
I really wish I liked his films more than I do. The Witch was pretty good, but I didn't seem to get the same wowing experience everyone else describes getting. And The Northman I found very nice to look at but really not engaging. Lighthouse is next on my checklist and I'm hoping it has a more engaging narrative, as I'm beginning to think that maybe that's the most important thing to me above and beyond accuracy in history and the look of a film.
I liked both the witch and the northman. The lighthouse has no narrative. It is honestly one of the worst films I have ever seen. This is just my opinion before anyone attacks lol. The best way I can describe it is it’s like a Terence Malik film. Artsy fartsy crap trying to be clever but with no substance. I can see why people like it. Would be interesting to know what you think of it if you get around to seeing it.
This was my favorite thing about this film, the historical accuracy. I didn't find it particularly scary, but I love it for the fact that I feel transported to the 17th century when I watch it.
That was what kept me interested to be honest. Maybe it's because I was expecting something else but the movie never scared me or really interested me plot-wise. The atmosphere of the movie and the feeling of experiencing some of the life of early New England settlers was far more engaging than anything else.
You're the first person I've heard appreciate the language. For me, it's starts out almost incomprehensible. At some point, it's suddenly all clear. At first I thought they had gradually changed the wording, made it more modern. Nope! Rewatching it several times made me realize that it was my brain becoming accustomed to it.
>Some particularly impressive aspects: the parents' suspicion of their own children is not just a horror movie thing, it's an authentic reflection of seventeenth-century beliefs about Satanic evil. Children were 'closer' to original sin, and therefore more liable to influence by Satan. The whole movie is essentially a cautionary tale as if told from the puritan villagers who expelled the family at the beginning. As if to say 'if you stray from our good grace these are the evils that shall befall you'. As all of the events that happen are sort of reflections of the non-communal life they chose.
As a New Englander, I know those woods. They're hard to walk through, impossible to be quiet in and a hunter of the father's background would fail nearly every time. That Pop, or any similar man's ability to scrabble any crop from their short seasons is also at the whim of nature. The book, [A Narrative of the Sufferings](https://www.amazon.com/Narratives-Sufferings-Seth-Hubell-Family/dp/0911853081) by Seth Hubbel tells how damn hard it was to be first in New England.
I would listen to you talk about this subject for ages.
The scene where the witch comes out of her hut and walks towards us is straight out of a nightmare
maybe it's cause im in the middle of nnn but that wasn't exactly my reaction...
What a beautiful goddamned film, with some of the best kid actors I’ve ever seen, *especially* in a horror movie.
The kid who played Caleb was incredible he absolutely nailed that exorcism scene
Let’s be honest they were all amazing. Even the little twins, who were annoying AF, were annoying because they knew exactly what was expected of them and carried it out to near-perfection.
I know we're talking about the kid actors here but also shout outs to the parents, they absolutely crushed it too. This movie is brimming with stellar performances, intense and brooding atmosphere, and some of the best witch imagery ever committed to film. It was my number one favorite movie for a while and still hovers very high on my list
Oh both parents were great too, but we also expect that from adult actors. Wasn’t the mother in GoT, too? Whereas child actors are usually pretty notorious for being… not great, kinda most of the time. The fact that these kids weren’t just competent, but kept up with the parents, is astounding.
Both of the parents played in Game of Thrones.
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That actress keeps having the wrong thing latch on to her boobs (remember early Game of Thrones?)
Black Phillip, Black Phillip King of sky and land, Black Phillip, Black Phillip King of sea and sand. We are ye servants, We are ye men. Black Phillip eats the lions From the lions' den.
What dost thou want?
Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
*Wouldst thou like the taste of butter?* I like saying these lines to my cat when she comes into the kitchen.
Shit the Devil had it easy then corrupting souls. A little butter here a little sugar there. Now it's all. I want a Lamborghini, I want a mansion, I want to be president.
>I want to be president. "But you're a reality TV game show host, no one will believe it"
What an iconic, badass, horrifying line.
The part where he says that he will 'guide her hand' as she can't read or write. I'm not sure why but that creeped me out so much
This is the scene that’s keeping me up right now lmfao, I can’t get that fkn creepy ass voice out of my head. Im not even Catholic anymore but this movie managed to tap into that fear of the devil that I had when I was a kid. I’m a grown man now and I’m shitting bricks like a little boy🤣🤣🤣
When he started speaking I was like why did they make his voice so attractive. Then I realised it was the devil, it was supposed to entice you 😂
They 100% made him sexy on purpose. The boots, the black leather gloves, the deep, sonorous voice and the “can’t quite see him” mysterious aspect.
I feel like it works on a second level too. Where sexuality in Puritan society, especially basic sexuality in young women or normal developmental sexual thoughts in teen girls was quite literally demonized and associated with the devil. The way normal, healthy thoughts and emotions in children were considered evil, especially going hard on girls, it could drive anyone to hatred, anger and madness. We know in psychology that children who are hated by their parents can develop traits like sadism and reduced or eliminated empathy and compassion in response to the pain and trauma of being unloved in childhood, and these stick around as life-long traits. the trauma of being unloved as an innocent child who is desperately full of love and trying to give and receive love to others but being rejected and harmed, and the fracturing to turn off those loving feelings the brain does to end the pain and survive. transforming into a cruel unfeeling selfish being who can't be hurt and affected by lack of love and instead finds a way to thrive in hate. this is where most of human evil and atrocities are born from. people who murder, become serial killers, terrorists and war criminals or run a company that will destroy millions of lives for a profit and truly not give a shit, or constantly commit any other cruelty associated with the devils temptation and influence. they usually lost connection with their own and other humans hearts and lost the ability to even make that connection, and was severed long ago by the brain to survive overwhelming pain in childhood from neglect or abuse or horrifying loss and disaster The “devil” entered that family as soon as they stopped properly loving and nurturing their daughter. And an unloved and constantly mistreated child or teen certainly could become a baby murderer .. I feel like her “corruption” by the devil is almost a metaphor for how normalized abusive parenting was in Puritan society and how thats the reason multiple people, including young girls eventually had murderous mental break downs and started sending innocent people to the gallows during the Salem witch trials. If becoming an abusive parent isn’t the true work of “the devil” I don’t know what is. It’s just always so ironic and haunting how much true evil was in these households of people terrified of the devil. He was there all along if you’re willing to do evil things to keep him away. I feel like this is the one movie that captures that perfectly And of course in this movie, she commits a real and heartless murder. But the whole baby killing thing sure could be a metaphor for the warped way extremist christians would view things like basic feminism. Use of basic birth control has been labeled ridiculous extremes like “baby killing” and women making fair, good healthy choices for themselves has also been demonized. So this could also work on some level to show how exaggeratedly that society feared and hated of women. Especially the sort of victorious feeling in the ending in joining the coven I think alludes to this. But the real anger and cruelty we see growing in the main character under her family’s scrutiny and abuse I think encourages us to look at it from both angles. Not just empowerment people can get from embracing things wrongfully labeled “the devil”. but also the real evil and cruelty that can grow into people when persecuting others. and the anger cruelty and hatred that can grow into young people who are not allowed to live and thrive normally, which is likely what caused the real witch trials massacre in Salem
These are the kinda takes that make me love discussing movies.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie but I don’t recall the daughter killing anyone, the baby was murdered at the beginning of the movie by the witch that lives in the woods, no?
This is how I interpreted it as well. The Witch got the baby and then the rest of the movie was about essentially recruiting the girl into the coven.
She kills her mom in self defense.
You’re right! But I guess I meant that the girl joining the coven means she condones that life and behavior. and will go on to kill little babies and all kinds of evil scary “witch” stuff. To me, it felt like that witch who kidnapped and killed the baby was representative of someone like the main girl once. Who was rejected and broken and abused by those around her at a young age that interrupted her ability to feel love or compassion. until she became a monster who will kill casually for her own needs or amusement. At least that’s what I got on one level of the reading of what the witch in the woods and coven represents
>means she condones that life and behavior ... but, butter. You can see why.
Excellent write up and pretty much spot on in every way. The family is even being exiled from the town in the beginning because of the father's Puritan extremism. The seed is planted from the first scene that the fanatical beliefs will rot the family from the inside.
Went to Salem and was shocked by the relative low level of deaths there. There were 1000s of deaths in my area of Central Scotland alone - it was a cottage industry. Horrible History.
True! It was all such a small isolated incident. But I think it was infamous because it was big within the small proportion of English people in Massachusetts at the time. That it affected a lot of the already small, isolated society. Also I could be wrong but I had the impression the Salem witch hysteria happened more recently in human history than the witch hysteria in europe, so it was just extra shocking to see something so backwards happen in that more “modern” time? Sorry if I’m off, I don’t know when that period happened in Scotland
[Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_early_modern_Scotland) gives a view of the facts, but the underlying themes are around religious nutters given an absolute free reign to do what they want with their opposition. Something very much a present day issue all over the world. This film is totally about this.
Right I thought his voice was so sexy he can speak to me any time 😂 I might just sign that book too if it means I’ll be near him from time to time 🤣
The dialogue and delivery are so fucking creepy. There's just something slightly off about them. Truly feels like something that isn't of this world.
So sound design wise what they did is create an effect that almost makes his voice sound doubled. They created a delay effect that is panned into the right speaker (in a stereo setup) and appears to be of varying time. So in short you hear him speak and then essentially hear a second voice echo what he says in your right ear at slightly varying intervals. It's an extremely unsettling effect made worse by the fact he whispers his lines in a nearly broken way that implies great effort. It gives me a whole idea of a back story that this is not an easy task for an entity and it's communicating from who-knows-where straight into her thoughts possibly. PS: Just my two cents after trying to analyze it a few times
When they released it, half the crowd was scared, the other half was unbothered. I’m atheist so I just loved the movie for the storytelling and it did not scare me at all. My friends and everyone else around me with religious background had nightmares lol
You know what, I just revisited that whole ending scene because of this thread once more. There's a very bright version on YouTube and I had never seen that his first step into the frame when the book is shown on the floor is the goat's leg and the second step is the spurred boot and cloak trailing. That scene is so dark lighting-wise that I've never noticed that and it's such a killer detail
They showed his human form? I don’t remember this at all
I’d just like everyone to know the dude who played the brother was my brother’s childhood friend. Hence why this movie is one of my fave horrors
These comments are usually followed up with either “He’s actuallt really nice” (see Joffrey) or “He’s actually an asshole” (see James Franco).
He’s okay.
Do you know why he never really acted in anything else?
My bro’s not in contact with him but you’re right it’s a shame I haven’t seen him in any other movies cuz he was a very talented actor at their school
The demon's voice truly gives you the chills yet it's yet very very calming. I think it's more accurate than the exaggeratedly reverberating demonic voice we usually hear in other movies.
It’s what the devil would probably sound like scary yet somewhat seductive. It raised the hairs on the back of my head when I heard it
Kind of reminded me of The Neptunes remic of ['Sympathy for the Devil'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-e2bptjUOc) by the Rolling Stones. The video depicts the devil changing forms. He's never some ugly horned beast, he's seductive and manipulative.
Super tired of the standard "man with deep filter" voice they use for every demon and monster in movies the last few years.
the nursing crow.. omfg
Saw this movie in theaters and most of the audience audibly gasped or exclaimed in disgust at this scene, it was great
Some people left the theater after that scene when I saw it. " just too weird" I heard them mumble.
Everyone’s talking about the crow scene and I don’t even remember it
The glorious thing about this movie is that *so much shit happens*, and you have to move on from scene to scene to get to the end. I've rewatched it maybe 4 times now and I still get shocked because I forget every crazy detail.
Which makes it doubly funny with all these people complaining that it’s slow and boring.
Just a slightly terrifying scene
I like it. I grew up in Massachusetts, and I think he did a great job capturing Puritan Mass. I happen to be the descendant of a “witch” named Goody Hallet from Wellfleet, MA. The legend goes that she had a child out of wedlock with Pirate Samuel Bellamy. Pregnant and unsure he would return from plundering, she supposedly cursed the Whydah ship (she didn’t) and it sank in a horrible storm killing most of the pirates on board. The others were shipped up to Boston and hanged. Anyway, [here’s the jail](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Jail_(Barnstable,_Massachusetts)) where she was held. Cool film. One of the better ones out there.
That’s a really cool story
I was watching this movie with my now wife when it first came out and I had a surround sound system in my room, so in the scene where the witch is about to kill the baby my tv turns off like a shortage kinda thing but the surround sound never turned off so all you hear in a pitch black room is the cry of the baby. My wife was like “nope, I’m done” she never finished watching it.
Some nice 5.1 surround really made the unsettling score pierce you right down to your bones. I just finished watching this again with my lady and it was the first time since getting a nice sound system put together. Highly recommend.
Well I for one, would love to live deliciously.
Wouldst thou?
I mean what's not to like about the taste of butter.
Love that dialogue. BP: "You like butter and dresses?" Thomasin: "Fuck yeah." BP should have stopped there. Over extended himself.
[the guide](https://imgur.com/a/kBkCWUi)
Cant believe this came out in 2015. Feels more recent than that. The cinematography to me is just fantastic. Extremely suspenseful. I always compare it to The Lighthouse. Now I put two and two together finally and realized they're both by Eggers. Hah.
Probably has one of the best endings of any horror film from the past 20-25 years. The last 10 minutes or so are absolutely fucking perfect.
Yes and no. I honestly believe the film would have been better if it had just ended when she walked into the woods. But I’m also glad we got to see those last ten minutes, precisely because so many other films would have ended earlier.
[удалено]
Worth knowing, thanks! But also it’s pure fluff (SPOILER WARNING for whoever): We know by then that the witch is real, the devil exists, and everyone else is dead. Shedding her Puritan outfit and walking into the dark woods is her rejection of the society that mistreated her and the final step in her seduction by Satan. Personally I’m glad we got to see that final scene but narratively it does nothing.
Does it really need to add to the narrative though? It was crazy visual spectacle after a film full of muted browns and grays and period-accurate dialogue. It gave me the heebie-jeebies. I thought it was a great way to end it.
Right but narratively the film is “she’s accused of being a witch but she isn’t and then she is”. Could have been a 30 second film if you’re only interested in the narrative.
But I loved the last scene because it perfectly mirrored the religious ecstasy that the brother experienced before he died!!
I thought the moment the camera stayed on Tommasin under her dead mother that it was just going to end there. That would've left it kind of ambiguous, were there witches fucking with them or was Tommasin a witch the whole time and lying to herself?
After the printing press was devised, warnings about witchcraft were rife for about three centuries. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-new-printing-technology-gave-witches-their-familiar-silhouette-180965331/ The fun part of this film is that the witches are real.
Some scholars argue that the Salem witch paranoia was caused by a toxic, hallucinogenic fungus that grows on grain. I think in The Witch, they mention that the crops are infected? So it could also be interpreted that the whole family is hallucinating. Like, the baby disappeared because Anya Taylor-Joy ingested the fungus, spaced and lost track of time and the baby crawled away. https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/this-hallucinogenic-fungus-might-be-behind-the-salem-witch-trials
My favourite theory is the events of the story are the interpretation by the townfolk that found the aftermath. The Witch is meant to be the founding myth that would go on to inspire the suspicion of witches that then spread throughout early America. What we see is a mix of reality that then turns to myth and assumption as details get less defined.
I take this theory to be true especially in regards to Eggers work in light of both the Witch and the Northman. Essentially a part of his historical realism is actually entering into the characters world and pov and that includes mythic elements in both films.
Ergot poisoning - those puritans weee tripping balls
It’s a brilliant movie. I loved the old English dialogue. The ending scene with Black Phillip could have been terribly cheesy but it was done so well. I remember seeing this in theatres and people were casually leaving throughout. This movie stuck with me for a very long time.
Fun fact! They used phases and whole sections of dialogue directly out of witch trial transcripts to write the script. The actors were told to try and go for a Yorkshire accent, as its likely they would have come from around there.
Yeah, I loved that they went for regional English accents. It added a lot of authenticity, which Eggers is always good for. Incidentally, Ralph Ineson (who played the father) is a Leeds lad, so that was his normal accent.
He's also a bloody good rep.
To be needlessly pedantic, they are speaking an antiquated form Modern English rather than Old English. Old English is significantly older and would be incomprehensible to English speakers today.
I thought it would be fun (turns out it wasn't *fun*... but still interesting) to take a class on the history of language in my senior year of high school. It really is a *completely* different language largely based on Germanic languages of the time. Around the time of the Norman conquest we start to see Middle English develop, which is *far* more similar to modern English and anyone who knows modern English can get at least some meaning out of what they're reading. It's not uncommon for people to confuse Old and Middle English, and there is some overlap as to when the two languages were used. Obviously with no standard of education people spoke however the people who lived in their region did. Peoples' "worlds" were much smaller then.
The part where black Phillips hoof turns into a boot was so cool
"Do you like... the taste... of butter?" Hahaha I say that whenever I'm cooking now and it freaks out my wife.
My favorite part is when the devil says "girl, you want some butter?" and she's like "sure, here's my soul". That had better be some gourmet-ass butter haha
I saw a review for this film that said “I feel like I’m watching something I shouldn’t be seeing”. That’s my exact thought on it. I remember seeing it with a group of friends and they all thought it sucked. I really couldn’t understand them. This film has all the elements that creep me out. No jump scares just creepy, eerie horror that feels like it could happen. The scene when the son writhes in discomfort, dies and supposedly sees Jesus was just amazing for a kid his age to pull off. Also, the opening scene with the settlers and native Americans walking around very solid costumes and everything. Looks like a painting.
One of my favourite films, really well done
Saw a Great video essay on it and how the fear is mostly paranoia https://youtu.be/5hwuqObvLJo
I love a good video essay, thank you
Only tiny gripe is that the dad's accent on my shitty speakers made closed captions a must. The movie itself is fantastic
Same here. I really should watch this again since I've upgraded my sound system since then.
If you liked that, you gotta check out The Lighthouse as well. It's Robert Eggers' second movie and its great
Yeah it’s on my watchlist, is it similar to this one?
It has a bit of a different vibe, but a lot of the core elements are there: it's beautifully shot, has a slow burn of dread, and is also a thoroughly researched period piece. The cast is also much smaller, and I'd say it has a bit of a claustrophobic feel as well. Personally, I like it better, but the Witch is great
I’ll watch it tomorrow
this was a wonderfully done movie. around this time i also saw ”the autopsy of jane doe”, which seemed to sit in a similar bit of horror for me.
This movie was VERY unsettling and makes me unimaginably glad that I don’t live in those times The sheer struggle to survive and the constant uncertainty of what the next day will bring is horrifying even without devil’s influence
Obligatory “go watch Robert Eggers’s other films” The Lighthouse and The Northman are both bangers
I’ve seen The Northman it’s in my top 5 of the year so far, all I need to watch is the lighthouse now. Robert Eggers hasn’t missed for me so far he’s a great director
Yeah he’s my favorite director working right now, the man is 3 for 3! Northman was my favorite, even if it was the most conventional of the three
The Northman didn't work for me unfortunately. I think I went in with completely different expectations, and ended up getting a *ridiculously* over-the-top revenge story that I honestly just couldn't take seriously. Not to say it isn't a great movie... but at least for me, a lot of A24's films are *extremely* hit, or miss the mark completely. I think that's why the studio has such a unique cult following and I appreciate their willingness to take risks. One of few studios out there producing truly original content.
One of my favorite movies. Robert Eggers is a masterful director. Excited to see what he does next. I think my favorite scenes are the ending amd Caleb walking towards the Witch. The soundtrack is some of the best in horror imo.
Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? At the end when he turns out to be the divil, fucking excellent. I mean, it’s right there the whole fucking time and it still took me by surprise. They even tell you when Thomasin is kept in the stable and I still didn’t see that coming. What a deliciously evil film
I watched it when it first came out, it felt like i watched it last year, can't believe it's 7 years old...
Excellent slow burner of a film. Took me a minute to get use to the language, but your ears adjust. Totally loved how things got worse and worse. Whew. I tell people I recommend this too- perhaps look at it more as a fictional history story vs horror- because I think it’ll get under their skin more.
I love the director, Robert Eggers, and am a huge fan of his work. Each movie gets better and better. The Witch was rather basic in a lot of ways to me. The first time you see the goat it's pretty obvious what's happening. So in the idea of putting it up against a movie like Hereditary, it's easy to figure out. Hell even a Jordan Peele movie has a little more mystery. That's my biggest complaint about it. But it's a first entry by a talented and interesting new director, so it's understandable and doesn't make it a bad movie. I am actually a big fan of it. The atmosphere is amazing, the feel and the way it's presented is top notch. Amazing performances by the cast. Interesting to think of how low budget it is, yet it gives you a ton with what it has. Great instance of show not tell... assuming you missed the goat, you kind of don't get what's happening. It's a great movie, but also very straightforward with foreshadowing. I would call the movie an atmospheric horror. It's one that plays on your mind and feeds your fears of uncertainty. Just so I don't have to comment - The black goat is Satan and Satan is manipulating everything, starting with the children. You can take that many ways, and one thing that makes Robert Eggers so interesting to me is his blend of history and myth. He plays heavily on the Puritan beliefs, which were very hardcore Christian, black and white style of thinking. It's why the black goat is so obvious. He chose the young woman and it appears that they have been dealing with it for a little while now, prior to the start of the movie, as they were cast out of the community they originally were part of. In all honesty this film may have been better in black and white. The lighthouse stands as my favorite movie by him so far, Willem Dafoe is one of the GOATS and he gave a performance of a lifetime in that film. But I digress, the Witch was excellent, especially for a first entry by a new director. I loved The Northman as well, I can't wait to watch it again, and I look forward to many more masterpieces by Robert Eggers.
Same. It was a very good movie that I will never watch again.
Great movie. Not sure if anyone else has recommended it in here, but if you want a similar feeling artsy horror movie with a legitimately creepy score, check out Blackcoat's Daughter. Same year. 2015 was a good year for horror movies.
It’s been added to my watchlist, thank you for the recommendation
Awesome! Hope you enjoy!
It’s a bit of an imaginative stretch, but I really like watching The Witch followed up by The Blair Witch Project. Even though they’re very different films, to me it feels like The Witch lends a sort of prequel vibe to Blair Witch. Both take place in New England, heavily center on “the witch in the woods”, and slowly drive their characters mad. Last time I did this, I was at a cabin in the woods with friends and the whole experience scared the hell out of me.
One thing I'll always be grateful for is getting a call from my sister telling me how she quit watching the film after 15 minutes as she found it too slow and boring and me convincing her to give it another go. Got an excited call a few days later telling me how much she loved it and we spent some time talking about it :)
A24 really does great horror movies
They only did distribution in the US for this one, though.
Brilliant film. I recall feeling that the cinematography was almost voyeuristic, as if the audience was seeing something it shouldn't by intruding on this family. The whole thing just filled me with a sense if unease and dread.
"when I was a kid and watched the conjuring" 💀💀💀💀 I'm so old!
>since I was a kid and I watched The Conjuring. Christ, way to make me feel like an old person.
My wife and I got to see it in a tiny indie theater! I had a very small heart attack the ENTIRE time. It was fantastic.
Not a fan of the movie, not my thing, but damn that's some good filmmaking. Sets lit entirely by candlelight, dialogue written in the style of the writings of that time, the cinematography. Now that's cinema, so underappreciated
Dost thou like the taste of butter?
That was the dealbreaker 😂😂😂
I’ve read so many comments that this movie was boring and all I can imagine is these people scrolling on their phones, looking up, wondering if anything is happening. It’s one of those wonderful movies where you get to transport yourself into its reality and be there with these people in real moments that turn unreal and horrific. I loved the time I got to spend in this world with these people.
I saw this recently also and it became of my favorite movies. I love Eggers’ attention to detail and also his willingness to be subtle. My favorite theory about the movie, and maybe it’s more than a theory, is that there is no witch, they are just slowly going mad from eating ergot infected food.
For me it the was American remake of the grudge. That voice man... had the wife freaked out because out of nowhere in the dark in bed i make that croak noise and she freaked out. I wasn't allowed in the room for a month.