Warning: This post contains plot spoilers. Proceed only if you've seen The Witch and want to commiserate.
"Think on thy sins," hisses the father in The Witch as he's boarding up his surviving children in a barn with a potentially demonic goat. He's frantic, and fails to realize the irony here — but there's a witch in the woods, two of his kids are dead, and he doesn't have time for niceties.
Set in the stark brutality of the early American landscape, our Puritan protagonists in this disturbing period piece are rigidly pious and obsessed with misery and shame. Which is, of course, mostly what they get.
There's nothing romantic about 17th century New England and its accompanying terrors, The Witch wants us to know. A blight on a remote farm's crops means starvation, a child's wild accusation holds undue weight, and hysteria spreads like the common cold. The occult, whether imagined or not, is abundantly real to the Puritans. In a sense, our ancestors and their habitat are scarier than the film's eponymous witch, her bloodthirstiness notwithstanding.
The film doesn't deliver the kind of adrenaline-laced shocks some genre-lovers will expect, but it does traffic in something more enduring: horror, in its purest sense.
"What is amiss in this farm?" A whole hell of a lot. Let's relive the movie's most f*cked-up moments.
Poor baby
One of the film's most diabolical sequences is also one of its earliest. After baby Sam disappears in an unfortunate game of peek-a-boo with his sister, he is seen in the witch's gnarled clutches. A knife appears. This can't be good. The crone is churning a horrible cauldron, then bathing her shriveled, naked body in blood. She's bathing her broomstick in blood. She's looming large in front of the full moon as a horrible choir is heard caterwauling. You are clutching your face in horror.
Fun fact: According to the film's director, Robert Eggers, Puritans believed that witches made an unguent so they could speed around on their broomsticks. The church told them the flying unguent's secret ingredient was unbaptized baby entrails. No wonder people were freaked out.
Alone in the woods
After their horse is spooked by an ominous hare that is stalking them, brother and sister Caleb and Thomasin wander through the woods, separated and lost. We hear footsteps from an unseen intruder. Night is falling. Caleb is toting around a huge flintlock musket that we know is completely useless because it takes approximately 45 minutes to load. We hear a tragic howl and Caleb stumbles upon their disemboweled pet dog. This merciless witch is at it again.Another tidbit: Isobel Gowdie was the last woman to be burnt at the stake for witchcraft in Scotland, in the mid-17th century. She testified at her trial that one of her many talents was turning into a hare. The Scots were unimpressed by her alleged shapeshifting and burned her anyway.
Getting witched
Caleb comes across an unnerving cabin in the woods, which we know belongs to the witch because we saw her there earlier, making an unguent of his brother. The door opens and she begins to creep forth, but she has transmogrified into a beautiful siren. She is undressing poor young Caleb with her eyes. There is a sickening kiss as she grabs him with her terrible claw. Plus, that terrifying, howling choir is back, sounding like hell itself and owing a debt to The Shining. Composer Mark Korven has said that the percussion was achieved by "abusing a cello."Listen to it below, if you dare.
Caleb pitches a fit
After a brief disappearance, Caleb appears back at the farm, "naked as sin and witched." He's comatose, mumbling, covered with mysterious cuts and having some kind of fever dream. He coughs up a whole apple covered in blood, has a moment of religious ecstasy, then dies.
The twins have had enough of this; they accuse Thomasin of being the cause of this sorcery, she accuses them right back, and everyone generally loses it. "I have raised up no witch in this house," the ever-quotable father insists, but all are suspicious and bereaved.
Side note: The family's diseased corn could have been the source of this delirium -- the ergot fungus, if ingested, could cause spasms and other medical woes that Pilgrims might mistake for witchcraft. Some theorize it may have contributed to that century's frenzy in Salem, Massachusetts.
The thing with the raven
Mom Catherine has a dream that Caleb and Sam are back and, even though they're acting pretty weird, she begins to breastfeed the baby. She's pretty delighted for a moment but, when the camera returns to her, the boys are suddenly gone and all that's left is an enormous raven, pecking savagely at her exposed breast as she laughs maniacally. You are forever scandalized by this image.The night in the barn
Thomasin and her twin brother and sister are contemplating their sins in the barn, meanwhile, locked up with the goats. They are also really trying to confirm if any of them are the witch.
The twins stare creepily at Black Philip, the giant, crazy goat who is probably the devil incarnate, as Thomasin sleeps. Thomasin wakes to a view of the witch's fleshy, naked body. She is crouching, unfortunately, feeding hungrily from the teats of one of their goats. Everyone is incredibly bummed out and relatively sure they're next.
Black Philip's revenge
It's morning and the barn is completely busted up. Disemboweled goats are strewn about. This witch has been a terrible house guest. The twins are missing. Dad emerges, looking petrified, and then Black Philip is promptly ramming and goring him. Black Philip then goes rearing and bucking about, clearly pleased with himself. Dad dies in the woodpile he's been working on diligently this whole time.Another fun fact: Eggers has said the goat that played Black Philip was a nightmare to work with. "He never, ever cooperated," he said, which is not hard to believe.
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Major problems with mom
Catherine completely loses it at this point, since all she has left is her teenage daughter whom she wanted to sell for cash anyway. She goes all Game of Thrones on Thomasin, raving about her sluttish behavior and tackles her, choking her. Thomasin is forced to stab and kill her, which leaves her alone with the homicidal demon goat. Perfect.
Temptation
Black Philip, however, turns out to be pretty helpful."Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" he asks in a devilish whisper. This sounds pretty good to Thomasin, who is starving and has lost all her family and livestock.
He implores her to write her name in his book which, as all Puritans know, is how witches make pacts with the devil. Thomasin then wanders into the moonlit woods, stark naked. Phil is creeping behind, thrilled."Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"
Worst campfire ever
Cue the sound of the maniacal choir. They whisper spells, speak in tongues, and again sound generally terrifying as Thomasin and the devil goat slink through the trees. There they encounter an entire coven of witches, also naked, convulsing and skulking around a bonfire like escaped lunatics. The horrendous cacophony crescendos and Thomasin is levitating, rising higher and higher above the trees, tears on her ecstatic face. Credits roll.
To recap: The teenage girl alone survives, gains some impressive supernatural powers, and joins a formidable team of road dogs. You're not totally sure of the downsides here, but you're left with a lingering sense of dread, some heinous imagery burned into your psyche, and an irrational fear of large birds.
Topics Film
