The Witch (2015) Review

     

     Recently, I have been obsessed with binging videos and podcasts from the YouTube channel Dead Meat . I have always had a love for horror movies with my first being Scream. Ever since then, horror films have been a huge part in my life and are a big reason why I decided to be an English major. I always hear on the Dead Meat channel that one of their favorite movies is The Witch. The film tells the story of a Puritan family who is excommunicated from their settlement due to different religious beliefs. After finding a new home, the family experiences great tragedy when their newest-born member is stolen and unbeknownst to them, killed by an old witch. Thomasin, the family’s eldest child, is mocked and tyrannized by her family for the child’s disappearance and the events that come after. Today, I will be giving my review on The Witch and what I enjoyed about the film as well as what I interpret the film to mean. Shoutout to Dead Meat for giving me the idea to watch this movie! Spoilers ahead!!! (The film is on Netflix if you are wondering where you can watch it.)


     First, I must say that I liked the film. I would definitely recommend it to you to watch. It does not depend on jump scares, but relies on the uncanny atmosphere and the unknown appearance and motivation of the witch terrorizing the family. I think that is why I liked this movie so much. I do not like horror films with a paranormal focus and the reliance on jump scares. That is why I liked Us so much. It was scary without cheap jump scares. The writers did an excellent job in transporting me to early Puritan times due to the language they used as well as the talented actors they chose to showcase in the movie. The girl who played Thomasin and the woman who played Katherine were definitely the standouts in an already outstanding cast. I also have to give a round of applause to the other child actors who took such complex roles and made them into their own.
    

     A particular scene that I loved from the film is when Caleb comes home after going missing from the family after being seduced and taken by the witch. What comes next is definitely the most startling part of the film. Caleb is definitely possessed as his mouth becomes sewn and he coughs up an apple that the witch presumably forced into him. The apple symbolizes Caleb’s possession and before he dies, he finds comfort in god with a disturbing, yet cheerful grin on his face. You have to watch the scene to get the full effect of being fearful in that moment of watching the movie, but it is very well done by the actor who plays Caleb.


     Another reason why this film is scary is because of the way Thomasin’s family treats her due to thinking she is a witch. The fact that people were treated this way by family members back in those times is unsettling, and it makes me feel for those who were persecuted because they had different thoughts and feelings then those of the “normal people.” Seriously though, I wanted to reach through my T.V. screen and strangle her family. A theory I have of what the film is trying to convey is that religion can become hypocritical if you always try to find a way bring it into matters. Thomasin is shown to be talking to god throughout the film, but she does not abuse her religion like her mother and father do, especially the mother. The mother constantly brings her religion into every matter. The other family members are shown to be more rooted in their faith than Thomasin, yet she is definitely the one who sins the least in the movie. The mother constantly berates her daughter, her father admits his pride at one point, the twins jeer at Thomasin throughout the movie’s entirety, and Caleb shows lust towards his sister and the witch. To me, the movie’s ending proves this to be valid interpretation of the film’s motivation. 


     The ending of the film shows Thomasin being the sole survivor of the witch’s hands and the family’s madness. This is most likely due to her being saved from the witch because she knows that Thomasin is most like her (and the devil’s) kind. It is ironic that the supposed “good” religion is the one that makes Thomasin feel excluded, yet the supposed “evil” religion embraces her with open arms. At one point in the film, Thomasin pretends that she is a witch and mocks the religion by teasing her twin sister for her constant jabs, yet the religion still includes her with open arms. This is not to say that the religion is not evil because it definitely is, but the movie draws parallels to both religions by showing the family’s extremist religious beliefs that eventually turn “devilish.”


     The goat, Black Phillip, is revealed to be the devil at the end of the film who is responsible for Thomasin joining the cult of witches in the woods which was definitely the other scariest part of the film. It made sense why the twins were misbehaving in the film and why they tried to blame Thomasin for the family’s troubles. The twins eventually reveal that Black Phillip has been talking to them. I think that Black Phillip was just trying to get the twins to do his dirty work by causing chaos on the farm, so that he could find a new follower which would eventually be Thomasin. The scene where Black Phillip stabs the Will, the father, with his horn actually got me. It was the only jump scare in the film, but it served the purpose of Black Phillip getting  Thomasin to join his cult, so he had to get the father out of the way to speed up the process. The twist as a whole was very clever, and I liked how the writers tapped into the lore of goats being devil-like creatures.


     Overall, the movie is well-executed, and it shows a different side of horror that is not explored enough. It plays with your mind, and it makes you wonder if certain things are truly what they seem or not. I did not know about this movie until hearing about it recently which is quite a shame because I feel as if it is underrated and underappreciated. I will eventually rewatch the movie at some point because I feel as if I will see things differently or will interpret the message of the movie in another way. 


Thank you for reading my review and interpretation of The Witch. I would really appreciate some feedback and/or comments if you can. Please be safe and be respectful towards one another!