The Witch

[Warning: spoilers ahead...although, frankly, you might read this and realize that this film is not what you would have expected. As always, read at your own risk.]

The Witch is not exactly a horror movie in the classic sense. It is, however, a great example of Gothic horror, which is why I was assigned this film for a class on--you guessed it--Gothic horror.

Why is not traditional? Well, there aren't a lot of jump scares or gory moments (although it does have a few moments that come close). There also really isn't a whole lot that happens throughout the span of the movie, other than the slow unraveling of a family in crisis. Unlike Final Destination or The Shining, our characters don't spend a lot of time investigating or running from the supernatural things that plague them. Also, they speak as one would expect early Puritan settlers to speak.

Side note: I love Ralph Ineson, but between his deep voice and the Old English dialect (much of which is taken directly from accounts and witch trials of the day), it can be hard to follow the conversation sometimes. And most of the plot happens in the conversations...except when there's eerie silence.

What The Witch does, instead, is take the symbolic aspects of horror to new levels. Horror expresses our deepest fears and our darkest desires. It often exaggerates the worst parts of our society and our world in monstrous ways, warning us about the dangers of following a certain path. The horror in this movie is not in the supernatural story as much as it is in the message within that story.

After watching The Witch for the first time, I thought that the director was making a comment about religion, like: “Look, these people had faith and it still couldn’t save them! The devil invaded their family and the witches destroyed them!” But something didn’t feel right about that interpretation.

And then it hit me! When the family is expelled from the Puritan settlement at the beginning of the film, it's for the charge of heresy. Over and over again the film makes it clear that this heresy is the father’s belief that one must live a perfect, sinless life to reach heaven. His is a works-based faith. What I was missing the first time was the fact that this belief is what made the family a perfect target for the devil and his witches.

Viewers are led to believe that it is this dangerous, looming forest and the family’s isolation that make them easy prey. After all, the bleak woods dominate many of the scenes throughout the film. And that is the place where everything first starts to go wrong. Yet Black Phillip, the devil in the form of a goat, comes with the family when they leave the settlement. This means that he was already focused on them, and their expulsion from the village either aided him or came about because of him. Their isolation only made them easier to hunt.

Whether the devil set his sights on the family because of the father's beliefs, or whether he somehow encouraged the heresy, is hard to say. We don't enter the story until the damage is already done. When the baby is taken, everyone's faith is shaken. They are concerned that the poor child has died and gone to hell because he was selfish and sinful. And then they begin to doubt their own salvation.

The farther into the movie we get, the more we realize that everyone in the family has been hiding something. They have all been lying to one another, pretending that their struggles with greed, jealousy, lust, and anger do not exist. This fosters resentment between family members, but also with themselves.

Because they placed their hope in their own efforts, in doing everything right, this led to shame so deep that they could not even admit their faults to one another. They were already tearing themselves apart. And they were losing hope, because they knew in their hearts that they had already failed to do what they believed was necessary for salvation.
Enter the devil who promises them that they no longer need to be good to have a good life. Why would Thomasin (the daughter) turn that offer down? A life of luxury without rules seems far more enjoyable than a miserable life with impossible rules.
If only they had believed in forgiveness, in new life. There would have been so much more hope, because one small mistake (or even one tremendously awful decision) would not be enough to take away their salvation.
So it seems that the horror of this film doesn't lie in the witches, the murders, or the possessed children (although they are seriously CREEPY). The most horrifying thing that you will take away from this movie is the thought that putting your trust in something other than God could open you up to the devil's ploys, because the possibility is all too real.
Is your family likely to be attacked by witches if you place your faith in the wrong things? Doubtful. But this movie makes me wonder whether the Salem witch trials were simply mass hysteria, or if the devil might have occasionally been playing into the fears of people like this family. Either way, The Witch has a serious warning that I think we need to heed: if we rely on our own efforts to be saved, we are doomed to failure...or worse.