The Witch Movie Review 396

The Witch is a 2015 horror movie directed by Robert Eggers and starring Ralph Ineson, Anna Taylor-Joy and Kate Dickie.

The movie is set in New England in the 1600's and deals with a Puritan family led by William(Ineson) who gets his family banished from a plantation where they were living for some reason. The family have to go and live out in the wilderness near a creepy wood. The mother, Katherine(Dickie) gives birth to another child. She already has two daughters and two sons. The baby is called Samuel. Their daughter is Thomasin(Taylor-Joy) and they have twins called Mercy and Jonas. Their other son is called Caleb. One day, Thomas is taking care of Samuel when he disappears. In reality, he has been taken by a witch who lives in the woods who kills him and uses his blood for herself.

The family are devastated by the loss of the child. William takes Caleb hunting in the woods and they have a strange chat about Samuel etc. Back at the farm, the twins are pretending that they can talk to their black goat who is called Black Phillip. Thomasin gets fed up with it and she tells the twins that she is a witch, They believe her. Katherine begins to blame her for the disappearance of Samuel. The next day, Caleb is going hunting alone when Thomasin insists on going with him into the woods. They get into trouble when their dog chases a hare and disappears into the woods. Caleb follows, leaving Thomasin alone. She gets thrown from her horse and knocked out. Caleb finds his dog dead.
He finds a shack in the woods and a young woman comes out and brings him inside. It is the witch in disguise.Thomasin manages to find her way out and runs into her dad.

Caleb returns naked and in a bad way. He is very ill and Katherine blames Thomasin. He dies after saying a prayer and the twins tell her that Thomasin is a witch and that is why these things are happening. The parents don't know what to think and when Thomasin tells her parents that the twins have been talking to the goat i.e the Devil, William locks them all in a shed. That night, the witch visits and drinks the blood of the animals. Katherine sees her dead children and goes a bit mad. William goes down the next day to the shed and finds the animals dead, the twins gone and Thomasin with blood on her. 

William gets gored by Black Phillip and dies. Katherine sees this and blames Thomasin and tries to kill her. Thomasin kills her in self defence. She goes to see Black Phillip and asks him to talk to her which he does. He is the Devil and he offers her whatever she wants if she puts her name in his book.
She does so and then she goes out to the woods and finds a witches coven and joins in willingly. The film ends with her being lifted in the air and becoming a witch. This film was entertaining. It was creepy in parts. Some parts were a little slow, but on the whole, it was good. I liked the sense of dread that runs through this and even though the ending was a bit off, this is worth a watch if you enjoy a solid horror movie. I will give it a 7/10.