Exteriors comprise misty greys and sepulchral greens those candle-lit interiors possess an amber tint evocative of silent cinema.

In place of smeared visuals delivered by churning cameras is a gallery of precisely framed pictures.

Such stylistic rigour is in opposition to the found-footage films that have dominated the horror genre this century. Worse, their mother and father are paying heed…Ĭonjuring the spirit of such convincing occult dramas as Carl Theodor Dreyer's Day Of Wrath, Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General and Piers Haggard’s The Blood On Satan’s Claw, The Witch favours verisimilitude, formal exactitude and insidious dread over cheap shocks.Įggers, a native of New England, unfailingly transports viewers to a forbidding time and place through the specificity of his costumes, sets and sound design, while DoP Jarin Blaschke’s austere images are painted in natural light – and, of course, darkness the pale moon and flickering candles can rarely brighten the edges of the frame. The family is imploding, and it's not long before young twins Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson) are taking their older sister at her taunting word and proclaiming her a witch. Then Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), the second eldest after Thomasin, is found catatonic in the woods. The loss leads to guilt, prayers and recriminations, all intensified when the crop fails. It begins when the youngest child, an infant named Samuel, inexplicably disappears while being safeguarded by his teenage sister, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy). Here, in striking isolation, the atmosphere incrementally ratchets from disquietude to hysteria over 90 taut, unforgiving minutes. Banished from a plantation for his proudly stubborn beliefs, a farmer, William (Ralph Ineson), takes his wife, Katherine (Katie Dickie), and five children to set up home on the edge of a wood. But the fracturing of a family at the narrative's poisoned heart can equally be attributed to the severity of patriarchal rule, fanatical religion and hardscrabble agrarian life. Yes, there are images of unnatural happenings so potent as to elicit audible gasps from the audience.

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