"The Witch"

The Witch is perhaps the most provocative movie we watched this maymester. Riddled with themes of incest, sin, and demonic coercion, it’s a movie that you feel long after it’s over. What’s so brilliant about this movie is how mysterious it is. There’s a family of settlers, succeeded from their community, in the middle of the wildlands, forced to survive on their own. We are given an establishing shot early on of the dark, mysterious wood, and with score cues, we’re warned that these woods are rather threatening. There is also talk of a witch, among the family, which adds another fear element. All this mixed in with their oppressive religious beliefs makes for a big messy paranoia stew. Sexuality plays a role here as well. We first get the feel for this when Caleb eyes his sister’s chest down by the creek…a very odd and seemingly out of place shot that almost forces you to ask… “did that really just happen?” It did, and it happens again. There is also the unsettlingly familiar relationship between Thomasin and the father, as we see in the seen where she unclothes him in front of the family. Not to mention the times that the father comes to bat for her even after suspecting her to be a witch. Then there’s also the weird Freudian rivalry between the mother and Thomasin for the father’s attention…it’s a mess. The only queer moment, perhaps, is when the coven of witches gets together at the end of the film. An amass of naked, androgynous bodies flail around and dance by a fire, then begin to levitate. A particular close up of Thomasin shows a rather…orgasmic face being made as she levitates.