Filmic Friday 243: The Witch (2015)

In Which My Heart Nearly Exploded

I've mentioned in the past that I'm a big wimperooni when it comes to scary movies.

So then why did I watch The Witch?!

And yes, the Hare is very important.

There are many other movies I need to talk about in the near future, but the fact that I saw this movie on Monday and I'm still thinking about it should tell you that The Witch is something truly special.

This movie follows a family of Puritans who have been cast out from their plantation and have to make their home on the edge of the woods. We know only that they have been cast out for religious reasons involving the father, and we know that the eldest daughter, Thomasin, is not at all pleased by this. She does her best to obey and be pious, however.

Because, yeah. They're Puritans. They're super duper religious.

This is a family trying their best to hold themselves together completely cut off from civilization. They work, they pray, they beg forgiveness from an apparently utterly disinterested god.

Thomasin seems to be treated the way most eldest girls were in those days - as a backup mother for the rest of the children while the actual mom does her best to work the farm. I think. To be honest, I don't see her doing an awful lot of helping. She mostly seems to just be resentful and angry, but I would be too if my husband got me kicked out of literally the only thing that stood for a town on the continent....

One day, while watching over the baby, Samuel, Thomasin plays peek-a-boo with the baby. And suddenly he's gone. In the span of covering her eyes and uncovering them, Samuel has been spirited away from Thomasin. And if you're thinking that this is left up to your imagination...

You'd be wrong.

And it's incredibly messed up, despite not showing anything violent.

So poor Thomasin is trying to cope, just like the rest of her family, with the sudden loss of baby Samuel. Then her brother Caleb, who is just old enough to be starting puberty, disappears. The family is in utter disarray and Thomasin is accused of witchcraft.

Which is where I kinda get... tetchy.

See, here's my issue: These parents suck.

Their eldest has complained repeatedly that the youngest two spend all their time hanging out with the big black billy goat, Black Phillip, chanting and dancing and neglecting their work. The little girl even claims to be a witch at one point.

The kids are scream-singing that Black Phillip is "Lord of All The Earth" at one time, and literally everything they say relating to this big. black. goat.

is Satanic.

The kids are so obviously bewitched and they'd rather blame Thomasin because how dare she grow boobs and maybe start her period soon.

These turds. These turds ruin everything for Thomasin.

And despite the fact that Thomasin is constantly being emotionally and psychologically abused by literally everyone but Caleb (because she isn't aware that he's confusedly lusting after her, poor doomed boy) and Samuel (who was a flipping baby), she loves her family so much that she'd happily put herself in danger to help them. Repeatedly. She was even going to run away from them and possibly die in the woods just to make things easier for them.

So of course this story ends very, very poorly for this family.

Heck, by the end of it, you're almost rooting for the witch.

Then again, she did murder a baby and turn it into a potion...

I won't spoil the ending, but I will say this: You'll never look at hares, ravens, or big black goats the same way ever again.

This is, in short, the perfect film to watch when you're feeling spooky.


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