But it also reflects the very real social dangers women faced at the time. In America it peaked with the Salem witch trials in New England at the end of the 17 th century. The craze for denouncing witches consumed Europe for centuries, killing thousands – mostly women – accused of cavorting with the Devil. Either way, the film tells a social history of witch hunting through the lens of the horror genre. The Witch ends with a statement that the film’s dialogue comes from journals, diaries and court records. The digraph VV or uu often substituted – hence we call W ‘double-u’ in English. The title appears as ‘The VVitch’ because the letter W wasn’t yet common in the 17 th century. Yet the true source of the terror may not be supernatural at all. Its characters tell tales of witches, goats and devils to scare each other (as do we when we tell horror stories). These cues are so familiar that we don’t need to be aware of them to fall under their spell.īut if The Witch appears to be a conventional horror film, like Get Out its unease lies in the unexotic everyday. Religious extremism and arcane knowledge that morphs into supernatural events.Isolated and forbidden places (wilderness, woods, social boundaries).Gloomy location, subdued lighting, muted colours.A jarring soundtrack of unearthly, whispered chants (see also The Omen).These cues hint at what we can expect, ramping up tension as a result:
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The Witch relies on horror genre staples to weave a story full of dread. In 17th-century New England a pilgrim family clash with the church and are banished to the wilderness – where they soon fall prey to supernatural forces. Religious extremism, misogyny and madness stoke fears of the supernatural in The Witch, a folk tale rooted in horror and history.
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