Taglines: A New-England Folktale.
In the 17th Century, in New England, the farmer William and his family are banished from the Puritan plantation controlled by the church due to differences in religion principles. William leaves the spot with his wife Katherine; his teenage daughter Thomasin; his son Caleb and the twins Mercy and Jonas and settles at the edge of a forest. They build a small house and Katherine delivers the baby Samuel.
One day, Thomasin is playing with Samuel near the forest and the baby mysteriously vanishes. The family unsuccessfully seeks Sam out and Katherine becomes insane, praying all the time and mistreating and blaming her daughter for everything wrong in their lives. However, Sam was abducted and slaughtered by a witch that lives in the woods that used his blood to paint her body. William goes to the forest to hunt since the crop has failed and he confides to his son that he sold Katherine’s silver goblet o buy supplies. However he is a bad hunter and misses his target. In the farm, the twins tell Thomasin that they speak to the goat Black Phillip. While having dinner, Katherine accuses Thomasin of losing her cup and William does not tell the truth. During the night
Thomasin and the children overhear her mother telling William to deliver Thomasin to work for another family. Early in the morning, Caleb, Thomasin, their dog and the family horse go to hunt in the woods. However Thomasin falls from the horse and faints, Caleb becomes lost in the woods and stumbles upon his dead dog first and upon a seductive woman later. William finds Thomasin and Katherine confronts her about Caleb’s fate. When the boy returns naked and with fever, the twins accuse Thomasnin of witchcraft and she discloses that they speak to the goat, in the beginning of the tragic end of their family.
The Witch: A New-England Folktale (stylized The VVitch) is a 2015 period supernatural horror film written and directed by Robert Eggers in his directorial debut. The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson. The Witch follows a Puritan family encountering forces of evil in the woods beyond their New England farm.
An international co-production of the United States and Canada, the film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2015 and was widely released by A24 on February 19, 2016. The film received positive reviews and was a box office success, grossing $40 million against a budget of $4 million.
In order to give the film an authentic look, Eggers shot only “with natural light and indoors, the only lighting was candles”. Eggers also chose to stylize the film’s title as “The VVitch” in its title sequence and on posters, stating that he found this spelling in a Jacobean era pamphlet on witchcraft, along with other period texts.
In December 2013, costume designer Linda Muir joined the crew, and consulted 35 books in the Clothes of the Common People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England series to plan the costumes. The costumes were made with wool, linen, or hemp. Muir also lobbied for a larger costume budget.
Mark Korven wrote the film’s score, which aimed to be “tense and dissonant”, while focusing on minimalism. Eggers vetoed the use of any electronic instruments and “didn’t want any traditional harmony or melody in the score”, and so Korven chose to create music with atypical instruments, including the nyckelharpa and the waterphone. He knew that the director liked to retain a degree of creative control, so he relied on loose play centered on improvisation “so that [Eggers] could move notes around whenever he wanted”.
The Witch
Directed by: Robert Eggers
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Julian Richings, Bathsheba Garnett, Madlen Sopadzhiyan
Screenplay by: Robert Eggers
Production Design by: Craig Lathrop
Cinematography by: Jarin Blaschke
Film Editing by: Louise Ford
Costume Design by: Linda Muir
Set Decoration by: Mary Kirkland
Music by: Mark Korven
MPAA Rating: R for disturbing violent content and graphic nudity.
Studio: A24 Films
Release Date: February 26, 2016
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