Welcome back my Darling Readers to another Magical Media Analysis!    Today’s post will focus on The Witch the film from 2015 that made Anya Taylor-Joy a household name for horror fans.    It is a very incredibly well-done film that is far from your average horror fare.   It is not a simple blood and guts-slasher flick or even the regular haunted house film.   Instead, The Witch is an atmospheric masterpiece that causes the viewer to become increasingly uncomfortable. 

First off, I want to praise the technical choices made by the film.   The film chose to use natural light and candlelight whenever possible during the filming process, lending a bleak and realistic element to the period film.    Other than that, the choice of using period-appropriate language was something that sent this from mere horror fare into the realm of high art!    Much of the language used when explaining witch beliefs were rooted in old witch-hunting manuals, like the Malleus Malificarum.   The film even used the subtitle“A New England Folktale” in order to play up the fact that the film was based on folklore.   

Events play out in the film in a way that seems to mirror the iconic witch trials of Europe and America.    I see much inspiration taken from accounts of the Pendle and Salem Witch Trials, even though this film takes place after Pendle and decades prior to Salem.   Accusations become the catalyst for hysteria.   Women are the ones most likely to be accused, especially those that seem like outcasts.   That is why widows, midwives, and women from families that are outside of normal societies in some way are at the highest risk of being accused.    In the case of The Witch, Thomasin is accused of being a witch by her own family.    She is the first to say she is a witch when she is scaring her younger sister, but she was just teasing, it is not long before her whole family fully believes that she is a witch who killed her baby brother and besotted her other brother!    Her burgeoning sexuality, and her brother’s attraction to her, are likewise a catalyst for viewing her in a negative light.    Thomasin is within a family that is not a normal set of Puritans, being even further extreme in their oppressive religious beliefs.   This is what leads them to so easily believe that she is a witch.  Her brother had natural urges, but being outside of society he was unable to aim those feelings toward an appropriate female and they were instead targeted at his own sister!   We now know that it would not be Thomasin’s fault, as it is her brother’s hormones and she did not encourage it, but in her time this was seen as the act of the Devil, of bewitchment.  

All of the magick used within the film is based on this folkloric beliefs and folk magick practices that we know were period appropriate.   That begins with the making of the Witch’s Ointment by the Witch in the Woods.    That is why she had taken the baby brother at the beginning of the film, killing him in order to use his body parts (fats especially) to concoct her ointment that will allow her to fly!   I do not know if people who were unfamiliar with the belief in witches killing babies to make flying ointment actually caught on to what was happening in the scene, however, it is easy to see for anyone with a good amount of folkloric witch knowledge.   I was very impressed by the way they chose to actually depict her slathering ointment on a broomstick and naked body, as this aligned perfectly with what witches were said to do when using this ointment.   The ointment is something that likely was used by witches practicing folk magick in a very different way.   Instead of applying it to a broom to literally fly, or making it from human flesh, the ointment would have been made from animal by-products and plant life and applied only to the skin of the witch in order to help them fly in a metaphoric sense.   That would allow her to go into a trance and gain insights via traveling astrally!    The other piece of magical belief of the period used was Black Phillip being the Devil.   Goats have long been associated with the Devil and witches in that era were seen as minions of the Devil.    So this was sort of a period-appropriate use of the goat and Devil association to show how Thomasin gets seduced into being a witch for real.   She ends up signing his book, a very common belief in folklore and witch-hunting manuals.   Signing the book bound your pact as a witch in service of Satan.    Finally, she gets the freedom by meeting with her new coven in the Woods to celebrate going sky-clad beneath a blanket of stars!   In the end, she is happy because she is finally free from the constraints of her family, but is now bound by Satan.    While real folk witches in that era would have been Christian in some way, I do enjoy that the film kept to the real beliefs surrounding witchcraft during the time period.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading my analysis of this very incredibly interesting film.   Are you a fan of The Witch?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is an artist’s rendition of a version of the poster.   I found the image on https://posterspy.com/posters/the-witch-10/.

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Further Watching/Reading

• The Witch (2015)
• Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer & Jacob Sprenger