Which is more evil? The old New England woods or the Puritan dad whose inability to get along with others results in his family living on the edge of those woods?
This review chooses dad.
We all know about banished colonists. Warwick settler Samuel Gorton was one of those guys. Rhode Island founder Roger Williams was one, too. Massachusetts didn’t like those men.
In The Witch, Plymouth Colony doesn’t like William either, and he, his wife Katherine, and their children Thomasin, Caleb, Mercy, Jonas, and Samuel are cast out.
The first family member to be done in is baby Samuel. Innocents never stand a chance in these stories. Then, poor Thomasin becomes a suspect in Samuel's disappearance. It’s never good when mom and dad think you’ve abducted the baby, but it makes the witches happy.
Mercy and Jonas are twins, which means they’re really creepy, and the family’s goat Black Philip has those weird eyes that goats have. He is a black goat, but the family’s just asking for trouble by naming him Black Philip.
Everything goes deliciously wrong, including when family members start talking to Black Phil.
It’s a wonderful witch story and satisfyingly dark and frightening. It’s also a good representation of that time when Samuel and Roger were roaming about Rhode Island. It was a real threat to your life to be banished then, whether you ran into a witch or not.
Watch it on Kanopy.