The Witch [Includes Digital Copy] [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray]

Director: Robert Eggers Robert Eggers

Overview

A devout Puritan family in 1630s New England are exiled from their village, and struggle to survive in their new home situated at the edge of a mysterious forest. The sinister, witching forces in the wilderness emerge silently to terrorize them, first by kidnapping the youngest of their five children. As their life-sustaining crops fail, the clan fall victim to paranoia and fear as they begin to turn on one another, eventually suspecting teenage daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) of witchcraft. With the vast majority of the dialogue culled from primary sources from the time period, Robert Eggers' debut feature The Witch is a terrifying glimpse into a family descending into madness.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/23/2019
UPC:	0031398301486
Original Release:	2015
Source:	LIONS GAT
Language:	English
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	8,763

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Anya Taylor-Joy	Thomasin
Ralph Ineson	William
Kate Dickie	Katherine
Harvey Scrimshaw	Caleb
Ellie Grainger	Mercy
Lucas Dawson	Jonas
Julian Richings	Governor
Bathsheba Garnett	The Witch
Sarah Stephens	Young Witch
Wahab Chaudhry	Black Phillip,Actor
Brooklyn Herd	Noble Girl,Peasant Man 1
Viv Moore	Lead Coven Dancing Witch
Jeff Smith	Nobleman
Madlen Sopadzhiyan	Coven Witch
Ron G. Young	White Trapper
Karen Kaeja	Coven Witch
Carrie Clayton	Coven Witch
Annawon Weeden	Wampanoag Man
Mark Korven	Composer

Technical Credits

Robert Eggers

Robert Eggers	Director,Screenwriter
Lars Knudsen	Producer
Jay van Hoy	Producer
Rodrigo Teixeira	Producer
Daniel Bekerman	Producer
Jodi Redmond	Producer
Julia Godzinskaya	Executive Producer,Producer
Alex Sagalchik	Executive Producer,Producer
Chris Columbus	Executive Producer,Executive Producer,Producer,Producer
Lucas Ochoa	Executive Producer,Producer
Thomas Benski	Executive Producer,Producer
Lon Molnar	Executive Producer
Alexandra Johnes	Executive Producer,Producer
Jonathan Bronfman	Executive Producer,Producer
Lourenço Sant'anna	Executive Producer
Michael Sackler	Executive Producer,Producer
Adam Stein	Sound/Sound Designer
Jason Knight	Casting
Kharmel Cochrane	Casting
John Buchan	Casting
Brian Campbell	Production Manager
Robert Turi	Sound Mixer,Sound Effects
Robert Racki	Stunts
Eric Bryson	Stunts
Luc Benning	Special Effects Supervisor
Sophie Mas	Executive Producer,Producer
Christopher Guglick	Sound Effects
Jason Perreira	Sound Effects
Orest Sushko	Sound Effects
Lourenço Sant' Anna	Producer
Richard Hypolite	Special Effects
Carrie Clayton	Stunts

Editorial Reviews

The arrival of Robert Eggers' debut feature marks the beginning of the end of cinema's winter-season doldrums. A darling of the 2015 festival circuit, The Witch garnered a tremendous amount of hype and earned itself a nationwide release from indie bellwethers A24. This tale of bewitching forces in Colonial America is a richly textured horror film that should pique the interest of a broader audience. In 1630s New England, a devout Puritan family are exiled from their community and banished to live in a solitary home on the edge of a mysterious woods. William (Ralph Ineson) and Katherine (Kate Dickie) have five children: teenage Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), preteen Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), young twins Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson), and newborn Samuel. The clan attempt to soldier on by growing their own crops, hunting their own game, and praying for salvation from the menacing wilderness that surrounds them. But soon after their exile, Samuel vanishes into the forest in broad daylight while under Thomasin's care. As William and Caleb search desperately for the child, other ominous events begin to occur. Animals deftly evade William's bullets, and their life-sustaining crops fail. The already self-punishing Puritans ask what they've done to offend a vengeful God, and eventually start to turn on one another. Wrapped in fervent fanaticism, grief, and fear of the witching forces amongst them, the family slowly descend into madness. Eggers' script was drawn from a wealth of primary sources from 17th century New England, most of them involving encounters with the sinister and inexplicable. The dialogue can feel inaccessible at times, but The Witch achieves a stylish sense of hyperrealism by taking its characters' interactions directly from historical documents. This aesthetic only works with a talented and devoted cast, and the actors are perhaps the most crucial reason why The Witch succeeds. Ineson is magnetic as he bellows out Bible verses and desperately tries to keep his sanity. Dickie is overcome with sorrow at the loss of her youngest child, and her piercing despair sets the tone of desperation throughout the film. And Taylor-Joy is superb as the developing Thomasin, who is torn between her parents' delusions, her siblings' distrust, and the undeniable evil lurking around her. Eggers has little interest in the horror hallmarks of the last two decades -- there are no jump scares or CGI experiments. The Witch revels in its own milieu of Puritanical nightmare, blending together myth, isolation, and religious superstition into a movie soaked in dread. Mark Korven's discordant score is as essential to the mood as the gothic gorgeousness of cinematographer Jarin Blaschke's images, which fluctuate between the frightening expanse of unsettled America and the claustrophobia of this family's calamity. These elements synthesize with Eggers' painstaking re-creation of New England's past to create a hypnotic and psychologically engrossing picture. The Witch presents its terror as a slow-burning spiral of anxiety, daring viewers to look away. The Witch joins recent breakthroughs like Under the Skin, Goodnight Mommy, and It Follows as harbingers of a new breed of auteurist horror filmmaking. The genre has suffered for far too long under the constraints of sequels, adaptations, and remakes, and as the found-footage trend has run its course, cinema is ready for a new wave of stylized, immersive horror. Eggers' shocking debut feature is the first must-see genre movie of 2016.