In the bleak midwinter of folk horror, three films summon ancient terrors to question the fraying threads of faith, family, and femininity.

 

Amid the resurgence of folk horror in the 2010s, few films captured the insidious creep of the supernatural quite like Robert Eggers’s The Witch (2015), Lukas Feigelfeld’s Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse (2017), and Oz Perkins’s The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015). These works, bound by their evocation of isolation and otherworldly feminine power, pit Puritan paranoia against Alpine paganism and Catholic dormitory dread, offering a triad of terror that rewards patient viewers with profound unease.

 

  • Each film masterfully employs slow-burn dread to explore witchcraft as a metaphor for societal exile and repressed desires.
  • Directorial visions diverge in cultural specificity yet converge on atmospheric mastery, from New England woods to Bavarian wilds and upstate snowscapes.
  • Through standout performances and subtle sound design, they redefine horror’s capacity for psychological intimacy over jump scares.

 

Whispers from the Woods: Folk Horror Foundations

The folk horror subgenre, revitalised in the new millennium, draws from rural myths and communal fears, a lineage traceable to British classics like The Wicker Man (1973). Yet The Witch, Hagazussa, and The Blackcoat’s Daughter transplant these roots across transatlantic and temporal divides. Eggers immerses us in 1630s New England, where a banished Puritan family confronts the wilderness’s malevolent spirit. Feigelfeld retreats to 1860s Bavaria, chronicling a pariah accused of witchcraft amid peat bogs and pagan rituals. Perkins, meanwhile, confines his horror to a remote Catholic boarding school during a winter break, blending possession tropes with ambiguous timelines.

These settings are not mere backdrops but characters in their own right, embodying the alienation central to each narrative. The dense, fog-shrouded forests of The Witch symbolise the unknowable divine, echoing historical accounts of Salem-era hysteria documented in Marion Gibson’s folklore studies. In Hagazussa, the marshy isolation mirrors the marginalisation of women branded as heathens, a nod to medieval European witch hunts detailed in Brian Levack’s histories. Perkins’s snowbound academy evokes institutional coldness, reminiscent of mid-century American anxieties over religious indoctrination.

What unites them is a deliberate rejection of urban modernity, forcing confrontations with primordial forces. Eggers consulted primary sources like Cotton Mather’s writings for authenticity, while Feigelfeld immersed himself in ethnographic texts on Alpine shamanism. Perkins drew from personal boarding school experiences, infusing the film with autobiographical chill. This historical grounding elevates their horrors beyond spectacle, inviting viewers to ponder how landscapes encode collective traumas.

Unholy Trinities: Narrative Entanglements

The Witch unfolds with meticulous period detail: Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), the eldest daughter, navigates her family’s unraveling after their expulsion from a plantation for the father’s religious intransigence. Crops fail, the baby vanishes amid a goat named Black Phillip’s eerie bleating, and paranoia festers. The film’s climax erupts in hallucinatory blasphemy, blending grief with temptation. Key cast includes Ralph Ineson as the stern patriarch William and Kate Dickie as the grieving Katherine, their Shakespearean dialogue underscoring the script’s literary roots.

Hagazussa presents a more fragmented odyssey. Maren (Aleksandra Cwen), scarred by village accusations of witchery, lives in hermetic solitude with her daughter. After tragedy strikes, a mysterious wanderer, Ivan, and a swamp-dwelling crone disrupt her fragile peace, spiralling into body horror and ritualistic rebirth. Feigelfeld’s feature debut, shot on 16mm for a grainy, ritualistic texture, features stunning cinematography by Felix Vratny, capturing the Alps’ sublime terror. The narrative’s elliptical structure demands active interpretation, much like a shamanic trance.

Perkins’s The Blackcoat’s Daughter splits across dual timelines: Rose (Kiernan Shipka) and Kat (Lucy Boynton) await parents at St. Augustine’s academy, where demonic whispers prey on loneliness. Parallel strands follow a severed-head-carrying traveller (Emma Roberts), blurring possession with maternal loss. The ensemble, including James Remar and Lauren Holly, delivers restrained intensity, with Perkins’s script layering Catholic iconography over psychological fracture. Production lore notes its festival circuit struggles before A24’s re-release, underscoring its cult appeal.

Comparatively, all three eschew linear exposition for mosaic revelations, mirroring the opacity of folklore. The Witch‘s familial implosion contrasts Hagazussa‘s solitary descent and The Blackcoat’s Daughter‘s institutional entrapment, yet each hinges on a young woman’s ambiguous agency—victim or vessel?

Sorcerous Sisters: Thematic Resonances

At their core, these films interrogate femininity under patriarchal gaze. Thomasin’s arc from dutiful daughter to empowered witch critiques Puritan repression, her nudity in the woods a defiant reclamation echoing feminist readings in Barbara Creed’s monstrous-feminine theory. Maren’s pagan rebirth through bodily fluids and visions subverts Christian binaries, drawing from Carlo Ginzburg’s analyses of shamanic witches. Kat’s possession manifests institutional misogyny, her black coat a shroud of suppressed rage.

Isolation amplifies these dynamics: families, hermits, and dormitories become pressure cookers for supernatural incursion. Religious fundamentalism threads through each—Puritan zeal, Catholic dogma, lingering paganism—questioning faith’s fragility. Eggers frames sin as seductive liberation; Feigelfeld as ecological communion; Perkins as viral contagion.

Class and heredity further bind them. The family’s agrarian toil in The Witch evokes colonial dispossession; Maren’s outcast status reflects peasant marginality; the academy’s privilege masks emotional voids. Trauma begets the uncanny, with grief as portal: lost infants, murdered children, absent parents.

Sexuality simmers unspoken. Black Phillip’s propositions carry queer undertones; Ivan’s homoerotic bond with Maren blurs boundaries; Kat’s rite evokes menstrual horror. These films reclaim the witch as archetype of unruly womanhood, challenging male-authored myths.

Ars Magica: Visual and Sonic Witchcraft

Cinematography conjures dread through natural light and composition. Eggers and Jarin Blaschke lit The Witch with candle flames and overcast skies, the frame’s edges encroaching like encroaching woods. Hagazussa‘s 2.39:1 aspect ratio dwarfs figures against vertiginous peaks, Vratny’s lenses distorting reality. Perkins and John Bailey favoured long takes in The Blackcoat’s Daughter, steam pipes hissing like infernal breath.

Sound design rivals visuals. Mark Korven’s strings in The Witch mimic tortured violins from period accounts; Hagazussa‘s score by Feigelfeld and Timause layers folk chants over ambient drones; Perkins deploys silence punctuated by distant cries. These aural landscapes immerse, proving less-is-more in evoking the unseen.

Effects remain practical and minimal: The Witch‘s goat prosthetics by Adrian Morot; Hagazussa‘s visceral births via makeup artistry; The Blackcoat’s Daughter‘s subtle prosthetics. Authenticity trumps CGI, grounding the ethereal.

Legacy of the Coven: Enduring Enchantments

The Witch grossed modestly but birthed Eggers’s auteur status, influencing A24’s prestige horror wave. Hagazussa, premiering at Sitges, garnered arthouse acclaim despite limited release. The Blackcoat’s Daughter evolved from February, finding fans via streaming. Collectively, they herald slow horror’s viability, cited in Robin Ince’s folk horror overviews.

Production hurdles abound: Eggers crowdfunded initially; Feigelfeld battled funding in Germany; Perkins faced distributor woes. Censorship skirted nudity and implication, preserving ambiguity.

In genre evolution, they bridge Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), prioritising emotional archaeology over gore.

Director in the Spotlight

Robert Eggers, born 1983 in New Hampshire, embodies cinematic revivalism. Raised in a family of artists, he dropped out of high school to pursue theatre, later studying at New York University’s Tisch School briefly before self-educating via film archives. Influences span Dreyer, Bergman, and Powell, fused with American folklore obsession. His 2011 short The Strangest Fish showcased period authenticity, leading to The Witch (2015), a Sundance sensation blending historical research with dread.

The Lighthouse (2019), starring Willem Dafoe and Eggers’s brother Patrick, delved into mythic masculinity via black-and-white 35mm. The Northman (2022) scaled to Viking epic, grossing widely while retaining arthouse rigour. Upcoming The Witch 2 promises expansion. Awards include Gotham nods; interviews reveal meticulous scripts, like consulting 17th-century diaries. Eggers’s oeuvre champions sensory immersion, cementing his as horror’s new visionary.

Full filmography highlights: The Witch (2015, feature debut, Puritan folk horror); The Lighthouse (2019, psychological descent); The Northman (2022, revenge saga); shorts like The Tell-Tale Heart (2004), Henry (2006). Collaborations with Max Eggers on scripts underscore familial synergy.

Actor in the Spotlight

Anya Taylor-Joy, born 1996 in Miami to Argentine-British roots, discovered acting via ballet dreams shattered by health issues. Spotted at 16 in London, she debuted in The Witch (2015), her Thomasin catapulting her to stardom. Dance-honed poise infused the role, earning critics’ praise for subtle ferocity.

Breakthroughs followed: Split (2016) as Casey Cooke; Thoroughbreds (2017) opposite Olivia Cooke; The Queen’s Gambit (2020 miniseries), netting Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards. Emma (2020), The Menu (2022), and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) showcase versatility. Upcoming: Nosferatu (2024) remake.

Filmography: The Witch (2015); Split (2016); Thoroughbreds (2017); Glass (2019); Emma. (2020); The New Mutants (2020); Last Night in Soho (2021); The Menu (2022); The Northman (2022); Amsterdam (2022); Furiosa (2024). Multilingual and multifaceted, Taylor-Joy dominates screens.

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Bibliography

Creed, B. (1993) The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge.

Gibson, M. (2018) Possession: Demonic and Demonical Folklore. Cambridge University Press.

Ginzburg, C. (1991) Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath. University of Chicago Press.

Hutton, R. (2018) The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present. Yale University Press.

Ince, R. (2021) Folk Horror Evolution. Oldcastle Books.

Levack, B. P. (2015) The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Routledge.

Marsh, J. (2020) ‘Interview: Robert Eggers on Historical Accuracy’, Sight and Sound. British Film Institute. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/robert-eggers (Accessed 15 October 2024).

Perkins, O. (2016) ‘Directorial Statement on February’, Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Available at: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/oz-perkins-talks-february/ (Accessed 15 October 2024).