The Devil’s Nursemaid: Unravelling the Witch’s Grip on Folk Horror

In the frostbitten wilds of New England, a family’s pious facade crumbles under the gaze of an ancient evil that whispers promises of freedom through screams of damnation.

This exploration peels back the layers of Robert Eggers’s 2015 masterpiece, zeroing in on the enigmatic Witch whose presence permeates every frame, embodying the raw terror of folk horror while dissecting the nature of evil rooted in Puritan paranoia and folklore.

• A meticulous character breakdown of the Witch, revealing her multifaceted manifestations and psychological manipulations.
• The film’s masterful invocation of folk horror traditions, blending historical authenticity with primal dread.
• An explanation of the Witch’s evil as a mirror to human frailty, patriarchy, and repressed desires.

Exile into the Unknown

The film opens with a family banished from their plantation for rigid religious beliefs, thrust into an isolated farmstead encircled by impenetrable woods. William, the stern patriarch played by Ralph Ineson, clings to his patriarchal authority, while his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie) frets over their newborn’s sudden disappearance. This infant vanishing, snatched in broad daylight, sets the tone: the wilderness harbours something voracious. The Witch, though unseen at first, asserts her influence through absence, her malice inferred from the family’s mounting hysteria. Eggers draws from 17th-century Puritan journals, crafting a world where every creak of timber or rustle of leaves signals potential damnation.

Thomasin, the eldest daughter portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy in her breakout role, becomes the focal point of suspicion. As livestock bleeds unnaturally and her brother Caleb ventures into the woods, the Witch’s shadow lengthens. Her first corporeal glimpse arrives in a grotesque tableau: an elderly crone, naked and anointed in animal fat, muttering incantations over a fire. This figure, inspired by European witch trial testimonies, embodies the folkloric hag who consorts with the Devil. Eggers consulted primary sources like Cotton Mather’s writings, ensuring the Witch’s depiction resonates with historical authenticity rather than Hollywood caricature.

The narrative spirals as accusations fly within the family. Caleb returns catatonic, muttering of a seductive maiden in the woods—a younger incarnation of the Witch who seduces him with promises of carnal release. This duality in her form underscores her shapeshifting nature, drawn from New England folklore where witches assumed guises to lure the pious astray. The boy’s fevered ravings expose the undercurrents of repressed sexuality, with the Witch exploiting the family’s denial of bodily urges.

Manifestations of Malice

The Witch’s character defies singular embodiment; she is protean, adapting to prey upon vulnerabilities. In her hag form, she is repulsive yet commanding, her emaciated body smeared with gore symbolising communion with the profane. Bathsheba Garnett’s portrayal in this sequence is visceral, her contorted movements evoking accounts from the Salem witch trials where accused women were said to transform into beasts. Later, as the alluring temptress glimpsed by Caleb, she morphs into a vision of forbidden beauty, her whispers blending seduction with coercion.

Most iconically, the Witch inhabits Black Phillip, the family’s black goat, whose piercing gaze and unnatural intelligence culminate in a chilling monologue. Voiced with sinister velvet by a post-credits whisper (often attributed to Eggers himself), Black Phillip offers Thomasin sovereignty: “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” This line, pulled from period diaries, encapsulates the Witch’s allure—not brute force, but the temptation of autonomy in a world that shackles women. The goat form nods to sabbat lore, where the Devil appeared as a horned beast, demanding pacts sealed in blood.

Her manipulations are psychological scalpels. She amplifies familial fractures: pitting siblings against each other, eroding William’s authority through failed crops and prideful hunts, and preying on Katherine’s grief. The Witch does not merely kill; she orchestrates damnation, forcing the family to self-destruct. This breakdown reveals her as less a monster than a catalyst, exposing the rot within Puritan zealotry. Scholars like Adam Scovell in his study of folk horror note how such figures represent the ‘pagan’ wild reclaiming Christian order.

In the climax, Thomasin—now fully ensnared—sheds her modesty, signs the Devil’s book, and joins the Witch’s coven in ecstatic flight. This transformation flips the script: the Witch is not vanquished but victorious, her evil proliferating through the next generation. Eggers frames this not as tragedy but liberation, challenging viewers to question whose side morality truly favours.

Folk Horror Roots Unearthed

Folk horror, as defined by Scovell, thrives on landscapes haunted by atavistic forces, and the film’s woods pulse with this energy. The Witch elevates the subgenre by rooting it in American soil, diverging from British touchstones like The Wicker Man. Eggers immerses the viewer in 1630s vernacular, with dialogue lifted verbatim from trial transcripts, creating an oppressive authenticity that blurs history and horror.

The evil here is locative, tied to the land’s pagan underbelly. New England’s forests, once Algonquian territory, swallow the settlers’ God, regurgitating witchcraft myths imported from Europe. The Witch channels this collision: her rituals echo Lancashire witch hunts, while Black Phillip evokes indigenous trickster spirits reimagined through colonial lens. Production designer Craig Lathrop recreated 17th-century architecture using historical blueprints, amplifying isolation’s claustrophobia.

Class and gender dynamics infuse the terror. William’s failed patriarchy mirrors real Puritan bread riots, his pride blinding him to providence. The Witch exploits this, her offers to Thomasin promising escape from domestic drudgery. Feminist readings, as explored by critics like Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, position her as subversive force against misogynistic piety, where women’s bodies become battlegrounds for spectral wars.

Sounds of the Sabbat

Eggers’s sound design, courtesy of Martin Pavey, weaponises silence and the supernatural. The Witch’s presence manifests in off-screen groans, baby cries morphing into goat bleats, and a droning score blending period instruments with dissonance. Caleb’s seduction scene layers breathy incantations over rustling leaves, building unbearable tension without visual excess.

Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography employs natural light, shadows elongating like accusatory fingers. The Witch’s firelit rituals glow with hellish warmth, contrasting the farmstead’s grey pallor. Practical effects ground her horrors: the hare’s unnatural stare achieved through taxidermy and puppetry, Black Phillip’s head via animatronics. These choices eschew CGI, preserving folk horror’s tactile dread.

Evil’s True Face

The Witch’s malevolence transcends supernaturalism; she incarnates human failings. Puritan doctrine posited witches as real agents of Satan, yet Eggers suggests the true horror lies in fanaticism’s self-fulfilling prophecies. The family’s accusations mirror Salem’s hysteria, where fear birthed monsters. Her evil thrives on isolation, repression, and power imbalances, making her timeless.

Influence ripples outward: the film birthed a folk horror renaissance, inspiring works like Midsommar. Its Cannes premiere acclaim validated indie horror’s arthouse potential, grossing over $40 million on a $4 million budget. Eggers’s script, honed over years, drew from his childhood fascination with family lore, transforming personal myth into universal nightmare.

Ultimately, the Witch endures because she indicts us. In an era of resurgent fundamentalism, her whisper—”live deliciously”—tempts with relevance, reminding that evil often dons the face of desire fulfilled.

Director in the Spotlight

Robert Eggers, born in 1983 in New Hampshire, grew up immersed in the eerie landscapes that would define his career. Descended from sea captains, he absorbed maritime folklore from his father, a mental health worker, and his mother, an actress. After studying painting at Rhode Island School of Design, Eggers pivoted to theatre, working as a production designer and puppeteer in New York. His short film The Tell-Tale Heart (2014), adapting Poe with meticulous period detail, caught A24’s eye, leading to his feature debut.

The Witch (2015) marked Eggers as a visionary, earning the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. He followed with The Lighthouse (2019), a claustrophobic black-and-white descent starring Willem Dafoe and Eggers’s Lighthouse (2019), a claustrophobic black-and-white descent starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, exploring cabin fever and myth. The Northman (2022), a Viking revenge saga with Alexander Skarsgård, showcased his command of historical epics, blending shamanism and brutality. Upcoming projects include a Nosferatu remake (2024), promising gothic opulence. Eggers’s films obsess over authenticity—consulting linguists for dialogue, historians for props—while delving into masculinity, folklore, and madness. Influenced by Dreyer, Bergman, and Powell, he bridges arthouse and genre, cementing his status as horror’s foremost auteur.

Actor in the Spotlight

Anya Taylor-Joy, born in 1996 in Miami to a British-Argentinian family, spent her early years in Argentina before moving to London at age six. Discovered busking at 16, she trained at Drama Centre London, debuting in The Split (2012). Her role as Thomasin in The Witch catapulted her to stardom, earning Gotham Award nomination for the raw vulnerability and feral transformation she brought to the pious teen turned witch.

Taylor-Joy’s career exploded with Split (2016) as a captive alongside James McAvoy’s beast, showcasing her intensity. Thoroughbreds (2017) paired her with Olivia Cooke in dark comedy, followed by The Favourite (2018) as a cunning courtier. Her Emmy-nominated turn as Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit (2020) blended fragility and steel. Blockbusters ensued: Emma (2020), The New Mutants (2020), and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024). She voices Peach in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and stars in Kinds of Kindness (2024). With BAFTA and Golden Globe nods, Taylor-Joy embodies ethereal menace, her wide eyes piercing screens across genres.

Bibliography

Scovell, A. (2017) Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Penned in the Margins.

Heller-Nicholas, A. (2021) ‘Witchcraft and Women in Robert Eggers’s The VVitch‘, in Horror Film Feminism. McFarland, pp. 145-162.

Eggers, R. (2016) ‘The VVitch: A New England Folktale – Director’s Diary’, A24 Production Notes. Available at: https://a24films.com/notes/2016/2/19/the-vvitch (Accessed 15 October 2024).

Rebello, S. (2015) ‘Puritan Paranoia: Historical Sources for The Witch‘, Fangoria, 352, pp. 34-39.

Wood, R. (2018) ‘Folk Horror Revival: The Witch and the American Wilderness’, Sight & Sound, 28(5), pp. 22-25.

Mather, C. (1693) Wonders of the Invisible World. Printed by John Foster.

Taylor-Joy, A. (2020) Interviewed by S. Obenson for IndieWire: ‘From Thomasin to Gambit’. Available at: https://www.indiewire.com/2020/11/anya-taylor-joy-the-witch-queens-gambit-1234598765/ (Accessed 15 October 2024).