The Witch

[projekktor id=’23146′]

The Witch is a gothic horror written and directed by Robert Eggers. The film, which is Eggers’ feature directorial debut, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year where it won the Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic. It stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, and Lucas Dawson.

New England, 1630: William and Katherine lead a devout Christian life, homesteading on the edge of an impassible wilderness, with five children. When their newborn son mysteriously vanishes and their crops fail, the family begins to turn on one another. In his debut feature, writer/director Robert Eggers painstakingly designs an authentic re-creation of New England — generations before the 1692 trials in Salem — evoking the alluring and terrifying power of the timeless witch myth. Told through the eyes of Thomasin, the teenage daughter (in a star- making performance by Anya Taylor-Joy), and supported by haunting camera work and an ominous score, The Witch is a chilling portrait of a family unraveling within their own fears and anxieties, leaving them prey for an inescapable evil.

“I grew up in New England,” says Eggers, “and ever since my childhood, New England’s past has been part of my consciousness and witches have always been part of my nightmares. I wanted to create an archetypal New England horror story, a nightmare from the past. I wanted to create a film that would feel like an inherited nightmare of a puritan family, and take audiences to the childhood place where witches are real and terrifying.”

The Witch is rated 14A.