The Real Life Horrors That Inform The Witch

In case you don’t already know: I really liked Robert Eggers’ The Witch. A lot, in fact! So much that apart from that there review I just linked, I also wrote this nifty little piece about some of the film’s historical and cultural foregrounding. The long and short of it is that 17th century New England was sort of a crummy place to live, and that the strict religious dogmas of colonial leadership combined with the age’s bloodcurdling mythologies about witches, witchcraft, and the devil make up the film’s true horror component. I read books in preparation for writing that piece. Actual books. (Also, some Internet stuff. But books, too. Support your local library.) You can read the piece in its full glory over at Birth. Movies. Death., assuming these things are of interest to you.

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