MOVIES | Robert Eggers | 2015

The Witch, a 2015 cinematic entry in the "new horror" genre, critically reshaping the landscape of film by offering a revelatory glimpse into the occult and esoteric through aesthetic data.

Set in 17th-century New England, the film is subtitled "A New-England Folktale". It meticulously crafts a narrative centred on a Puritan family, too rigid even for their contemporary Puritan community, who are cast out or voluntarily depart from their plantation and establish a homestead in the untamed wilderness.

The film plunges this isolated family unit into a harrowing confrontation with perceived external evil and their own internal corruption, ultimately leading to their disintegration.

#### Setting and Initial Conflict

The film opens with the family—comprising a mother, father, the eldest daughter Thomassin, a younger brother, and a pair of Gemini twins, alongside an infant—carving out a precarious existence on the frontier.

Their daily life is depicted through the sounds of nature and their industrious activities, reflecting 17th-century New England. The initial catalyst for the family's descent into horror occurs when Thomassin, while playing peekaboo with the infant, removes her hands to find the child vanished. A rustling sound in the distant crisp leaves and woodland suggests an unknown entity.

This event immediately introduces ambiguity: is the evil an external entity, or is it a product of the family's internal hysteria, drawing them into a conflict that turns them against one another?

This deliberate ambiguity is characteristic of the "new horror" genre.

#### Familial Decay and Supernatural Infiltration

The disappearance of the infant precipitates a blame game, with the mother accusing Thomassin. This initial conflict underscores the family's internal wickedness and pride, which, despite their self-proclaimed apostolic succession and Old Testament-style rectitude, causes them to turn on each other.

The father, attempting to be the patriarchal figure, is revealed as a facade of weakness, carrying the guilt of having stolen and sold a silver cup belonging to his wife, allowing Thomassin to bear the blame for the lost child.

His ineffectiveness as a leader is further highlighted during a hunting scene where his flintlock misfires, humbling him in his son's eyes without truly humbling his spirit. The family unit, intended to be intertwined and self-sufficient for survival in the wilderness, instead alienates its members, allowing an "outside force" to exploit their deepest fears.

The film introduces increasingly disturbing elements that manifest the external supernatural. The soundscape is crucial, filling the void in consciousness and imagination, with otherworldly music signaling evil infiltration.

The appearance of familiar spirits, such as a hair (rabbit), marks the growing presence of malevolent forces. The familiar is an old name for a rabbit, and its frequent breeding often alludes to sexual implications, linking to the boy following the rabbit and his subsequent encounter with the "Scarlet woman". The raven, a bird automatically associated with evil, is also present. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the raven's croak signals Duncan's fatal entrance. Similarly, in The Witch, a raven is seen preying on the mother, plucking at her breast, symbolising a first blood sacrifice.

#### The Witch Figure and Black Phillip

The emergence of the physical witch is depicted in a horrifying sequence: a haggard, disgusting old Baba Yaga applies a red paste to herself and her broom, then ascends into the moon, signifying an inversion of spiritual ascension into a form of "proto-transhumanism" through earthbound, age-defying witches.

This act, explicitly termed impure Satanism, involves coating herself in the "blood of the Innocence" and rising into the lunar Spirit. This mirrors the historical figure of Elizabeth Báthory (1560-1614), the "blood countess," who was obsessed with bathing in blood to retain youth, a practice that led to the torture, bleeding, and murder of numerous serving girls.

The smearing with blood in The Witch directly correlates with the sustenance of vampires and the belief that blood, as the river of life, can be used in magical charms and spells to acquire power or bring others under one's control. The drinking of blood is seen as an inversion of the Christian Eucharist, offering living forever on Earth through living blood as opposed to the blood of Christ.

Black Phillip, the family's black goat, becomes a central figure. The father, Ralph Ineson, is specifically cast to resemble Black Phillip, with a "goatish face" and widely set eyes. The Gemini twins chant Black Phillip's name, having seen the witch riding. Black Phillip is identified as the Baphomet goat and the Devil himself, speaking to Thomassin and offering her the taste of butter, a pretty dress, and the desire "to live deliciously". This offers a stark contrast to the barrenness and austerity of the Puritan religion.

The devil is the conqueror goat, promising freedom, lust, and sensuality, opposing the iconoclasm and barrenness of the Puritan faith.

#### Connections to Literature and Myth

The Witch draws heavily on New England literary tradition and folklore.

• Nathaniel Hawthorne's _The Scarlet Letter_:

The film shares the setting of the New England wilderness and explores the conflict between individuals and a rigid community. The Scarlet Letter examines the eeriness of internal moral conflict within a village, whereas The Witch externalises it into a literal supernatural force. The impostor theme in The Scarlet Letter, where Chillingworth reappears unrecognised, resonates with a broader societal alienation.

• Washington Irving's _The Devil and Tom Walker_: This short story, set in Puritan woods, features a miserly couple isolated from their town, and Tom Walker's encounter with "Old Scratch" (the devil) to gain riches through usury. The devil ultimately claims Tom Walker's soul, just as Black Phillip seeks Thomassin's. The devil asks "what would thou have for me," echoing Black Phillip's offer.
• Arthur Miller's _The Crucible_: The film reflects the hysterical aspect of The Crucible, particularly in how the Gemini twins' accusations and the family's internal turning on each other mirror the Salem witch trials. In The Crucible, girls caught performing rituals turn on the townspeople, leading to the hanging of innocent people. The Witch plays on this "snitch culture" that backfires within the family.

#### Shakespearean Parallels:

Macbeth : The Witch is intricately linked to William Shakespeare's Macbeth, considered a bulwark for understanding witchcraft in art. Lady Macbeth and Thomassin are perceived as similar characters.

• Witchcraft and the Occult:

Macbeth features the three "weird sisters," an inversion of the Trinity, speaking in a trochaic hexameter, against the natural order of things. Their incantations, beginning with Round about the cauldron go, in the poison entrails throw," are derived from real witches' spells.

Macbeth's demand, "How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags! What is't you do?", is mirrored in Thomassin's conjuring of Black Phillip: "Wilt thou speak to me, Black Phillip? I conjure thee. Dost thou not understand my English tongue?". Both Macbeth and Thomassin purposefully engage with Demonic entities.

• Familiar Spirits and Necromancy:

The witches in Macbeth collect dead body parts and grease from a corpse hanging on the gallows for their brew, highlighting the practice of necromancy (prophecy by way of the dead). This aligns with the dark magical practices in The Witch, such as the witch's use of blood of the Innocent. King James I's Daemonologie and contemporary beliefs underscore the use of dead bodies for occult purposes and the threat of such practices.

• Corruption and Blight:

In Macbeth, as in Oedipus Rex, internal corruption and evil within a kingdom or family lead to an external plague or blight on the land and crops. This is directly represented in The Witch by the blight on the crops, symbolising the moral decay within the family.

• Dissociation and Moral Decline:

Macbeth, like Thomassin, undergoes a transformation, dissociating from his original self and becoming a different being. Both characters, through their choices, fall into corruption. The film subtly implies incestuous undertones within Thomassin's family, paralleling the "disgusting creeper shenanigans" and dissociative aspects found in tragic figures like Oedipus.

• Fatalism and Equivocation:

Both Macbeth and The Witch explore themes of predetermined fate versus Free Will. Macbeth's lies become truths, and Thomassin's truths are interpreted as lies by her family, highlighting the theme of equivocation.

• Binding and Anti-Baptism:

The concept of "binding," a common description of witch's action, is evident in Macbeth. The devil's compact, as seen in both the play and the film, is a parody and cancellation of the rights of baptism, where the individual renounces their Christian covenant. The shedding of blood to form the devil's Mark becomes a mock circumcision, an anti-baptism certificate. This is paralleled by Thomassin's eventual signing of the "Black Book of death" with the devil.

#### Thomassin's Initiation and the Black Sabbath

Thomassin's journey culminates in her full initiation into a witch's coven. After the death of her remaining family members, she is drawn by the tempting sound of bells, reminiscent of Lucifer's belled shoes, to Black Phillip.

She actively conjures him, asking, "Dost thou not understand my English tongue?". Black Phillip, representing Satan, responds, "What dost thou want?". Thomassin requests "the taste of butter, a pretty dress," and the desire "to live deliciously". She agrees to sign her name in the "Black Book of death," symbolising the transfer of her soul to the devil. Unable to write, her hand is guided by the devil.

This leads to a Black Sabbath where Thomassin, naked, walks into the wilderness and joins a group of witches dancing Goya-style around a bonfire, speaking in Enochian. They levitate, and she joins them, smiling and laughing, covered in blood, signifying her apotheosis and ecstatic fall into hell.

This climax embodies the deterioration of the family, questioning religion, questioning oneself, destruction of Innocence, slaughter of the first blood sacrifice, and the animation of animals by spirits. Her decision represents a complete inversion of Christian salvation, embracing living forever as gross disgusting creature being, through pride and hubris.

#### Symbolism and Themes

• Puritanical Gnosticism and Hedonistic Reaction:

The film portrays the Puritan religion as a weird Calvinist Gnosticism, an austerity and asceticism that demonises natural desires and art. This repressive environment creates an extreme pendulum swing, leading to a reaction of Hedonism and Satanism, where good is evil and evil is good. Thomassin's transformation embodies this rebellion against sterile, legalistic religion.

• The Family as Society:

Once the family is isolated, the family unit itself becomes their entire society. Their inability to cooperate and their internal conflicts allow an external force to take root, leading to their mutual destruction.

• Inversion of Creation and Sacrifice:

The film employs imagery that inverts biblical themes. The sacrifice of the innocent baby and the mother's first blood are perverted blood rituals. The father's death under a woodpile, representing his industry, is a corruption under the temple that he's made to his industry.

• Dream Sending:

The concept of dream sending, a means of influencing or attacking someone via a familiar or animal in dreams, is a belief associated with witches and sorcerers. This practice, rooted in the belief that dreams are real experiences, involves dispatching a wear animal to invade a person's dreams, mirroring subtle manipulations within the film.

#### Thematic Parallels with Norse Mythology

Although distinct, The Witch shares thematic and archetypal parallels with Norse mythology, particularly in the concept of creation, destruction, and a cyclical eschatology.

• Creation from Void and Recurring Cycles:

Norse myths describe creation from a primordial void (Ginnungagap), a concept mirroring Genesis. The world is formed from the body of a giant (Ymir), with his blood forming seas, flesh forming land, bones forming mountains, and skull forming the sky. This process, along with elements like a cataclysmic flood and an ark (Bergelmir), show parallels to biblical accounts of creation and Noah's Ark, albeit in a disfigured manner. The recurring motif of expulsion and new creation in biblical theology finds echoes in Norse sagas.

• Cosmological Structure:

The Norse cosmology features nine worlds connected by the world tree Yggdrasil, which can be seen as analogous to the Tree of Life. Yggdrasil has three roots, one above the well of wisdom, connecting different realms of being. This resonates with various ancient cosmological structures, including the Sephiroth. The film's symbolic representations of the family tree and bloodline, shown as veins emanating from a heart, connect to this notion of interconnected life and lineage.

• Dying Gods and Redemption:

Odin, the All-Father, in his quest for knowledge, sacrifices an eye at Mimir's well and hangs himself from Yggdrasil, impaling himself on his spear, to acquire runes and wisdom.

This voluntary suffering and hanging on a tree, followed by gaining power, exhibits parallels to the crucifixion and deification in Christian theology, where Christ is "cursed... by hanging on a tree" and then resurrected. Thor's final battle against the Midgard Serpent, where he defeats the serpent but succumbs to its poison, reflects Christ's victory over evil through sacrifice.

• Ragnarök and Eschatology:

The Norse concept of Ragnarök, the end of days where the world is destroyed by fire and chaos, and gods are slain, echoes biblical descriptions of conflagration and the end times. The turning of brother against brother, the breakdown of kinship, and the disappearance of the sun and moon are also shared motifs. However, Ragnarök also entails a rebirth, with a new world emerging and new human life beginning, paralleling the new heavens and the new earth in Christian eschatology.

• Animal Symbolism and Archetypes:

Animals play significant roles. Ravens (Hugin and Munin) gather information for Odin. Wolves (Geri and Freki) accompany Odin, and the giant wolf Fenrir plays a crucial role in Ragnarök, devouring Odin. The film's use of animals as familiar spirits aligns with this mythological tradition.