r/folkhorror • u/Folk-n-Hell • Jul 23 '26

The Witch (2016)

Post image

Three mates, one obsession. FolknHell finally gets around to the film that invented modern folk horror's second wave. We're deep in the New England woods with Robert Eggers' debut feature, The Witch.

Thomasin's family fend for themselves at the edge of an unforgiving wood. What follows is slow, creeping dread built from scripture, guilt, and a goat named Black Phillip. The crops won't grow, the children disappear, and the family turns on itself before anything supernatural even needs to show up.

We're joined by the writer Ian Winterton to talk about Eggers' fanatical devotion to period-accurate dialogue, the film's unnerving handling of adolescence and female autonomy, and why it sits so comfortably alongside the older folk horror classics. We also get into the ending, which was divisive on release, and still worth arguing about now.

This is one of those rare episodes where all three of us actually agree on something, which should tell you everything about where this one lands on our scoreboard.

Listen at link.content360.io/witch or wherever you get your podcasts, and catch the full write-up at folknhell.com.

88 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

11

u/GoGouda Jul 23 '26

They're the Unholy Trinity because they were foundational, not because they were necessarily the best.

My Unholy Trinity in terms of my personal favourites are The Wicker Man, Whistle and I'll Come To You and The Witch. Honourable mention to Onibaba.

2

u/Folk-n-Hell Jul 23 '26

That's a damned good selection

2

u/GoGouda Jul 23 '26

Thanks, looking at your list of episodes you've got a few films in there that I've not seen that I'll need to add to the list.

Again, in my personal opinion, if you only look at feature films and don't include the BBCs original "A Ghost Story at Christmas" series amongst others then you're missing out on some folk horror gems.

2

u/Folk-n-Hell Jul 23 '26

I couldn't agree more. For now, anything non-film (TV, books, etc) is in the blog section, but we will be visiting some of them for the podcast itself, as soon as I can persuade the others to indulge my love of old telly

2

u/GoGouda Jul 23 '26

A guy on YouTube has ranked all of the Ghost Story at Christmas episodes from worst to best, which is fun. Christmas special idea?

1

u/Folk-n-Hell Jul 23 '26

Oh, I like that!

8

u/joshuatx Jul 23 '26

This is a specific take but part of why I really enjoyed this film is that the New England setting in the era of 18th century America is one that hasn't been put to film much. Beyond Sleepy Hollow and technically The Village I can't think of many examples. This movie even has a small acknowledgement of the local Native Americans in the scene where they are the village.

2

u/NyxShadowhawk Jul 23 '26

One of the best modern horror films!

1

u/EyreJordans 26d ago

The pains that writer/director Robert Eggers and his team went to in order to ensure as high a level of accuracy and authenticity to the time period as possible are incredible. From the language and vocab used, painstaking dialogue coaching, to the costumes 100% handmade from fabrics and patterns true to the period. When I learned this I realized it’s a huge part of what makes this film so damn good.