Ten years ago today, The Witch arrived in theaters, not only launching the career of a preeminent historical horror filmmaker but also bringing mainstream attention to a unique, niche corner of the genre: folk horror.
Folk horror—loosely defined—first emerged on screen in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the genre’s foundational works: Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), and (1973). Countless other examples, in both literature and theater, appeared before and after that trio, yet many—especially British TV movies or small-budget productions—vanished into obscurity for decades.
But Eggers’ powerful directorial debut was a box office success, earning . Its triumph opened the door for other major Hollywood releases like Midsommar, plus a wave of indie and international (notably Southeast Asian) films. Archival projects such as Kier-La Janisse’s definitive documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched chronicled a newfound appreciation for the subgenre and its iconography: pagan beliefs, rural settings, mysterious nature, and age-old myths.
Set in a harsh world of Puritan punishment, religious dogma, and nature-infused sorcery, The Witch was more terrifying for what it didn’t show than what it did. When English settler William (Ralph Ineson) and his family are banished from a 1630s New England Puritan village, they build and struggle to maintain an isolated farm on the edge of a vast forest. In that wilderness lives an ancient witch, who begins exerting a malignant influence on the family’s children—including eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy, making a striking feature-film debut) and adolescent son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw).
The title witch, glimpsed only briefly, appears as both a withered, hag-like creature and a voluptuous woman. Yet her presence is felt throughout: in the impenetrable darkness of the woods, the behavior of the family’s animals (including the eerie billy goat Black Phillip). Eggers drenches the film in an atmosphere of persecution and chaos, where the family’s strict Christian rules are no match for the witch’s wild magic and the natural world she inhabits. It’s only in the third act that the film’s mostly implied violence and horror become more tangible.
While what befalls William’s family is horrific, there’s deeper meaning at play. The doomed clan faces what is essentially a force of nature—the witch, for all her evil, represents paganism in that she’s in touch with her true self and spiritually connected to the natural world. The Witch asks: What happens when people living under an imposed structure (here, religious dogma) confront that primal force?
The film offers two answers. Caleb, on the verge of puberty, keeps sneaking glances at his older sister’s budding chest—and it’s no coincidence that when he meets the witch, she appears as a seductive woman with a much fuller neckline. Ravaged (or perhaps tempted) by her, he returns home in agonizing pain, eventually reaffirming his love for Christ and dying peacefully with his faith intact—though his young life is cut short by his adherence to it.
Thomasin, meanwhile, though seemingly as pious as the rest of her family, is offered the chance to “live deliciously” by the Devil in the form of Black Phillip. A taste of butter, a pretty dress—maybe realizing what she’s been missing, the teenager embraces the opportunity to free herself from the narrow constraints of her life. Literally unbound from her repressive, heavy clothing, her family’s devotion to a constrictive faith, and even gravity itself, a naked Thomasin is last seen ascending into the sky with a coven of witches, her face alight with pure ecstasy.
This flips horror’s often patriarchal structure on its head: The Witch is ultimately a tale of female sexual liberation where the Final Girl not only survives but evolves into her truest form—not by staying “pure” and obeying society’s rules, but by embracing her natural, spiritual, even feral essence. In this way, the ending of The Witch echoes the climax of arguably the greatest folk horror film ever, The Wicker Man, which judges none of the people of Summerisle. This is what makes The Witch not just an excellent modern gateway to folk horror, but a subversive comment on horror itself.