The Witch

Quote Originally Posted by Nirvana In Karma

There's been some criticism of the film's "mixed messages", namely whether or not the family's religious hysteria was justified on account that the witch was incontrovertibly real. The secularist in my was admittedly troubled by this at first; but, if the viewer considers the film in the context of its subtitle--A New England Folk Tale--then the reaction from the family would be rendered just as natural as a fairy tale character's nonchalance to a talking animal or a magical object. The film is a period piece above all else, and Puritan hysteria was of course every bit a part of the period as the religious persecution and the wilderness farmstead also present in the film.

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What do you mean by this? From my admittedly limited experience hysteria is rarely rationally justified or helpful whether one is faced with persons stealing babies, supernatural entities stealing babies, non-supernatural entities stealing babies, and generic fear of random variables stealing babies.

I think the end of this review by The A. V. Club articulates what I mean better than I do myself:

http://www.avclub.com/review/17th-ce...e-level-232153

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Is The Witch a vivid portrait of theological paranoia, showing a small community torn apart by its irrational suspicions? Or is it a cautionary tale about a family of Christians who leave the church, only to discover that such unfounded fears actually aren’t unfounded? Eggers seems to want it to be both, but the result is a horror movie that comes dangerously close to showing sympathy for the real devils, the kind that burned witches instead of instructing them.