I went to this movie primarily as a fan of 1630 history, thinking of Malick’s The New World perhaps, as I am not a fan of horror movies in general. The movie didn’t disappoint, with an early scene that looked liked it was filmed at Plymouth Plantation (which was listed in the credits).
A Puritan family is kicked out of a community, and they go off to the woods in order to pursue their own biblical interpretation. They do set up a small farm on the edge of ominous woods, with creepy music the whole time. They have a grim existence in grey twilight. In a blink of an eye, a new baby disappears: a wolf, or a witch?
The movie embeds you in an era where witchcraft was real, palpable and close by. The language is all “thees” and “thous”, taken largely from period documents and court records, and is sometimes quite difficult to understand.
The oldest daughter jokes to her siblings that she is a witch to scare them, but then her brother is possessed, or maybe the younger twins are? Creepy, and scary with sudden shocks, and a consistent slow and moody atmosphere.
The film was filmed in Mattawa, Ontario, way up near North Bay, but it could easily have been Anywhere, New England.