The Salem Witch Trials haunt our culture, and are one of the inevitable points of discussion whenever a debate arises concerning the merits of atheism or religious belief. I think one aspect of the phenomenon is often overlooked: human beings have a tendency to externalize the emotions of the moment. The early New England settlers were stressed to the core of their psyche from a long voyage across the seas, followed by a hardscrabble life amid alien woodlands which claimed their loved ones at a frightening rate. It isn’t hard to understand why they would have been prone to see evil lurking in every shadow, and faith as their only reliable weapon against that evil. The new world, after all, had taken just as much from them as they from it. From their point of view, it probably paid to be paranoid.

The fallout of this paranoia were the infamous events all of us are familiar with. Considering what happened in Salem, the family at the center of the 2015’s The Witch appear to make out a bit better for a time. And then they stumble across something horrifying.

The film omits last names, so all we know is that sometime in the early 17th century, something has transpired to place deeply-pious farmer William (Ralph Ineson) in the crosshairs of a puritan English community. The price for his transgressions–whether real or not–is banishment, but when William and his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie) find what appears to be an ideal plot of land in which to homestead, all seems to have worked out. It won’t, of course, and the scene of their prayer of thanks for this apparent blessing is scored with chilling music.

But for a short while things seem relatively mundane. Being the 17th century, much is expected of the children in the family, and the film takes a subtle but significant early stance that too much is asked of Thomasin, a teenager on the verge of womanhood, played here by Anna Taylor-Joy.

Atmospherically, everything is top-notch. As viewers, we grow to dread the woods and what is in them just as much as the on-screen characters do. The film finds a way to deny us any kind of refuge from its sense of creeping malice. Watch the shots and notice how inadequate the shelter and defenses appear to be, how after a time it never feels like it’s fully daylight, but instead a netherworld of eternal dusk.

Obviously there’s witchcraft afoot. The filmmakers leaned heavily on alleged real-life witch activities, which were sometimes shocking. That, coupled with the period-accurate speech, immerses us into the film in a way that generic slashers and modern thrillers simply don’t.

This is the third review in a row in my series that is focused on a film with a female lead, and those three films examine differing manifestations of almost-suffocating expectations made of women. Certainly Thomasin’s plight is a sympathetic one. When strange things begin to happen, fraying the relationships in her family to the breaking point, Thomasin is made to be the scapegoat. In one shocking scene, otherwise well-meaning William basically backdoor blames Thomasin for their latest set of woes. The young woman is injured in a steady, sequential fashion by her loved ones.

The film is careful to step around this dynamic without painting upon the family the cinematic equivalent of villainous mustaches. We can still sympathize with almost all of them, even when they’re guilty of saying or doing horrible things to each other. The only weak point I found was the portrayal of, and writing for, Thomasin’s two youngest siblings. They come off as totally unrepentant hellions (though, to be fair, they are only a minor part of the tale). As a side note, there’s a bit of foreshadowing in the scenes involving those two, but it doesn’t spoil what waits later on.

And what waits is a climax and a conclusion that, the film seems to argue, we should have seen coming. And in making that point, The implication is obvious: why didn’t we? Whether we agree with its message, or not, The Witch is genuinely frightening and fairly deep to boot, and you should watch it.

We’re coming into the home stretch of this review series. Up next, it’s time to lock and load, check your fire, and fight back against the dark.