The Babysitter and the 10 best horror movies to watch on Netflix on Halloween 2019
By Carla Davis
5. The Witch
Not all horror movies are frightening because of the amount of knives, blood, or masked killers. Some creep slowly under your skin, making you feel uneasy and twitchy.
Such is the case with 2015’s The Witch, the story of a puritan family in New England who begin experiencing some supernatural events after being banished from their colony over religious disagreements. William (Ralph Ineson) and Catherine (Kate Dickie) live on a farm near the forest with their children Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), twins Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas (Lucas Dawson), and infant Samuel.
In a scene you can watch in the trailer, Samuel disappears abruptly while Thomasin is playing a game of peekaboo with him, and the family is suddenly thrown into a living nightmare. Catherine blames Thomasin for her baby’s disappearance, the twins accuse their older sister of witchcraft and the family goat, Black Philip, appears to speak to the twins.
It only gets worse from there. The Witch is not for everyone, many viewers were disappointed in the slow pace and found the film to be “boring”…but I found it to be very effective and creepy. It gives you a feeling of growing dread, and while I wanted to know how it would end, I was afraid to know how it would end.
Again, Stephen King agrees with me, stating that The Witch scared the hell out of him. And what’s more appropriate for a Halloween movie than a witch?