‘The Witch’ Teases Evil in Many Forms With New Poster and Spooky Website

Mark your calendars for February 26, 2016. That’s the day your minds will be blown by The Witch, the exceptional and eerie debut film from Robert Eggers that’s been stirring up film festival audiences all year. If you’re familiar with The Witch, you’re probably familiar with the film’s supporting character and mascot, a mischievous goat named Black Phillip. A new poster offers another form of evil by introducing a sharp-eyed raven, while A24 has opened an official website for the upcoming horror film.

The Witch first knocked audiences out at Sundance back in January before amassing even more fans at Fantastic Fest several months later. A24 cleverly acquired the film, adding it to their growing library of great titles, and had they released it this year, The Witch likely would have wound up on several year-end top 10 lists — and I don’t mean annual best of horror lists, but general best of the year lists. It’s that good.

A24 has released a new poster featuring a raven, and debuted the film’s official website, EvilTakesManyForms.com. While the website is somewhat sparse for the time being, it’s appropriately atmospheric.

Eggers’ debut feature is confident and well-researched, telling the story of a religious New England family decades before the Salem witch trials. Cast out from their colony, the family settles on an isolated farm, and it doesn’t take long before the faith they’ve staunchly clung to is horrifically tested:

New England, 1630: William and Katherine lead a devout Christian life, homesteading on the edge of an impassible wilderness, with five children. When their newborn son mysteriously vanishes and their crops fail, the family begins to turn on one another. In his debut feature, writer/director Robert Eggers painstakingly designs an authentic re-creation of New England — generations before the 1692 trials in Salem — evoking the alluring and terrifying power of the timeless witch myth. Told through the eyes of Thomasin, the teenage daughter (in a star-making performance by Anya Taylor-Joy), and supported by haunting camera work and an ominous score, The Witch is a chilling portrait of a family unraveling within their own fears and anxieties, leaving them prey for an inescapable evil.

I say again: mark your calendars for February 26, 2016. You won’t regret it.