THE WITCH is a horror movie I have heard nothing but great things about. Even if that weren’t true, the trailer is masterful. Have a look:

HOLY CRAP. Cannot wait.

The film’s official site tells us this much about the story:

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.

This looks exactly like the movie I wanted THE VILLAGE to be — a believable colonial horror story about the frightening things in the forest surrounding a fragile young civilization.

Particularly impressive about that trailer, along with absolutely everything, is the murky but lucid cinematography by Jarin Blaschke and the production design by Craig Lathrop — this looks for all the world like another time, an earlier time, a more vulnerable time, an effect that is smartly enhanced by the all-around casting of great but little-known or unknown faces.

THE WITCH will hit theaters in 2016, which isn’t nearly as far away as it seems.

— JON ABRAMS.

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Jon Abrams

Editor-In-Chief at Daily Grindhouse

Jon Abrams is a New York-based writer, cartoonist, and committed cinemaniac whose complete work and credits can be found at his site, Demon’s Resume. You can contact him on Twitter as @JonZilla___.

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Tags: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ellie Grainger, Goats, Harvey Scrimshaw, Horror, Kate Dickie, Lucas Dawson, Movies Of The Future, Ralph Ineson, Robert Eggers, The Woods, Trailers, Witches