A24 has announced it will release Robert Eggers’ period horror movie “The Witch” nationwide on Feb. 26, 2016.
Written and directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Eggers, “The Witch” will go head-to-head at the box office with Timur Bekmambetov‘s big-budget remake of “Ben-Hur.”
“The Witch” brings together the age-old concepts of witchcraft, black magic and possession to tell the intimate story of one god-fearing family’s frightful unraveling in the New England wilderness circa 1630, before the Salem witch trials of 1692.
Upon threat of banishment by the church, an English farmer leaves his colonial plantation, relocating his wife and five children to a remote plot of land on the edge of an ominous forest — within which lurks an unknown evil. Strange and unsettling things begin to happen almost immediately — animals turn malevolent, crops fail, and one child disappears as another becomes seemingly possessed by an evil spirit. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, family members accuse teenage daughter Thomasin (newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy) of witchcraft, charges she adamantly denies. As circumstances grow more treacherous, each family member’s faith, loyalty and love become tested in shocking and unforgettable ways.
The film co-stars Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson, and was produced by Lars Knudsen, Jay Van Hoy, Rodrigo Teixeira, Daniel Bekerman and Jodi Redmond.
“The Witch” premiered to great acclaim at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where Eggers won the Best Director Prize in the U.S. Narrative Competition.
Watch the trailer below and let us know what you think in the comments section.