Here is that rarity, a genuinely frightening horror film based in real fear and dread of things that go bump in the night. Robert Eggers, in his feature debut as writer-director, uses his 1630s New England setting to unsettle us with signs of evil that have become unfamiliar: rotten apples, a dead bird in an egg, horny rams, and a truly wicked-looking rabbit. (It’s worth wondering just where Eggers found a bunny that could look so menacing and nasty.)
A Puritan family is cast out of their community, and they are forced to take refuge near a sinister wood. There is stern father William (Ralph Ineson), his equally stoic wife Katherine (Kate Dickie), their blonde daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is blossoming into womanhood, her younger brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), and two bratty younger twins.