Christa H

I appreciated this film for its style and commitment to authentic dialogue and portrayal of the lifestyle of a 1600s (extremely) Calvinist family. It was certainly eerie and disturbing at parts, but hardly horror. It was a slow paced movie with a lot of unnecessary and non-sensical scenes. I found myself not scared at the end, but rather amused by how cliche it suddenly became. It’s a typical tale of the subtly misogynist “hysterical seductress” trope, wherein the underage daughter is pinned as a witch. At the end, it becomes clear that her own mother resents her based on a perception of her daughter’s sexuality. Perhaps the most chilling part about this movie is not the witchcraft, but how religious zealots turn against each other so quickly in the face of trauma and paranoia.