The Witch 2024

During the period of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a woman who reluctantly went to a gloomy Istanbul mansion as a bride, and the mysterious owner of the mansion, will go on a journey to the dark secrets of the past together.

Review

After kicking off with an atmospheric but orthodox piece of hoary British witchfinder gothic, Witch takes a genuinely unexpected and ambitious swerve after 45 minutes; as if writer-directors Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit had divined a scenario through a Ouija board during a fly agaric bender in the small hours. Divulging it would earn a dose of the ducking stool, and in any case it’s not quite clear that all the details hold up. But to broach the general nature of their devilry, it zooms this story of religious persecution out into a multiverse-type entanglement.

In 1575, the Horned One appears to have targeted the town of Dawnbrook; a woman takes to its streets carrying her parents’ severed heads. But at the murderer’s trial, blacksmith’s wife Twyla (Sarah Alexandra Marks) unexpectedly finds herself in line for a 16th-century cancellation when the accused fingers her as a diabolic accomplice. The uncanny thing is that this development was predicted by Thomas (Russell Shaw), the raving drifter about town who, given the pentangle-covered grimoire he is carrying, probably bears listening to. So she, staunch hubby William (Ryan Spong) and this dungeon-dodging Gandalf head for the woods.