With few good horror movies to hit the big screen so far this year, “The Witch” was quite promising. Unfortunately, instead of treating us with what could have been a terrifying tale of the first signs of religious paranoia, the film turned into a boring church service in which one finds themselves looking at their watch to see how much longer the drudgery will last.

Set in New England in 1630, the film begins with William, played by Ralph Ineson, and his family consisting of his wife and five children being banished from their small village for blasphemy. Believing himself to be a true Christian, William sees this as an opportunity to start their lives over. Leaving the village, the family built their home and barn right on the edge of a massive forest.

Soon after the family settles in, the eldest child Thomasin, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, has her baby brother Sam taken from her. This was when the drama amongst the family really began. Their mother, Katherine, played by Katie Dickie, seems to loathe Thomasin more and more as the days pass, blaming her for the loss of Sam.

The second-oldest child, Caleb, played by Harvey Scrimshaw, starts to take notice of Thomasin’s changing body and is concerned with sinning. And the two young twins, Mercy and Jonas, played by Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson, begin to play creepy games seemingly just to infuriate Thomasin.

As the days go on, the twins start to accuse Thomasin of being a witch, and when Caleb goes missing and she is the one to find him naked and apparently cursed, the rest of the family begins to turn on her as well. Desperately trying to prove her innocence, Thomasin used the odd relationship that the twins have with a black goat on the farm as leverage when she accuses them of being witches too. Soon the family is plagued with paranoia. No one knows who to trust anymore which causes more accusations, cruel punishments and unwarranted deaths.

“The Witch” was pretty much a combination of two different stories: “The Crucible” and “The Shining.” “The Witch” took crazed religious paranoia and complete isolation and tried miserably to mix them.

With the Salem Witch Trials a few decades later, the combination could have been the perfect setup for the mass hysteria that would ensue due to the many accusations of witchcraft in the coming years. But the movie was unable to bring the true terror of those days to the screen.

The story seemed to drag on with very little happening. Though there were a couple of very suspenseful moments, they were too far separated to have a major impact on the overall scariness of the movie. At one point, an exorcism seemed like it might be underway, but the climactic scene ended with very little accomplished and the audience wondering what the point was.

Though the script was terrible, there were still some high points to the film. The costume design and cinematography were awesome and the acting from Taylor-Joy was superb. Having to play a very big role for her age, she showed great promise and definitely made a name for herself as an upcoming star.

“The Witch” overall was not what one would consider a horror movie. Supposedly a folk tale straight from the original New England settlers, the actual story was decent, but the film itself was very dull. With the era in which the movie takes place already providing a frightening piece of American history, “The Witch” had the chance to be a good movie, but with its few scares, poor script and godawful ending, it turned into a nightmare — and not the kind worth paying for.