Form 02-B · First look briefing
The Witch
A Puritan family's stolen infant, a billy goat that speaks, and a daughter blamed for it all, exiled to a farm the ancient wood is slowly devouring.
> The corn rotted first. Then the children.
> Evil takes the shape your faith already fears.
> Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
Synopsis
Banished from a plantation for his prideful conceit, William moves his family — wife Katherine, eldest daughter Thomasin, son Caleb, the twins Jonas and Mercy, and baby Samuel — to a fledgling farm at the foot of a vast, ancient wood. The crop fails to fungus. The traps catch nothing. And during an ordinary game of peek-a-boo at the tree line, Samuel vanishes between one heartbeat and the next. What follows is the slow strangulation of a household that has nowhere left to turn but inward. Grief curdles Katherine's faith into stone. William chops wood against a rage he cannot name and hides a secret about a missing silver cup. Caleb crosses the forbidden threshold of the wood and comes back changed. As bread runs short and prayers go unanswered, the family begins to suspect the rot is among them — and the twins, whispering to a black billy goat named Black Phillip, point their small fingers at Thomasin. A piety scene by a hearth, a goat's milk turning to blood, a brother's silent scream: each ordinary domestic moment tightens toward something the wood has been waiting for.
Themes
Puritan faith curdling into paranoia and damnation
The family's piety is its undoing: catechism in the wood becomes Caleb's terror over whether the lost Samuel is damned, and Katherine's certainty that God has cursed them slides into a hunt for the witch in their own house.
The wilderness as supernatural threat and temptation
The wood is never neutral. It looms behind the family's first joyful prayer like giants, swallows the children who cross into it, and at the end becomes the place Thomasin rides willingly into — threat turned invitation.
Female sexuality and autonomy as the family's terror
Katherine learns Thomasin has begun her womanhood and resolves to send her away to serve another family; Caleb's guilty gaze, the witch's seductive red-cloaked young form, and Black Phillip's bestial menace all bind a girl's emerging selfhood to the household's dread.
Sin, grace and predestination
William trades Katherine's silver cup for traps and swears Caleb to a lie, and the question of election — who is saved, who is damned — haunts every prayer, paying off in Caleb's ecstatic, possessed death.
Family disintegration under grief and accusation
Each loss splinters the household further: a missing cup blamed on Thomasin, a marriage rupturing in the rain, a father locking his children in a goat shed — until the survivors turn on one another with billhook and bare hands.
Scope at a Glance
approx. 6-9 meaningful moves (front-loaded travel arc from plantation to wilderness to clearing to farm, then sustained farm/wood alternation)
The real pressure points are the saturation of night exteriors in a forbidding wood (26 night scenes, 57 with exterior work), child and infant performers carrying possession and seizure beats, three named animal performers including a goat that must gore, ram, and "transform," and a battery of practical effects — fog and rain rigs, a rigged collapsing woodpile, the witch's dual-form prosthetics, and a blood-milking goat.
Atmosphere
This is a film of grey light and held breath. It opens indoors, on Thomasin's still, frightened farm-girl face in close-up while fifty silent Puritans listen to her father condemned, and that compression never lets go. When the militia close the tall palisade doors on the snow-covered village and the family rides off in a rickety cart, the world does not open up into adventure. It narrows. The wilderness of light March snow swallows a tiny family walking on and on, and the ancient wood of enormous pines stands behind their first circle of prayer like giants. The air is cold, damp, and prematurely dark. Everything is the color of wet ash, woodsmoke, and unwashed wool. The pace is patient to the point of cruelty. Long stretches of grinding labor accumulate without relief: Thomasin heaving goat dung from the shed, balancing a sloshing water pail across the muddy yard, William and Caleb cutting patchy dying corn with their backs to us. Over these chores a child's prayer carries in voice-over, piety stretched thin over dread. Then the film detonates quietly. A baby vanishes between blinks during a game of peek-a-boo, the weeds shivering where something just ran through, and the rest is a slow tightening. The threat is rarely loud. It is the empty wooden cradle Fowler keeps watch over while Katherine weeps behind the bed curtains. It is an ear of Indian corn split open on malignant fungus, hurled into the hazy dawn. It is a goat with rectangular pupils staring a beat too long. What curdles here is faith itself. Father and son recite catechism among towering pines while Caleb presses whether his lost baby brother is damned in hell, and the lesson turns to terror about election and grace. The horror is theological before it is supernatural: a household convinced that grief is punishment, that a daughter on the cusp of womanhood is a danger, that God has already turned His face away. When the supernatural does arrive it is bodily and obscene, the naked old witch raising a rusty knife over the baby as moonlight pours through the torn thatch, her body later clicking and clacking up through the smoke-hole toward the moon. Blood squirts from a teat into a milking pail. A boy retches a small rotting apple and dies in disturbingly erotic ecstasy. A week later you remember textures more than plot: the towering precarious woodpile leaning over the chopping block, the goat-bells clanking on the tethered twins as the clickety-clackety creeps closer through the treetops, Katherine in the dark suckling a black raven where she believed her baby to be, and the final firelight as Thomasin laughs with tears on her cheeks and lifts off the ground into the night.
Tonal Descriptors
Reference Points
single tallow-flame light carving faces out of total black in the canopy bed and garret; darkness as the dominant element.
the grinding bodily labor of corn-cutting and dung-hauling in grey northern light, figures small against landscape.
the obscene, talon-and-crone imagery of the naked witch, suckling the goat with bloody jaws, the coven dancing around the fire.
bleached browns and greys of the failing farm, dead grass and weathered wood, beauty in barrenness.
faith interrogated in tight, still faces; the catechism scene and Katherine's prayer behind the bed curtains.
raw, untrained massed voices for the family's hymn and the sonic identity of Puritan devotion under strain.
Music & Sound
The score should sound like a voice scraping the edge of the human range: massed, atonal choral textures, dissonant strings, a nyckelharpa or hurdy-gurdy whine, dry percussion like bone on wood. Keep it original and period-adjacent rather than orchestral or melodic, closer to a religious dread than a horror jolt. The most frightening cues are the ones that swell out of near-silence, a chorus rising as the camera tilts up to the wood after Samuel vanishes, then cuts to nothing. Restraint is everything. For long passages there should be no score at all, only the wet world: wind in the pines, rain on thatch, the rasp of an axe at the chopping block, Thomasin's prayer threading in voice-over over the chores. Several moments must let sound do the killing. The old woman hums a haunting song off screen as she grinds the baby into ointment, and that humming returns, sweeter, to lure Caleb down the winding path. The recurring clickety-clackety, born when the naked witch clatters up through her roof against the branches, should be the film's heartbeat of dread, drifting in over the treetops at the stream, over the goat shed, growing louder until it sits directly above the children. Let the goat-bells on the tethered twins clank into terror during the night attack. Let Black Phillip's first words land in cold, near-subsonic quiet, the candle and the jangling spurs the only other sound. And let the diegetic music carry meaning: Katherine's hymn as the family is exiled, the twins' Black Phillip nursery rhyme curdling from play into accusation. When music stays out entirely, the human animal should be loud. A baby's laughter cut off mid-game. Caleb's utterly silent scream, eyes rolled back. The chop heard off the baby. Branches breaking onto the shed roof, then scratching, then digging at the wall. The whole sound design wants to feel handmade and close-miked, never glossy.
Soundtrack References
steal the way atonal strings build into physical dread under quiet frontier labor, music as a pressure that precedes any violence.
borrow the queasy, sliding string textures that make the uncanny feel bodily and wrong rather than spooky.
take the dissonant, period-adjacent unease that lets a single sustained note carry an entire scene of spiritual sickness.
lift the dry, breath-heavy, woodwind-and-percussion menace that grows out of domestic grief into ritual horror.
Color Palette
the overcast light on the family walking through light March snow, smallness against an indifferent wilderness.
the congregation and dignitaries all in black at the banishment trial, faith as severity and the void inside the witch's hovel at night.
the shriveled ear of Indian corn bursting with fungus that William hurls into the dawn, the farm's slow starvation.
the witch's tattered riding cloak carrying Samuel away, the blood squirting into the milking pail, the red leather book Thomasin signs.
the single guttering flame in the canopy bed and garret, and the hare's hypnotic amber eyes that hold the gun before it misfires.
Similar Moods
the same airless period dread, men and weather grinding toward madness in monochrome grey, language and labor as confinement.
medieval faith tested against the forest and unspeakable violence, the moral weight of a household that believes God is watching.
a young girl's blooming sexuality braided with folk-horror menace, dread and reverie indistinguishable.
a soul cracking under the weight of grace and damnation, austere stillness and the cold panic of a faith that may have already failed.
Poster Concepts
Farm-Girl on the Cusp
“A child raised on grace, surrounded by hunger.”
Thomasin's still face fills the upper two-thirds — large blue eyes turned slightly upward toward heaven, dirty fingers under her chin as if mid-prayer. Pure black around her, only her face lit as though by a single taper. The lower third holds darkness where the title sits.
The Two Faces of the Wood
“What walks in the wood wears whatever face will draw you near.”
One vertical poster split down the middle. Left half: a beautiful young woman's face, smooth, in deep red hood, amber eyes. Right half: the same eyeline, but an ancient crone — scanty grey locks, scabbed skin, long talon at the jaw. The seam is a sliver of dark forest. Amber eyes align across the divide so the gaze reads as one.
The Patriarch and His Pride
“He built a wall of wood and called it providence.”
A proud, wide-brimmed-hatted farmer stands small against a towering wall of stacked firewood that rises almost as high as a cottage roof behind him, an axe loose in one hand, head bowed. Shot low so the woodpile looms over him like a verdict about to fall. Grey dawn light, his long thinning hair lifting in wind.
The Red Cloak Empty
“Something came down from the wood and went back up the chimney hole.”
A tattered red riding cloak and hood, hanging or crumpled against pure black, with one small infant's hand barely visible poking from its folds. No face, no figure — just the garment and the suggestion of what it carries. The cloak's frayed hem trails into nothing.
A Goat With Rectangular Eyes
“The twins sang him a rhyme. They should have run.”
A huge feral black billy goat with enormous curling horns and long matted hair fills the frame head-on, staring directly at the viewer. The unnatural rectangular pupils are the focal point. Behind him, total black. A faint warm light catches only the horn tips and the slit eyes.
Milk Turned to Blood
“The farm is feeding something now.”
A wooden milking pail viewed from above, half-tipped on muddy ground, a thread of dark red spilling from it instead of milk — a goat's teat just visible at frame edge. The spill spreads into the dirt like a stain that won't be hidden. Cold grey morning light.
The Edge of the Wood
“They built their home where the wood could see it.”
A vast wall of monstrous, ancient pines fills the upper frame, dark and impenetrable. At the bottom, tiny, a lone girl kneels in the long grass at the exact line where field meets forest, fingers in the weeds, looking into the black. The wood dwarfs her completely. The weeds shiver as if something just passed through.
Ritual Under the Smoke-Hole
“Deep in the wood, an old woman is grinding something into ointment.”
Inside a crude dark hovel, a shaft of cold moonlight pours straight down through a torn hole in the thatch onto a rough wooden table. The hunched silhouette of a naked old woman bends over the table, a large rusty knife raised — seen only from behind, the contents of the table unseen. Earthen jars, a mortar, a broomstick lean in the shadows.
Naked Return at the Shed
“What the wood takes, it does not return whole.”
Night rain. A pale, naked boy stands at a goat-shed doorway, soaked and white as death, one hand clutching a fence post, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes rolling back. A girl in shift reaches for him from the dark interior, lantern in hand. Horizontal lantern glow and vertical rain are the only light.
Wouldst Thou
“A book. A quill. A name you can still take back.”
Near-total black. A single line of period-styled text sits dead center. Below it, one tiny detail: a quill resting on the corner of a worn red leather book, just enough red to draw blood into the void. Vast negative space above and below.
Black Phillip, Black Phillip
“The children gave their friend a name. He answered.”
Stark black field. From the bottom edge, only the tips of two enormous curling goat horns rise into the frame as black silhouette against a hair-line of dim amber. The rest is empty dark. Title sits high above the horns in small clean caps, leaving the long emptiness between as the threat.
The Clearing the Wood Surrounds
“They knelt and gave thanks in the shadow of the thing that would take them.”
An idyllic rolling clearing in light March snow under soft afternoon light — almost beautiful — but the entire horizon is ringed by a black wall of enormous ancient pines that loom like silent giants. The eye reads beauty first, then the encirclement. No people, or a barely-visible cart far off.
Faith Curdling
“The crop failed. The faith followed.”
No figures. A field of decay rendered as pure mood: a single shriveled ear of Indian corn split open to reveal malignant black fungus blooming between the kernels, shot extreme close so it abstracts into a dark landscape of rot. Cold hazy dawn light. The image reads as both crop blight and a spreading sickness of the soul.
The Family the Wood Unmade
“It began with grace and grew, child by child, into the wood.”
A tall column composition that descends from light to dark. At top, the whole black-clad Puritan family kneels in prayer in the bright clearing. Below them, woven into the shadow, fragments emerge: an empty wooden cradle, a goat's rectangular eye, a tattered red cloak, a raised rusty knife, the towering woodpile, a billhook on a bench. At the very bottom, a lone girl walks toward an open door into pitch black. The whole reads as a fall from grace into the dark.
Cast
THOMASIN
The family's eldest daughter, 13. A sweet farm-girl with a still face, large blue eyes and rosy cheeks; on the cusp of womanhood.
Burdened, blamed and cast out by her grieving Puritan family, Thomasin is accused of witchcraft until, alone after killing her own mother in self-defense, she signs the Devil's book and joins the coven, ascending into ecstatic freedom.
WILLIAM
An English farmer, the father. A proud, pious, smoky-voiced man with long thinning hair, mustache and beard; a poor hunter and provider whose faith masks hypocrisy.
A banished, prideful patriarch whose secret lies, failed crops and inability to provide unravel his family until his pride is humbled and he is gored to death by Black Phillip and buried under his own woodpile.
KATHERINE
William's wife, the mother. Pregnant at the film's start; a devout, grief-stricken woman whose eyes grow cloudy from sleeplessness and whose heart turns to stone after Samuel's loss.
Consumed by grief over her stolen baby and lost faith, Katherine turns cold against her husband and daughter, is lured by a deadly glamour of her dead sons, and is killed by Thomasin while trying to strangle her as a witch.
CALEB
The eldest son, 11. A gaunt, freckled boy with light, worried eyes; pious and dutiful but awakening to desire and tormented by questions of damnation.
A faithful boy haunted by fears of damnation and a guilty desire for his sister, Caleb is lured to the witch's hovel, returns bewitched and naked, and dies in an ecstatic, possessed fit, later appearing as a deceptive apparition.
JONAS
A young son, about 5, Mercy's twin; mischievous, given to thumb-sucking and to whispering with Black Phillip.
A playful twin devoted to Black Phillip, Jonas torments and accuses Thomasin of witchcraft before he and his sister are taken by the witch in the night.
MERCY
A young daughter, about 5, Jonas's twin; willful and taunting, fond of the Black Phillip songs and games.
A willful twin who teases Thomasin and parrots Black Phillip's claims, Mercy escalates the witch accusations against her sister before being carried off by the witch with Jonas.
SAMUEL
A baby, the youngest son, about 6 months old, born in the New World; an adorable, squealing infant.
The unbaptized infant whose abduction and ritual murder by the witch sets the family's destruction in motion, later reappearing as a deceptive glamour.
THE WITCH
An ancient, bent crone with long dirty talons, scanty grey locks and a scabby humpback, who can appear as a beautiful young woman in a red cloak with hypnotic amber eyes.
The predatory forest witch who abducts and grinds Samuel into flying ointment, seduces and takes Caleb, suckles the goats, and carries off the twins, embodying the wood's threat to the family.
BLACK PHILLIP
William's huge feral billy goat with enormous horns and long black hair and otherworldly rectangular pupils; friend to Jonas and Mercy. The Devil incarnate.
Treated as a farm goat and the twins' playmate, Black Phillip is revealed as Satan himself, goring William to death and tempting Thomasin into signing his book and joining the coven.
FOWLER
William's dog, friend to Caleb; a loyal hunting hound that tracks game in the wood.
The family's faithful dog who tracks the supernatural hare into the wood and is found gruesomely disemboweled, an early casualty of the witch's power.
BURT
William's workhorse; pulls the family's cart and is ridden into the wood.
The family's workhorse who, spooked by the supernatural hare, bucks Thomasin to the ground and bolts, deepening the disaster in the wood.
GOVERNOR
A black-clothed dignitary of the Salem plantation who presides over William's banishment.
Presides over the trial that banishes William, setting the family's exile in motion.
MINISTER
A black-clothed church dignitary among the plantation's judges.
One of the plantation judges who rebukes William and casts him out.
DEPUTY GOVERNOR
A black-clothed dignitary among the plantation's judges, heard demanding William's silence.
A judge at the banishment trial who silences William's defense.
Locations
salem plantation
A pitiful, snow-covered medieval-looking Puritan village behind tall palisade doors, with a primitive wooden meeting house where banishments are tried.
Set Requirements
- •Interior meeting house with pulpit and raised platform/long table for dignitaries
- •exterior plantation gate with tall palisade doors
- •snow dressing
- •trade goods for Naumkeag traders
Key Visual Moments
- S1Thomasin's still, frightened farm-girl face holds in close-up as her father's voice condemns the un-separated church before fifty silent Puritans
- S2Two militia men close the tall palisade doors on the snow-covered medieval village as the family rides off in a rickety cart into the wilderness
the wilderness
A vast untouched wilderness of light March snow that the exiled family travels through.
Set Requirements
- •Snowy untouched wilderness
- •practical travel cart route
Key Visual Moments
- S3The tiny family walks on and on through light March snow as nature envelops them
the clearing
A beautiful, idyllic natural clearing of rolling hills surrounded by a dark and ancient wood of enormous pines, where the family first prays.
Set Requirements
- •Idyllic rolling clearing ringed by towering ominous pines
- •same site as the future farm (pre-build)
Key Visual Moments
- S4The family kneels in a circle of joyful silent prayer in an idyllic clearing while the dark ancient wood looms behind them like giants
the farm
A fledgling, ramshackle farm on a hill at the foot of the wood: a primitive one-room cottage with a garret, an outdoor bake-oven, chopping block and woodpile, a goat shed, a half-built horse barn, cornfield, farmyard and stream-adjacent fields, all overhung by monstrous trees.
Set Requirements
- •Primitive one-room farmhouse with canopy bed and bed curtains, hearth, empty wooden cradle, six-board cupboard
- •garret/loft with ladder, straw mattresses and hanging food stores
- •goat shed (boardable door, breakable thatch roof) with nanny goats and Black Phillip
- •half-built horse barn
- •cornfield with fungus-blighted corn
- •farmyard with outdoor bake-oven
- •chopping block with axe and towering precarious woodpile (rigged to collapse)
- •old enormous oak tree on the hillside with a shallow grave
- •fence with tether rope and goat-bells
Key Visual Moments
- S5Monstrous trees loom over the ramshackle cottage and collapsing barn frame of the fledgling farm in late autumn
- S6Close on Thomasin's large blue eyes gazing earnestly toward heaven, dirty fingers under her chin, as she confesses her sins with surprising acceptance
- S7Katherine breast-feeds six-month-old Samuel in med close as Thomasin's prayer continues in voice-over
- S8William and Caleb cut and bundle the patchy dying corn while the twins fill baskets in the grey field, backs to camera
- S9Thomasin heaves heavy goat dung out of the shed, used to the burden
- S10Katherine hands the baby to Thomasin and Thomasin walks off with Sam, disappearing into a cloud of grey bake-oven smoke
- S11Thomasin opens her eyes from peek-a-boo to find the grass empty, the camera tilting up to the wood as the weeds shiver where something just ran through
- S15Caleb steps over his sleeping siblings and catches a glimpse of his sister's exposed breast, then looks guiltily away
- S16Caleb passes the empty wooden cradle where Fowler keeps watch, his mother weeping behind the shabby bed curtains
- S17Caleb walks out past the tall pile of stacked firewood and the chopping block with its axe
- S18William holds out a shriveled ear of Indian corn bursting with malignant fungus between its kernels, then hurls it into the hazy dawn
- S21Thomasin peeks through the frayed bed curtains at her mother lying with clenched hands, whispering an inaudible prayer, the saddest face ever seen
- S22Thomasin balances a heavy pail of water on her head across the muddy yard, water sloshing down and soaking her shoulders
- S23Thomasin throws her shovel down into the dungheap and walks away from her work as something swells within her
- S29Jonas and Mercy chase the huge feral black billy goat, waving sticks and singing the Black Phillip rhyme as the goat bucks and the nanny goats cry
- S30William slips and falls flat into a big pile of dung wrangling Black Phillip while the whole family stares, the goat calmly eating fodder beside him
- S31William chops wood furiously, half-dressed with a linen sheet wrapped round his waist like a skirt
- S33Over a scant supper Katherine accuses Thomasin of losing the silver cup while William keeps his guilty eyes fixed on his plate
- S34Thomasin raises her lantern at the shed door to see Black Phillip violently copulating with a screaming nanny goat, and does not look away
- S35In the candlelit canopy bed Katherine declares God has cursed the family and that they should never have left the plantation, William failing to confess
- S36The children huddle around a burning candle in the garret, overhearing their parents plan to send Thomasin away to serve another family
- S37Thomasin catches Caleb saddling Burt by candlelight, and he swears she will not have to leave if she keeps his secret
- S42Jonas and Mercy are tethered to the fence by a long rope with goat-bells tied to them, clanking as a light rain begins to fall
- S49Soaking and shaking against the wall, Thomasin watches William finally rise from the shadows to confess he took the silver cup and led Caleb into the wood
- S50Katherine slaps William in the rain, he raises his hand to strike her, then sees his children watching from the open door and stops
- S51Thomasin tends her father's bloody nose by the hearth while Katherine rocks the twins, then warmly kisses Thomasin and tells her to hurry back
- S52Black Phillip's horns cast enormous shadows from Thomasin's lantern as she hears stumbling footsteps and creaking wood outside
- S53Caleb returns wet, naked and pale as death, clutching a fence post, then collapses in Thomasin's arms with his eyes rolling back and a silent scream
- S54Katherine drips hot tallow over herb-strewn linen and cuts a vein in Caleb's temple to bleed him as the family tends his fevered, scab-mouthed body
- S55William chops wood in the pouring rain, the axe falling again and again
- S56Thomasin squeezes a nanny goat's teat and blood squirts into the pail, which she kicks over, the twins watching in terror as if she made it happen
- S57Over Caleb's trance-lit body Katherine insists this is witchcraft while William, opening a chest to pack, refuses to name a witch
- S58Thomasin tries to cover the goat's blood with dung as the twins watch and William calls them all to come hither
- S59William and Jonas root through the dying cornfield destroying the bundled shocks, throwing useless rotten finds aside
- S60Katherine cuts fungus from the salvageable ears with a billhook as Mercy taunts Thomasin with the Black Phillip song, until Caleb's screams erupt from the house
- S61Caleb retches up a small rotting apple, then in disturbingly erotic ecstasy cries out to his Lord to take him to his lap, and collapses dead
- S62Under the enormous old oak William begs Thomasin to confess witchcraft and she turns cold, naming him a hypocrite who can do nothing but cut wood
- S63William threatens to dash Jonas's skull with the billhook like Abraham, and the trance-stricken twins suddenly wake screaming
- S64Weeping, nails in his teeth, William hammers planks across the shed door, sealing all three children inside with the goats until dawn
- S65Thomasin asks the twins if they are witches as Black Phillip stares back at her with his otherworldly rectangular pupils
- S66Katherine climbs down into the shallow grave to hold Caleb's linen-wrapped body, staring up at William hard-eyed, a living corpse, as the sun sets into the wood
- S67William's woodpile towers nearly as high as the house, logs leaning precariously over the edge as he keeps angrily chopping
- S68Through the cracks of the shed Thomasin listens as her father falls to his knees, swallows handfuls of earth, and begs Christ to save his children
- S69The farm waits silent in the moonlight as the faintest 'clickety-clackety' echoes through the forest and across the farm
- S70Jonas and Mercy clutch each other tight as the clickety-clackety grows louder, Thomasin asleep across the shed
- S71By a taper's light Katherine finds the lost silver cup, then turns to see Caleb holding a clean, healthy Samuel in a christening gown, bathed in ethereal light
- S72Branches break off and thump onto the shed roof as shadows move through the slats and something begins burrowing and scratching at the wall
- S73Katherine puts Samuel to feed at her breast, eyes closed and smiling, feeling at home again as the Caleb apparition offers her a book
- S74Mercy leans in to see the hunchbacked old witch suckling at Flora's teat, who turns with bloody jaws and reaches her talons toward the screaming children
- S75The glamour breaks: a wide shot reveals Katherine sitting in the dark farmhouse breast-feeding a large black raven that flaps its wings
- S76William wakes to the house shaking with each bang, while Katherine sits up with blood soaking her shift around her nipple
- S77Black Phillip rams his horns through William's stomach against the woodpile, then an avalanche of logs tumbles down and buries him
- S78As Katherine strangles her, Thomasin blindly seizes the rusty billhook and hacks her mother again and again until she breaks free, then dies
- S79Thomasin sheds her bloody bodice and skirt, drapes a blanket over her bloodstained shift, and lays her head empty upon the table
- S80Thomasin wakes to the door swinging open and shut in the wind, the blanket falling away, the door beckoning her
- S81Barefoot in only her shift, a lit taper in hand, Thomasin follows Black Phillip into the shambles of the goat shed, his breath catching the moonlight
- S82Black Phillip, in a deep cold voice, asks Thomasin if she would like to live deliciously, then his hoof becomes a cavalier's boot and a bearded man takes her bare shoulders
the wood
A dark, ancient, primeval forest of enormous mossy pines, twisting vines, thorns and disorienting identical trunks at the edge of the farm; the family's forbidden threat.
Set Requirements
- •Towering mossy pines and forbidding canopy
- •large overturned tree with sprawling roots (trap site)
- •winding path of vines and thorns
- •fog/mist and rain rigs
- •edge-of-wood treeline adjoining the farm
Key Visual Moments
- S12A small hunched figure in a tattered red cloak hobbles through enormous mossy trees as a baby's hand pokes from the folds
- S19Caleb hesitates at the forbidden threshold, his father a small speck beneath the threatening, moaning trees, before crossing in with the musket
- S20Father and son recite the catechism among the towering pines while Caleb presses about whether the lost Samuel is damned in hell
- S24Thomasin kneels at the exact spot where Samuel vanished, running her fingers tenderly through the grass and looking into the wood
- S25Caleb and William find another sprung trap with no catch
- S26Another trap, nothing; Caleb looks up at his father who turns away before meeting his eyes
- S27The enormous long-legged hare stops and stares with hypnotic amber eyes, and the musket misfires in William's face as he pulls the trigger
- S28Caleb notices the veins pulsing on his father's hand as they trudge home defeated, and William swears him to secrecy from his mother
- S38Thomasin rides Burt while Caleb leads on foot with a flickering lantern and lit match-cord into the still-dark wood
- S39Caleb turns from the trap by the large overturned tree with a triumphant smile: they've made a catch
- S40The giant hare reappears, Burt rears and bucks Thomasin to the ground, and Fowler bolts after the hare as Caleb chases into the trees
- S41Caleb stops panting among tall, seemingly identical trunks looming in every direction, unable to whistle for the dog like his father
- S43Thomasin wakes near the overturned tree where the first trap was set, baffled how she got there, and runs for home
- S44Caleb trips and falls onto the bloody, still-breathing remains of Fowler the dog, gutted on the forest floor
- S45Exhausted Thomasin hears the faint, almost inaudible voices of her parents calling and picks up her pace toward them
- S46Snared in thorns, Caleb drops the musket and, lured by a sweet humming and the reappearing hare, follows it deeper, abandoning the gun in the rain
- S47William scoops Thomasin into his arms in the last light of dusk and rain, then asks where her brother is
- S83Thomasin rides naked on the back of Black Phillip (a goat again), hair falling free, journeying deep into the wood
- S84Within the wood the clickety-clackety of broomsticks flying through the trees overhead is heard
the stream
A small stream near the wood overhung by a dead willow tree, where Thomasin washes clothes against the rocks.
Set Requirements
- •Shallow wadeable stream with rocks
- •dead willow tree with hanging tendrils
- •bulrushes and tall grass
Key Visual Moments
- S32Thomasin teasingly confesses to be the witch of the wood who signed the Devil's book, and slaps Mercy down into the mud to swear her silence
the witch's hovel
A pointed hovel raised on four knotted tree trunks deep in the wood, its sagging moss-grown thatch roof pierced by a smoke-hole, surrounded by a bone-strewn fire pit and iron cauldron, held together by sinister roots and weeds.
Set Requirements
- •Interior dark hovel with crude table, hearth, thatch ceiling with breakable smoke-hole, earthen jars, mortar and pestle
- •exterior hovel on knotted tree-trunk stilts with rotting foot-ladder
- •fire pit strewn with bones
- •huge iron cauldron
- •space for a coven of a dozen witches to dance and levitate
Key Visual Moments
- S13The naked old witch raises a large rusty knife over the baby on the crude table, humming, as moonlight pours through the torn thatch hole
- S14The naked witch rises phantom-like through the smoke-hole of her roof toward the moon, her body clicking and clacking against the branches
- S48A beautiful young woman in a red cloak draws Caleb into a sensual kiss, then her hand turns old and clawed, gripping his head and forcing his mouth into hers
- S85Thomasin joins the cackling coven dancing around the fire and, laughing in pure ecstasy with tears rolling down her cheeks, levitates higher and higher into the night
Production Design · Props
silver cup
HeroKatherine's father's silver wine cup; secretly traded by William for the traps, blamed on Thomasin, and reappears as part of the witch's glamour. Recurring plot device.
musket
HeroMatchlock musket with powder flask and match-cord. Misfires in William's face; later abandoned by Caleb in the thorns. Needs misfire/practical rig.
iron traps
HeroHunting traps with big iron teeth, traded for the silver cup. Multiple needed; one yields the catch by the overturned tree.
rotting apple
HeroSmall rotting apple Caleb vomits during his possession; pays off the 'finding apples' lie. Close-up; breakaway/practical for vomiting.
billhook
HeroRustic machete-like knife used to cut fungus from corn; left on the bench by the door and used by Thomasin to kill Katherine. Close-up; blood rig.
axe
HeroWood-chopping axe at the chopping block; recurring image of William's impotent rage; Thomasin/William reach for it during the goat attack.
red leather book
HeroCenturies-old red leather book the Devil offers; the book Thomasin signs. Also offered by the Caleb apparition. Hero prop for the climax.
lantern
Lantern/taper carried at night to the goat shed and into the final scenes. Practical flame.
large rusty knife
HeroThe witch's sacrificial knife raised over Samuel. Close-up.
goat-bells
Bells tied to the tethered twins; their clanking is a key sound motif during the witch's night attack.
Bible
Family Bible Caleb reads from at supper.
two-wheeled cart
Rickety cart carrying the family and their few possessions from the plantation, pulled by Burt.
christening gown
Worn by the Samuel apparition; underscores the unbaptized-baby theme.
Scenes
MEETING HOUSE. SALEM PLANTATION - DAY - 1630s - MARCH
banishment, defianceThomasin's still, frightened farm-girl face holds in close-up as her father's voice condemns the un-separated church before fifty silent Puritans
- Characters
- WILLIAM, KATHERINE, THOMASIN, CALEB, JONAS, MERCY, GOVERNOR, MINISTER, DEPUTY GOVERNOR
- Props
- pulpit, long table on raised platform
- Wardrobe
- Puritan congregation in black clothing, men and women separated, the dignitaries in black
- Notes
- Opening trial scene; William is banished from the plantation for his prideful conceit. Establishes the whole family. Katherine's face is deliberately not shown here.
- Camera
- Tight close-up, locked off
- Lighting
- Cold flat daylight from high shuttered windows
- Mood
- Condemnation
SALEM PLANTATION GATE - EARLY MORNING
exile, fragile hopeTwo militia men close the tall palisade doors on the snow-covered medieval village as the family rides off in a rickety cart into the wilderness
- Characters
- WILLIAM, KATHERINE, THOMASIN, CALEB, JONAS, MERCY, FOWLER
- Props
- two-wheeled cart, trunk, chair, pots and pans, trade goods
- Wardrobe
- Naumkeag traders with painted faces, a rough-looking white man
- Notes
- Burt the workhorse pulls the cart. Thomasin rests her head on Katherine's pregnant belly. Establishes the plantation as the lost safe home. Music/sound: Katherine and the family sing the hymn 'I will confess Jehovah with all heart'
- Camera
- Wide establishing, slight high angle
- Lighting
- Pale low dawn sun, long blue shadows
- Mood
- Exile
WILDERNESS
smallness, isolationThe tiny family walks on and on through light March snow as nature envelops them
- Characters
- WILLIAM, KATHERINE, THOMASIN, CALEB, JONAS, MERCY
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Brief transitional travel scene. Ends on BLACK with the wind blowing.
- Camera
- Extreme wide, bird's eye drift
- Lighting
- Overcast diffuse daylight, no shadows
- Mood
- Smallness
A CLEARING
hope shadowed by dreadThe family kneels in a circle of joyful silent prayer in an idyllic clearing while the dark ancient wood looms behind them like giants
- Characters
- WILLIAM, KATHERINE, THOMASIN, CALEB, JONAS, MERCY
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Same clearing they will build the farm on. The wood's presence is profound, disturbing, ominous. Ends BLACK, AUDIO of wind.
- Camera
- Wide, low eye level behind the family
- Lighting
- Warm slanting afternoon sun on the clearing, deep shade in the trees
- Mood
- Foreboding
THE SAME CLEARING - DAWN - NOVEMBER
decay, forebodingMonstrous trees loom over the ramshackle cottage and collapsing barn frame of the fledgling farm in late autumn
- Characters
- None
- Props
- anorexic cornstalks, tools, raw lumber, scrap-wood fences
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Time jump to late autumn. Establishing shot of the farm at the foot of the wood. No characters on screen.
- Camera
- Wide establishing, static
- Lighting
- Bleak grey-blue first light
- Mood
- Decay
FARMHOUSE
piety, foreboding confessionClose on Thomasin's large blue eyes gazing earnestly toward heaven, dirty fingers under her chin, as she confesses her sins with surprising acceptance
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin's confession prayer. Begins a prayer that carries in V.O. across the next several work scenes.
- Camera
- Close-up, slightly low angle
- Lighting
- Single soft window shaft from frame left
- Mood
- Pious
FARMHOUSE
tender domesticityKatherine breast-feeds six-month-old Samuel in med close as Thomasin's prayer continues in voice-over
- Characters
- KATHERINE, SAMUEL
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Source repeats the FARMHOUSE - MORNING slug; treated as a new scene per the slug. Thomasin's Lord's Prayer continues in V.O.
- Camera
- Medium close-up, eye level
- Lighting
- Low warm hearth glow
- Mood
- Tender
CORNFIELD
grinding laborWilliam and Caleb cut and bundle the patchy dying corn while the twins fill baskets in the grey field, backs to camera
- Characters
- WILLIAM, CALEB, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- corn stalks, baskets, ears of corn
- Wardrobe
- clothes now well worn
- Notes
- Thomasin's prayer V.O. continues over the family's chores.
- Camera
- Wide, slightly elevated
- Lighting
- Flat colorless overcast
- Mood
- Toil
GOAT SHED - LATER THAT DAY
drudgeryThomasin heaves heavy goat dung out of the shed, used to the burden
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Props
- shovel, dung
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Prayer V.O. continues.
- Camera
- Medium full shot
- Lighting
- Hard side daylight from the open door
- Mood
- Drudgery
FARMYARD
ordinary handoff before catastropheKatherine hands the baby to Thomasin and Thomasin walks off with Sam, disappearing into a cloud of grey bake-oven smoke
- Characters
- KATHERINE, THOMASIN, SAMUEL
- Props
- outdoor bake-oven, fire
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Last ordinary moment with Samuel in the family's care. Ends BLACK with the baby's laughter and Thomasin's playful peek-a-boo voice.
- Camera
- Medium wide, static
- Lighting
- Hazy diffuse afternoon light through smoke
- Mood
- Ordinary
THE EDGE OF THE WOOD
abduction, terrorThomasin opens her eyes from peek-a-boo to find the grass empty, the camera tilting up to the wood as the weeds shiver where something just ran through
- Characters
- THOMASIN, SAMUEL
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- Samuel vanishes between cuts during the peek-a-boo game
- Notes
- The inciting abduction. Samuel disappears while Thomasin's eyes are covered. She screams into the primeval forest. The edge of the wood here is the spot she will return to repeatedly.
- Camera
- Tilt up from the girl to the treeline
- Lighting
- Failing blue dusk light
- Mood
- Terror
THE WOOD - NIGHTFALL
dread, predationA small hunched figure in a tattered red cloak hobbles through enormous mossy trees as a baby's hand pokes from the folds
- Characters
- THE WITCH, SAMUEL
- Props
- tattered red cloak
- Wardrobe
- The Witch in a red riding cloak and red hood
- Notes
- First glimpse of the old witch carrying Samuel away. Autumn mist, boney-fingered branches.
- Camera
- Wide, following from behind, low
- Lighting
- Cold moonlit haze
- Mood
- Predation
THE WITCH'S HOVEL
ritual murder, horrorThe naked old witch raises a large rusty knife over the baby on the crude table, humming, as moonlight pours through the torn thatch hole
- Characters
- THE WITCH, SAMUEL
- Props
- crude table, large rusty knife, mortar and pestle, earthen jars, broomstick, bloody unguent
- Wardrobe
- The Witch strips naked; square-toed shoes, soiled wool stockings, bonnet, grey locks
- VFX/Stunts
- implied infanticide (chop heard off the baby), the witch grinds the baby into ointment
- Notes
- The witch kills Samuel and grinds him into a flying unguent. Spans several LATER beats within one slug. The infant is never seen during the kill; only the witch's back. Sets up the flying-ointment and broomstick that recur. Music/sound: The old woman hums a haunting song off screen
- Camera
- Wide, low, behind the crone
- Lighting
- Single hard moon shaft from the thatch hole
- Mood
- Horror
THE WITCH'S HOVEL
supernatural ascensionThe naked witch rises phantom-like through the smoke-hole of her roof toward the moon, her body clicking and clacking against the branches
- Characters
- THE WITCH
- Props
- broomstick
- Wardrobe
- nude
- VFX/Stunts
- The witch levitates up through the roof and ascends into the night sky
- Notes
- Source of the recurring 'clickety-clackety' sound motif. Ends BLACK, AUDIO of a rooster crowing into the next scene.
- Camera
- Low angle craning up
- Lighting
- Backlit by a full moon
- Mood
- Ascension
FARMHOUSE, GARRET
guilt, dawning desireCaleb steps over his sleeping siblings and catches a glimpse of his sister's exposed breast, then looks guiltily away
- Characters
- CALEB, THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- homespun doublet, straw mattresses, food stores hanging from ceiling
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin's somewhat open shift exposes the side of her breast
- Notes
- Establishes Caleb's nascent sexual awareness of Thomasin and Thomasin's nightmares. Katherine's weeping is heard from below.
- Camera
- Medium, over the sleeping children
- Lighting
- Faint cool dawn through a gable gap
- Mood
- Guilt
FARMHOUSE
grief, quiet dreadCaleb passes the empty wooden cradle where Fowler keeps watch, his mother weeping behind the shabby bed curtains
- Characters
- CALEB, FOWLER
- Props
- empty wooden cradle, chamber pot, doublet
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Continuous with the garret scene as Caleb descends to the one-room ground floor. The empty cradle is a recurring image of Samuel's absence.
- Camera
- Medium, slightly high on the cradle
- Lighting
- Weak hearth embers, mostly shadow
- Mood
- Grief
THE FARM
transitionCaleb walks out past the tall pile of stacked firewood and the chopping block with its axe
- Characters
- CALEB
- Props
- stacked firewood, chopping block, axe
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Plants the firewood pile, chopping block and axe that pay off in the climax. Continuous walk toward the cornfield.
- Camera
- Tracking medium, lateral
- Lighting
- Soft early dawn light
- Mood
- Transition
THE FARM/CORNFIELD
despair, fatherly conflictWilliam holds out a shriveled ear of Indian corn bursting with malignant fungus between its kernels, then hurls it into the hazy dawn
- Characters
- CALEB, WILLIAM
- Props
- ear of Indian corn with fungus, wide-brimmed hat
- Wardrobe
- William in wide-brimmed hat, long thinning hair
- Notes
- Long dialogue scene: William abandons the search for Samuel, proposes hunting in the forbidden wood, and reveals he traded Katherine's silver cup for the traps. Establishes the cursed crop, William's secret, and the forbidden wood.
- Camera
- Medium two-shot favoring the father
- Lighting
- Soft hazy backlit dawn
- Mood
- Despair
THE EDGE OF THE WOOD - EARLY MORNING
transgression, fearCaleb hesitates at the forbidden threshold, his father a small speck beneath the threatening, moaning trees, before crossing in with the musket
- Characters
- WILLIAM, CALEB, FOWLER
- Props
- musket
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Caleb crosses the forbidden threshold into the wood for the first time.
- Camera
- Wide, over the boy's shoulder into the wood
- Lighting
- Low raking early sun behind, deep shade ahead
- Mood
- Transgression
THE WOOD - EARLY MORNING
theological anguish, hypocrisyFather and son recite the catechism among the towering pines while Caleb presses about whether the lost Samuel is damned in hell
- Characters
- WILLIAM, CALEB
- Props
- iron trap, wooden powder flasks, musket
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Caleb's catechism lesson curdles into terror about Samuel's salvation. William reveals he traded for the traps with the silver cup. Foundational theme scene about election and grace.
- Camera
- Medium two-shot, towering trees in frame
- Lighting
- Dappled cold light filtering through high canopy
- Mood
- Anguish
FARMHOUSE - LATER
maternal grief observedThomasin peeks through the frayed bed curtains at her mother lying with clenched hands, whispering an inaudible prayer, the saddest face ever seen
- Characters
- THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY, KATHERINE
- Props
- bed curtains
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Mercy rides Jonas like a horse making goat noises. Thomasin watches her grieving mother.
- Camera
- Close, through the curtain gap
- Lighting
- Dim interior, faint window glow on the mother
- Mood
- Sorrow
FARMYARD - LATER
exhaustion at breaking pointThomasin balances a heavy pail of water on her head across the muddy yard, water sloshing down and soaking her shoulders
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Props
- pail of water
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin's labor becoming too much today.
- Camera
- Medium full, slightly low
- Lighting
- Flat grey daylight
- Mood
- Exhaustion
GOAT SHED - LATER
rebellion, breaking pointThomasin throws her shovel down into the dungheap and walks away from her work as something swells within her
- Characters
- THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- shovel, dung
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin abandons her chores; the twins ignore her calls. Music/sound: The twins heard singing nursery rhymes in the distance
- Camera
- Medium, low on the dropped shovel
- Lighting
- Hard slatted light through shed boards
- Mood
- Rebellion
THE EDGE OF THE WOOD - LATER
guilt, mourningThomasin kneels at the exact spot where Samuel vanished, running her fingers tenderly through the grass and looking into the wood
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin returns to the abduction spot. 'How could this have happened?'
- Camera
- Medium, low behind her toward the wood
- Lighting
- Soft overcast daylight
- Mood
- Mourning
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD - LATER
mounting failureCaleb and William find another sprung trap with no catch
- Characters
- CALEB, WILLIAM
- Props
- iron trap
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- One of a run of brief empty-trap beats; each is its own slug heading.
- Camera
- Medium downward on the trap
- Lighting
- Muted filtered forest light
- Mood
- Failure
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD - LATER
quiet disappointmentAnother trap, nothing; Caleb looks up at his father who turns away before meeting his eyes
- Characters
- CALEB, WILLIAM
- Props
- iron trap
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Second empty-trap beat under its own slug.
- Camera
- Medium two-shot, eyeline broken
- Lighting
- Flat shaded daylight under canopy
- Mood
- Disappointment
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD - LATER
uncanny dread, humiliationThe enormous long-legged hare stops and stares with hypnotic amber eyes, and the musket misfires in William's face as he pulls the trigger
- Characters
- WILLIAM, CALEB, FOWLER
- Props
- musket, powder, match cord
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- The musket misfires in William's face; he falls, face blackened
- Notes
- First appearance of the supernatural hare with amber eyes. William's gun misfires and the hare escapes. Establishes the hare as an omen that recurs.
- Camera
- Wide, hare foreground, man mid-ground
- Lighting
- Overcast diffuse with a sudden muzzle flash
- Mood
- Uncanny
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD - LATER
complicity, shared secretCaleb notices the veins pulsing on his father's hand as they trudge home defeated, and William swears him to secrecy from his mother
- Characters
- WILLIAM, CALEB
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- William makes Caleb promise to hide the wood trip from Katherine. The lie that will later damn Caleb is sealed here.
- Camera
- Medium two-shot, close
- Lighting
- Dim late-afternoon forest light
- Mood
- Complicity
FARMYARD
wild, ominous playJonas and Mercy chase the huge feral black billy goat, waving sticks and singing the Black Phillip rhyme as the goat bucks and the nanny goats cry
- Characters
- JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- sticks
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Introduces Black Phillip the billy goat and Burt the workhorse, and the twins' devotion to the goat. Establishes the Black Phillip song motif. Music/sound: Jonas and Mercy sing the 'Black Phillip, Black Phillip' nursery rhyme
- Camera
- Wide, dynamic, low
- Lighting
- Flat midday overcast
- Mood
- Ominous play
FARMYARD - MOMENTS LATER
humiliation, marital tensionWilliam slips and falls flat into a big pile of dung wrangling Black Phillip while the whole family stares, the goat calmly eating fodder beside him
- Characters
- CALEB, WILLIAM, JONAS, MERCY, KATHERINE, THOMASIN
- Props
- goat stall, fodder
- Wardrobe
- Caleb watches Thomasin undress their dung-soiled father in a way that is too familiar; Katherine notices
- VFX/Stunts
- William wrangles the bucking goat through the house
- Notes
- Caleb lies that they went to find apples in the valley, planting the apple that will later choke him. Katherine notices Thomasin's too-familiar touch of her father. Marital and sexual tensions ignite. Music/sound: Jonas and Mercy sing more of the Black Phillip rhyme
- Camera
- Wide, slightly high
- Lighting
- Flat grey daylight
- Mood
- Humiliation
FARM, CHOPPING-BLOCK - LATER
impotent rageWilliam chops wood furiously, half-dressed with a linen sheet wrapped round his waist like a skirt
- Characters
- WILLIAM
- Props
- axe, log, linen sheet
- Wardrobe
- William half-dressed, linen sheet around waist like a skirt
- Notes
- First of the recurring wood-chopping rage beats that punctuate the film.
- Camera
- Medium, low at the block
- Lighting
- Cool flat daylight
- Mood
- Rage
STREAM NEAR THE WOOD
cruel play, dawning menaceThomasin teasingly confesses to be the witch of the wood who signed the Devil's book, and slaps Mercy down into the mud to swear her silence
- Characters
- THOMASIN, CALEB, MERCY
- Props
- father's shirt and breeches, wooden buckets, long stick
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin's petticoat tucked into her belt, exposing her bare legs in the water; Caleb watches her legs and chest
- Notes
- Pivotal: Caleb's incestuous gaze; the siblings' tender embrace; Thomasin's false witch confession that the twins will later weaponize. The 'clickety-clackety' returns. Mercy claims Black Phillip says she can do as she likes. Music/sound: Thomasin hums a psalm; the 'clickety-clackety' sound returns
- Camera
- Medium, low near the water
- Lighting
- Soft dappled afternoon through bare branches
- Mood
- Menace
FARMHOUSE
suspicion, simmering accusationOver a scant supper Katherine accuses Thomasin of losing the silver cup while William keeps his guilty eyes fixed on his plate
- Characters
- WILLIAM, CALEB, THOMASIN, KATHERINE, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- scant food, silver cup (referenced as missing), Bible
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Family prayer and supper. The missing silver cup is blamed on Thomasin; William stays silent. A fast day and Bible reading are declared. A goat bleats wildly outside.
- Camera
- Medium wide across the table
- Lighting
- Single low candle on the table
- Mood
- Accusation
FARMYARD
sexual menace, fascinationThomasin raises her lantern at the shed door to see Black Phillip violently copulating with a screaming nanny goat, and does not look away
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Props
- lantern
- Wardrobe
- cloak hastily thrown on
- VFX/Stunts
- Black Phillip copulates with a nanny goat
- Notes
- Thomasin witnesses Black Phillip's bestial coupling; the goat's sexual menace is established. She hears the witch's flying sound again. Music/sound: The 'clickety-clackety' returns in the treetops
- Camera
- Medium, over the girl into the shed
- Lighting
- Hard handheld lantern, deep surrounding dark
- Mood
- Fascination
FARMHOUSE, CANOPY BED
marital crisis, dread of damnationIn the candlelit canopy bed Katherine declares God has cursed the family and that they should never have left the plantation, William failing to confess
- Characters
- WILLIAM, KATHERINE
- Props
- candle, bed curtains
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- William repeatedly tries and fails to confess the wood trip and the cup. Katherine reveals Thomasin has begun her womanhood and should be sent to serve another family. Sets up the plan to send Thomasin away.
- Camera
- Tight two-shot inside the bed curtains
- Lighting
- Single warm candle, falling to black
- Mood
- Dread
FARMHOUSE, GARRET
betrayal overheardThe children huddle around a burning candle in the garret, overhearing their parents plan to send Thomasin away to serve another family
- Characters
- CALEB, THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- candle
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin hears she is to be given away. Katherine's overheard line 'Our Sam is in hell.' Thomasin cries into her pillow. Ends BLACK.
- Camera
- Close group shot, low candle
- Lighting
- Single candle underlighting the faces
- Mood
- Betrayal
HORSE BARN - PRE
secret pactThomasin catches Caleb saddling Burt by candlelight, and he swears she will not have to leave if she keeps his secret
- Characters
- CALEB, THOMASIN, BURT
- Props
- candle, saddle, bridle, reins
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Caleb plans to check the traps secretly so Thomasin won't be sent away. Thomasin insists on going with him. Introduces Burt by name in action.
- Camera
- Medium, the horse between and behind them
- Lighting
- Single candle flame, deep dark
- Mood
- Conspiracy
THE WOOD - EARLY MORNING
transgression into dangerThomasin rides Burt while Caleb leads on foot with a flickering lantern and lit match-cord into the still-dark wood
- Characters
- THOMASIN, CALEB, BURT, FOWLER
- Props
- lantern, musket, match-cord
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- The children enter the wood together, the fatal expedition begins. Fowler trots along.
- Camera
- Wide tracking, slightly behind
- Lighting
- Single lantern in heavy blue darkness
- Mood
- Foreboding
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD
fleeting triumphCaleb turns from the trap by the large overturned tree with a triumphant smile: they've made a catch
- Characters
- CALEB, THOMASIN, BURT, FOWLER
- Props
- iron trap
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- First successful catch, at the overturned tree where Caleb laid the first trap.
- Camera
- Medium, on the boy at the trap
- Lighting
- Soft early forest light breaking through
- Mood
- Triumph
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD
catastrophe, separationThe giant hare reappears, Burt rears and bucks Thomasin to the ground, and Fowler bolts after the hare as Caleb chases into the trees
- Characters
- THOMASIN, CALEB, BURT, FOWLER
- Props
- muskrat and small game on the tack, musket
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- Burt rears and bucks, knocking Thomasin unconscious to the forest floor, then gallops off
- Notes
- The reappearance of the hare scatters the children: Thomasin knocked out, Caleb chasing Fowler deeper, Burt fleeing. Their warm reminiscence about the glass window in England precedes the disaster.
- Camera
- Wide dynamic, motion blur
- Lighting
- Flat daylight under canopy
- Mood
- Catastrophe
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD - LATER
lost, helplessCaleb stops panting among tall, seemingly identical trunks looming in every direction, unable to whistle for the dog like his father
- Characters
- CALEB
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Caleb is hopelessly lost in the disorienting wood.
- Camera
- Wide, the boy small and centered
- Lighting
- Even shaded forest light, no direction
- Mood
- Lost
FARM YARD - LATER
alarm, searchingJonas and Mercy are tethered to the fence by a long rope with goat-bells tied to them, clanking as a light rain begins to fall
- Characters
- JONAS, MERCY, KATHERINE, WILLIAM
- Props
- long rope, goat-bells
- Wardrobe
- goat-bells tied to the twins
- Notes
- The twins are leashed with goat-bells; the bells become a key sound for the climax. Parents search the fields calling for the missing children.
- Camera
- Medium wide, twins foreground
- Lighting
- Flat grey light, thin rain
- Mood
- Alarm
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD
disorientation, dreadThomasin wakes near the overturned tree where the first trap was set, baffled how she got there, and runs for home
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin regains consciousness mysteriously moved to the overturned tree. Uncanny relocation by the wood.
- Camera
- Medium, low near the roots
- Lighting
- Soft filtered afternoon light
- Mood
- Disorientation
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD - LATER
horror, griefCaleb trips and falls onto the bloody, still-breathing remains of Fowler the dog, gutted on the forest floor
- Characters
- CALEB, FOWLER
- Props
- musket
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- Bloody disemboweled remains of Fowler, still hot and breathing his last
- Notes
- Fowler is found gruesomely killed; the dog's death marks the witch's power reaching the children. Fowler exits the story here. Music/sound: Caleb prays aloud the 'O God my Lord, I now begin' verse
- Camera
- Medium, downward on the boy and carcass
- Lighting
- Dim forest light, the remains in shadow
- Mood
- Horror
ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD
desperate hopeExhausted Thomasin hears the faint, almost inaudible voices of her parents calling and picks up her pace toward them
- Characters
- THOMASIN, WILLIAM, KATHERINE
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin hears her parents' distant calls (William and Katherine present only as off-screen voices).
- Camera
- Medium, following her through the trees
- Lighting
- Fading blue dusk under canopy
- Mood
- Desperate hope
A WINDING PATH
enchantment, surrenderSnared in thorns, Caleb drops the musket and, lured by a sweet humming and the reappearing hare, follows it deeper, abandoning the gun in the rain
- Characters
- CALEB
- Props
- musket, thorns and vines
- Wardrobe
- stockings caught and torn on thorns; hands and legs cut and bleeding
- Notes
- Caleb is lured by the witch's humming and the hare onto the path to her hovel, leaving the musket behind in the thorns. Music/sound: A sweet melody, a woman humming, draws Caleb on
- Camera
- Medium tracking, the hare ahead
- Lighting
- Wet failing dusk light, rain
- Mood
- Enchantment
THE EDGE OF THE WOOD - THE NEXT MOMENT
relief curdling to fearWilliam scoops Thomasin into his arms in the last light of dusk and rain, then asks where her brother is
- Characters
- THOMASIN, WILLIAM
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin reunites with William; Caleb is still lost. The reunion immediately turns to the question of Caleb.
- Camera
- Medium two-shot, close
- Lighting
- Dim wet dusk, soft and grey
- Mood
- Relief curdling
WITCH'S HOVEL
seduction, predationA beautiful young woman in a red cloak draws Caleb into a sensual kiss, then her hand turns old and clawed, gripping his head and forcing his mouth into hers
- Characters
- CALEB, THE WITCH
- Props
- clay pipe, iron cauldron, fire pit with bones, foot-ladder
- Wardrobe
- The Witch appears as a beautiful woman (20s) in a red cloak, filthy bodice cut low, bare dirty feet
- VFX/Stunts
- The young witch's hand transforms into an old clawed hand mid-kiss
- Notes
- The witch's hovel revealed in full: pointed structure on knotted tree trunks, cauldron, fire pit of bones. Caleb is seduced and taken by the witch in her young/beautiful form with the same amber eyes. Ends BLACK. Music/sound: The witch's humming, more distinct
- Camera
- Medium, slightly low, on the embrace
- Lighting
- Low warm fire glow against dusk blue
- Mood
- Seduction
FARMHOUSE
confession, unravelingSoaking and shaking against the wall, Thomasin watches William finally rise from the shadows to confess he took the silver cup and led Caleb into the wood
- Characters
- THOMASIN, KATHERINE, WILLIAM, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- wet cloak and hat, lanthorn (sought, missing)
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin soaking wet
- Notes
- William resolves to search for Caleb and at last confesses the cup and the wood trip to Katherine. The lie collapses. Cuts to the farm.
- Camera
- Medium, the girl foreground, father rising beyond
- Lighting
- Dim hearth ember light
- Mood
- Unraveling
THE FARM - MOMENTS LATER
marriage rupturing, violence checkedKatherine slaps William in the rain, he raises his hand to strike her, then sees his children watching from the open door and stops
- Characters
- KATHERINE, WILLIAM, THOMASIN, CALEB, JONAS, MERCY
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Katherine accuses William of breaking God's covenant and losing another child. He nearly strikes her but the children's presence stops him. Caleb still absent; the other children watch from the doorway.
- Camera
- Wide, parents foreground, lit door behind
- Lighting
- Hard rain backlit by a doorway glow
- Mood
- Rupture
FARMHOUSE - LATER
fragile reconciliationThomasin tends her father's bloody nose by the hearth while Katherine rocks the twins, then warmly kisses Thomasin and tells her to hurry back
- Characters
- THOMASIN, WILLIAM, KATHERINE, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- hearth fire
- Wardrobe
- William in wet clothes, shivering
- Notes
- A rare warm moment: Katherine embraces Thomasin. Thomasin insists on bedding down the goats, sending her to the shed.
- Camera
- Medium, hearth-side
- Lighting
- Warm glowing hearth fire
- Mood
- Reconciliation
INT/EXT. GOAT SHED
lurking dreadBlack Phillip's horns cast enormous shadows from Thomasin's lantern as she hears stumbling footsteps and creaking wood outside
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Props
- lantern
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin hears someone stumbling outside and flees the shed to investigate.
- Camera
- Medium, low, the horned shadow on the wall
- Lighting
- Single lantern casting huge shadows
- Mood
- Lurking dread
GOAT SHED
horror, the witched returnCaleb returns wet, naked and pale as death, clutching a fence post, then collapses in Thomasin's arms with his eyes rolling back and a silent scream
- Characters
- THOMASIN, CALEB
- Props
- fence-post, lamp
- Wardrobe
- Caleb naked, pale as death, soaked
- VFX/Stunts
- Caleb's eyes roll back; he screams an utterly silent scream
- Notes
- Caleb returns from the witch's hovel bewitched and naked. The bewitching begins. Ends BLACK.
- Camera
- Medium, low as he collapses
- Lighting
- Handheld lamp, harsh and close
- Mood
- Horror
FARMHOUSE, GARRET
dread, helpless careKatherine drips hot tallow over herb-strewn linen and cuts a vein in Caleb's temple to bleed him as the family tends his fevered, scab-mouthed body
- Characters
- CALEB, THOMASIN, KATHERINE, JONAS, MERCY, WILLIAM
- Props
- tapers, linen strip, herbs, wood-candle, knife, small bowl
- Wardrobe
- small scabs around Caleb's mouth
- VFX/Stunts
- Katherine bloodlets Caleb, cutting a vein in his temple
- Notes
- Folk medicine and bloodletting on the comatose Caleb. The twins look at Thomasin with suspicion.
- Camera
- Close over the boy's head and the blade
- Lighting
- Clustered candle and taper light
- Mood
- Dread
FARM, CHOPPING-BLOCK
guilt, helpless rageWilliam chops wood in the pouring rain, the axe falling again and again
- Characters
- WILLIAM
- Props
- axe, wood
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Another wood-chopping rage beat, now in the rain.
- Camera
- Medium, low at the block
- Lighting
- Faint spill from the house, hard rain
- Mood
- Rage
EXT/INT. GOAT SHED
supernatural accusationThomasin squeezes a nanny goat's teat and blood squirts into the pail, which she kicks over, the twins watching in terror as if she made it happen
- Characters
- THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- pail, milking stool, goat-bells
- Wardrobe
- the twins still wearing goat-bells
- VFX/Stunts
- A nanny goat (Flora) gives blood instead of milk
- Notes
- Flora's milk turns to blood; the twins, whispering to Black Phillip, accuse Thomasin of witchcraft and of harming Sam and Caleb. Names the nanny goat Flora.
- Camera
- Medium, low on the pail and goat
- Lighting
- Slatted morning light through the boards
- Mood
- Accusation
FARMHOUSE, GARRET
marital fracture, confession of lost faithOver Caleb's trance-lit body Katherine insists this is witchcraft while William, opening a chest to pack, refuses to name a witch
- Characters
- CALEB, KATHERINE, WILLIAM
- Props
- chest, garret window
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- William resolves to take the family back to the plantation. Katherine confesses her crisis of faith since Samuel and her longing for England and for Christ's love. Deep marital and spiritual rupture.
- Camera
- Medium wide, the boy between the parents
- Lighting
- Cold morning light from the garret window
- Mood
- Fracture
EXT/INT. GOAT SHED
concealment, tensionThomasin tries to cover the goat's blood with dung as the twins watch and William calls them all to come hither
- Characters
- THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY, WILLIAM
- Props
- dung
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin hides the blood and orders the twins to keep silent. William present only as an off-screen voice calling them.
- Camera
- Medium, low on her hands and the stain
- Lighting
- Slatted morning light
- Mood
- Concealment
CORNFIELD
desperate salvageWilliam and Jonas root through the dying cornfield destroying the bundled shocks, throwing useless rotten finds aside
- Characters
- WILLIAM, JONAS
- Props
- large empty basket, corn shocks
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Trying to salvage corn to sell before returning to the plantation.
- Camera
- Medium wide, slightly high
- Lighting
- Flat grey daylight
- Mood
- Desperation
FARMYARD/CORNFIELD
domestic friction shattered by terrorKatherine cuts fungus from the salvageable ears with a billhook as Mercy taunts Thomasin with the Black Phillip song, until Caleb's screams erupt from the house
- Characters
- KATHERINE, THOMASIN, MERCY
- Props
- billhook, drying corn ears, bench
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Introduces the billhook (left on the bench by the door) that Thomasin uses to kill Katherine in the climax. Caleb's screaming interrupts everything. Music/sound: Mercy sings the 'Black Phillip is a merry merry king' song
- Camera
- Medium, the bench and door
- Lighting
- Flat overcast daylight
- Mood
- Shattered
FARMHOUSE, GARRET - MOMENTS LATER
possession, ecstatic deathCaleb retches up a small rotting apple, then in disturbingly erotic ecstasy cries out to his Lord to take him to his lap, and collapses dead
- Characters
- CALEB, KATHERINE, WILLIAM, THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- rotting apple, knife, bedclothes
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- Caleb vomits a rotting apple, Caleb writhes in possession, blood foaming from his mouth, the twins mirror his fits like animals
- Notes
- Caleb's possession climax: he vomits the apple (paying off Caleb's earlier 'apples' lie), preaches in ecstatic torment, and dies. The twins seize in mimicry. Jonas accuses Thomasin. The family begins to fracture into witch-accusation.
- Camera
- Wide on the bed, slightly high
- Lighting
- Clustered candlelight, deep shadow
- Mood
- Possession
FARM, HILLSIDE
father-daughter rupture, defianceUnder the enormous old oak William begs Thomasin to confess witchcraft and she turns cold, naming him a hypocrite who can do nothing but cut wood
- Characters
- THOMASIN, WILLIAM
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- By the old oak (the future grave site), William turns against Thomasin and she lacerates him with the truth, then accuses the twins and Black Phillip. He drags her home.
- Camera
- Medium two-shot under the oak
- Lighting
- Flat blustery afternoon light
- Mood
- Defiance
FARMHOUSE
fury, terror, accusationWilliam threatens to dash Jonas's skull with the billhook like Abraham, and the trance-stricken twins suddenly wake screaming
- Characters
- KATHERINE, WILLIAM, THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- Caleb's body on the table, billhook (referenced)
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Caleb's corpse is laid out for burial. Katherine cannot bear Thomasin. Thomasin accuses the twins of a covenant with the Devil in Black Phillip's shape. William's near-sacrifice of Jonas. The household fully turns on Thomasin.
- Camera
- Medium, low on the raised blade
- Lighting
- Weak window light, heavy shadow
- Mood
- Fury
INT/EXT. GOAT SHED - LATER
imprisonment, dreadWeeping, nails in his teeth, William hammers planks across the shed door, sealing all three children inside with the goats until dawn
- Characters
- WILLIAM, THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY
- Props
- planks, nails, hammer
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- William locks the children in the goat shed for the night, intending to return to the plantation at dawn. Their pleading fingers reach through the cracks.
- Camera
- Medium, on the door from outside
- Lighting
- Flat overcast daylight
- Mood
- Imprisonment
GOAT SHED
uneasy curiosity, temptationThomasin asks the twins if they are witches as Black Phillip stares back at her with his otherworldly rectangular pupils
- Characters
- THOMASIN, JONAS, MERCY
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin, locked in with the twins and Black Phillip, becomes intoxicated with curiosity about the goat. Seeds the final pact.
- Camera
- Medium, the girl and the goat's eye
- Lighting
- Thin barred light through the boards
- Mood
- Temptation
HILLSIDE - SUNSET
annihilating griefKatherine climbs down into the shallow grave to hold Caleb's linen-wrapped body, staring up at William hard-eyed, a living corpse, as the sun sets into the wood
- Characters
- WILLIAM, KATHERINE, CALEB
- Props
- shovel, shallow grave, linen sheet, rosemary sprigs
- Wardrobe
- Caleb's body wrapped in an old linen sheet
- Notes
- Caleb's burial beneath the old oak. Katherine's grief becomes catatonic. AUDIO TRANSITION of chopping into the next scene. Caleb appears here only as a corpse.
- Camera
- High angle down into the grave
- Lighting
- Low dying sunset, long shadows
- Mood
- Annihilation
CHOPPING BLOCK
self-destructive griefWilliam's woodpile towers nearly as high as the house, logs leaning precariously over the edge as he keeps angrily chopping
- Characters
- WILLIAM
- Props
- axe, towering woodpile
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- The towering, precarious woodpile is set up here to collapse on William in the climax.
- Camera
- Wide, low, the woodpile towering
- Lighting
- Cold moonlight, faint house glow
- Mood
- Self-destruction
INT/EXT. GOAT SHED - AT THE SAME TIME
abasement, prayerThrough the cracks of the shed Thomasin listens as her father falls to his knees, swallows handfuls of earth, and begs Christ to save his children
- Characters
- THOMASIN, WILLIAM
- Props
- axe, earth/dirt
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- William eats handfuls of dirt
- Notes
- Intercut between William and the children. William's prostrate confession and self-abasement. Thomasin takes in his words.
- Camera
- Medium, through the slatted boards
- Lighting
- Faint night light, barred shadows
- Mood
- Abasement
FARMHOUSE
gathering menaceThe farm waits silent in the moonlight as the faintest 'clickety-clackety' echoes through the forest and across the farm
- Characters
- None
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Empty establishing beat; the witch is coming. No characters on screen. Music/sound: The 'clickety-clackety' returns, far away
- Camera
- Wide establishing, static
- Lighting
- Cold flat moonlight
- Mood
- Gathering menace
GOAT SHED
creeping fearJonas and Mercy clutch each other tight as the clickety-clackety grows louder, Thomasin asleep across the shed
- Characters
- JONAS, MERCY, THOMASIN
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- The twins hear the approaching witch while Thomasin sleeps. Music/sound: The clickety-clackety, getting louder
- Camera
- Medium, low on the twins
- Lighting
- Faint moonlight through the boards
- Mood
- Creeping fear
FARMHOUSE, CANOPY BED
deceptive bliss, the lureBy a taper's light Katherine finds the lost silver cup, then turns to see Caleb holding a clean, healthy Samuel in a christening gown, bathed in ethereal light
- Characters
- KATHERINE, CALEB, SAMUEL
- Props
- silver cup, taper, christening gown, stool
- Wardrobe
- Caleb and Samuel clean, healthy, ethereally lit; Samuel in a christening gown
- VFX/Stunts
- Ethereal apparition of the dead Caleb and Samuel
- Notes
- The witch's glamour: Katherine's dead sons appear restored. The silver cup reappears. Caleb (apparition) offers Katherine a book. Begins the deadly seduction of Katherine, intercut with the goat shed. Music/sound: A giggling baby is heard
- Camera
- Medium, the mother turning toward the apparition
- Lighting
- Warm taper foreground, cold ethereal glow on the boys
- Mood
- Deceptive bliss
INT/EXT. GOAT HOUSE
terror closing inBranches break off and thump onto the shed roof as shadows move through the slats and something begins burrowing and scratching at the wall
- Characters
- JONAS, MERCY
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- The witch arrives at the shed; the twins hear her digging in. Intercut with Katherine's apparition. Slug uses 'GOAT HOUSE' (same goat shed location). Music/sound: The clickety-clackety, then footsteps, scratching and digging
- Camera
- Medium, on the wall and the twins
- Lighting
- Sparse moonlight, scratching shadows
- Mood
- Terror closing
FARMHOUSE
blissful surrenderKatherine puts Samuel to feed at her breast, eyes closed and smiling, feeling at home again as the Caleb apparition offers her a book
- Characters
- KATHERINE, CALEB, SAMUEL
- Props
- book
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- Apparitions of Caleb and Samuel continue
- Notes
- Katherine, deceived, nurses what she believes is Samuel. Caleb (apparition) and Samuel present as the glamour. Intercut with the shed.
- Camera
- Close on the mother nursing
- Lighting
- Soft glowing apparition light
- Mood
- Surrender
GOAT SHED
ultimate horrorMercy leans in to see the hunchbacked old witch suckling at Flora's teat, who turns with bloody jaws and reaches her talons toward the screaming children
- Characters
- MERCY, JONAS, THOMASIN, THE WITCH
- Props
- goat-bells
- Wardrobe
- The Witch as filthy hunchbacked crone with bloody jaws and talons
- VFX/Stunts
- The witch suckles the nanny goat; reaches bloody talons toward the twins
- Notes
- The old witch is revealed in the shed suckling Flora. The twins disappear this night (their fate confirmed at dawn). Thomasin wakes shrieking. Intercut with Katherine. Music/sound: Jonas and Mercy's goat-bells clank over their screams
- Camera
- Medium, low as the crone turns
- Lighting
- Faint moonlight, harsh shadow
- Mood
- Ultimate horror
FARMHOUSE - THE SAME TIME
grotesque revelationThe glamour breaks: a wide shot reveals Katherine sitting in the dark farmhouse breast-feeding a large black raven that flaps its wings
- Characters
- KATHERINE
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- Katherine suckles a large black raven where she believed Samuel to be
- Notes
- The horrifying truth of Katherine's apparition: she is suckling a raven that draws blood. Ends BLACK; a wooden banging carries over. Music/sound: The twins' screaming and clattering continues over
- Camera
- Sudden wide, the woman small in the room
- Lighting
- Single faint candle, vast surrounding dark
- Mood
- Revelation
FARMHOUSE, CANOPY BED
dread wakingWilliam wakes to the house shaking with each bang, while Katherine sits up with blood soaking her shift around her nipple
- Characters
- WILLIAM, KATHERINE
- Props
- breeches, boots
- Wardrobe
- Katherine's shift bloodied around the nipple from the raven
- Notes
- Dawn. The raven's blood marks Katherine. Black Phillip is battering the house. William goes out. Music/sound: Black Phillip bleating; banging on the house
- Camera
- Medium two-shot in the bed
- Lighting
- Cold first dawn through the curtains
- Mood
- Dread waking
FARMHOUSE
violent death, devastationBlack Phillip rams his horns through William's stomach against the woodpile, then an avalanche of logs tumbles down and buries him
- Characters
- WILLIAM, THOMASIN
- Props
- axe, chopping block, woodpile, basket of corn
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin splashed in blood
- VFX/Stunts
- Black Phillip gores William through the stomach; the towering woodpile collapses and crushes him, the two nanny goats lie dead, udders bleeding
- Notes
- Black Phillip kills William and the woodpile (set up earlier) crushes him. The twins are found gone, the nanny goats dead. Thomasin lies blood-splashed and awake. Pays off the firewood and chopping-block plants.
- Camera
- Wide, the woodpile collapsing
- Lighting
- Flat cold dawn light
- Mood
- Devastation
FARMHOUSE (side of the house)
matricide, anguishAs Katherine strangles her, Thomasin blindly seizes the rusty billhook and hacks her mother again and again until she breaks free, then dies
- Characters
- KATHERINE, THOMASIN
- Props
- rusty billhook, bench
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin stained with blood
- VFX/Stunts
- Thomasin slashes and hacks Katherine to death with the billhook
- Notes
- Katherine attacks Thomasin as a witch-killer of her family; Thomasin kills her mother in self-defense with the billhook from the bench. Source uses 'EXT. FARMHOUSE - NIGHT' but action and continuity are dawn/continuous from the woodpile death; logged as continuous daylight. Thomasin is now utterly alone.
- Camera
- Medium, low and close on the struggle
- Lighting
- Flat cold morning light
- Mood
- Anguish
FARMHOUSE - MOMENTS LATER
numb desolationThomasin sheds her bloody bodice and skirt, drapes a blanket over her bloodstained shift, and lays her head empty upon the table
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Props
- bloody bodice and skirt, blanket
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin removes her bloody bodice and skirt, left on the floor; covered in a blanket over her shift
- Notes
- Thomasin, the sole survivor, collapses at the table and closes her eyes. Ends BLACK.
- Camera
- Medium, slightly high on the table
- Lighting
- Weak grey daylight from a shuttered window
- Mood
- Desolation
FARMHOUSE
summons, thresholdThomasin wakes to the door swinging open and shut in the wind, the blanket falling away, the door beckoning her
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Props
- blanket, swinging door
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- Notes
- Thomasin is drawn toward the beckoning door, echoing the wood that 'beckoned' earlier. Music/sound: The wind blows the door open and shut
- Camera
- Medium, the girl foreground, door beyond
- Lighting
- Pale moonlight slicing through the open door
- Mood
- Summons
FARM
fateful approachBarefoot in only her shift, a lit taper in hand, Thomasin follows Black Phillip into the shambles of the goat shed, his breath catching the moonlight
- Characters
- THOMASIN
- Props
- lit taper
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin barefoot, wearing only her shift
- Notes
- Thomasin follows Black Phillip toward the final pact.
- Camera
- Wide tracking, behind the girl
- Lighting
- Cold moonlight and a single taper flame
- Mood
- Fateful
GOAT SHED
temptation, surrender to the DevilBlack Phillip, in a deep cold voice, asks Thomasin if she would like to live deliciously, then his hoof becomes a cavalier's boot and a bearded man takes her bare shoulders
- Characters
- THOMASIN, BLACK PHILLIP
- Props
- red leather book, candle
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin removes her shift (never in frame nude); the Devil appears as a beautiful bearded man with dark complexion, gold buttons, black leather gauntlets, sable hair, cockerel feathers, black lace
- VFX/Stunts
- Black Phillip transforms from goat to man (hoof to cavalier's boot to gauntleted hand)
- Notes
- Black Phillip speaks for the first time and reveals himself as the Devil. Thomasin signs the red leather book. The film's central temptation. We never see Black Phillip's face. Pays off the recurring book motif from Caleb's apparition and Thomasin's earlier false confession of signing the Devil's book. Music/sound: Jangling spurs
- Camera
- Medium, low, the girl and the transforming goat-man
- Lighting
- Single candle, deep enveloping dark
- Mood
- Temptation
EDGE OF THE WOOD
transformation, leaving humanityThomasin rides naked on the back of Black Phillip (a goat again), hair falling free, journeying deep into the wood
- Characters
- THOMASIN, BLACK PHILLIP
- Wardrobe
- Thomasin naked, shot from behind
- Notes
- Thomasin rides into the wood she once feared, now claimed by it.
- Camera
- Wide, from behind, low
- Lighting
- Cold moonlight on her back
- Mood
- Transformation
THE WOOD
immersion in the supernaturalWithin the wood the clickety-clackety of broomsticks flying through the trees overhead is heard
- Characters
- THOMASIN, BLACK PHILLIP
- Props
- broomsticks
- Wardrobe
- Standard
- VFX/Stunts
- Witches flying overhead on broomsticks (heard)
- Notes
- Slug reads INT. THE WOOD though it is within the forest; treated as its own scene per the heading. The flying motif pays off. Music/sound: The clickety-clackety of broomsticks overhead
- Camera
- Low wide, tilting up into the canopy
- Lighting
- Sparse cold moonlight through the trees
- Mood
- Immersion
THE WITCH'S HOVEL
liberation, ecstatic ascensionThomasin joins the cackling coven dancing around the fire and, laughing in pure ecstasy with tears rolling down her cheeks, levitates higher and higher into the night
- Characters
- THOMASIN, BLACK PHILLIP
- Props
- cauldron, fire, broomsticks, poles, distaffs, pitchforks
- Wardrobe
- A dozen grotesque witches, filthy and nude or in shreds of clothing; Thomasin naked
- VFX/Stunts
- The coven and Thomasin levitate around the fire, rising into the sky
- Notes
- Final image: Thomasin ascends with the coven in ecstasy. BLACK. THE END. Mirrors and completes the old witch's ascension in scene 14.
- Camera
- Low angle craning up as she ascends
- Lighting
- Roaring firelight from below, dark sky above
- Mood
- Ecstasy