20 Best Movie Moments Of 2016

It was a hit with critics, but Robert Eggers’ directorial debut The Witch didn’t strike the same chord with a lot of moviegoers. Set in 17th century New England and focusing on a family whose simple, Puritan existence is disrupted by black magic and satanic forces, many mainstream horror fans accused it of lacking real scares. Admittedly, it’s much more a slow-burning, supernatural affair than a gratuitous gore-fest but those kinds of accusations seem a bit redundant when its opening scenes contain a moment as horrific as this.

While The Witch’s young protagonist Thomasin is looking after her infant sibling Samuel, a red-hooded woman abducts him from her care. She turns out to be a haggard old witch (clue’s in the title) and we all know what witches do with little babies – they smoosh them up and use them as an ingredient in a potion, of course. Thankfully, we don’t see this in gory detail but the horror here is more in the implication than the explicit visualisation. Nevertheless, if you don’t find a scene of this ilk horrifying then you might need to cut back on the torture porn a bit.