“The Witch” was marketed as the scariest movie of the year, yet I could barely stay awake sitting through an hour and a half of dull dialogue, lame scares and wasted potential.

The show takes place in New England in the 1600s when the Puritans were just beginning to settle the new world. The family that the movie centers around is exiled from a Puritan plantation because the father, William, was preaching ideals that the Puritans do not agree with. The family stumbles upon a meadow after their exodus and quickly establishes a homestead.

Shortly after the family arrives, the infant son Samuel is presumably taken by a wolf. It is shown in an eerie, gruesome scene that a witch abducted the baby and ground it up in a butter churner. This sets up the overall plot of the family becoming cursed. Throughout the rest of the movie, the family struggles with a series of horrible events and the suspicion of the daughter Thomison being a witch.

The premise of The Witch is a new, fresh idea in the horror genre. In all honesty, the historical background of the movie is portrayed wonderfully. The portrayal of a Puritan family and the hysteria of witchcraft was expertly done. The acting is probably the highlight of the movie. The characters feel very real and human, and they don’t feel rigid in their purposely conservative roles. The atmosphere is also incredible. The overall theme of witchcraft and the stereotypes of witchcraft from the time period flows graciously through the movie.

Sadly, that is where the positives end. While the acting is phenomenal, there’s just far too much pointless dialogue that drones on, gradually overpowering the parts where the movie shines. There were so many opportunities for a good scare but they cut the scene off right at the point. They spent too much time building it up only to include legitimate horror in the last 15 minutes of the movie. Even then, the scare turned out to be very cheap and completely predictable.

This betrayal of the marketing theme of “scariest movie of the year” honestly really ticked me off. I went into the movie expecting a terrifying experience and I got what would be better as a historical fiction drama. If it had been marketed as such, I probably would have liked it much better.

I was not the only disappointed one in the theater. As I was leaving, there were multiple people discussing refunds and general distaste. If there had been a legitimate effort to make the movie scary, it would have been far more enjoyable.