Welcome to our Nudity was Necessary series in which we look at nude scenes in films that were pivotal to the plot and we explain why. For this particular film, I need to issue a warning. The nude scene is the last scene in the film, so this article contains spoilers. If you are spoiler-sensitive and have never seen The Witch, then you may want to watch the nudity-infused film and then return to this article. For the rest of us, let's check out Anya Taylor-Joy's debut film.
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILERS BELOW!
This film takes us into the 1600s in a newly settled New England. A family is exiled from their community and made to live in the wilderness where they begin to wonder if one of them is communing with the devil. Is someone in the family a Witch?! The family turns on each other and goes mad in isolation from their community, leading to the film's end where Anya's character is the only one left. A black goat speaks to her, asking her to sign the devil's book - a symbol that binds the witch to the devil.
She does so and then she ditches her clothes as she walks out into the woods. Anya Taylor-Joy did not go nude herself during this scene. This was a body double. Anya was too young to do that, but her body double wandered nudely through the woods as she approached a gathering of giggling (and nude) witches in the woods.
Why is this scene so necessary? This scene proves to showcase that the witchery was actually real. As the movie progresses, you wonder if these horrors are real or psychological. This scene indicates that the witchcraft was real. The evil was real. The nudity helps us show that. In this Puritan society, going nude like that was unacceptable! Thus these women being nude in the woods means that they are truly godless. They are witches!
That's also what I love about this movie. It shows us just how scary that time period actually was. It might sound simple to say this, but I hadn't quite thought about that before until I saw this film. These new settlers were up against everything in a new world including cold winters, low supplies of food, new diseases, isolation from everything in the Old World, and extreme religious beliefs that pit people against each other and threatened members of communities to either be exiled or killed.
There's a lot to be terrified of in that reality! In fact, I think there should be more horror movies that take place during this bleak period of American history. It's dreary and terrifying and The Witch has the market cornered so far.
That is all to say that the film could have landed on this simply being psychological and historical horror. It could have said "we are our own worst enemies" as we watch this family turn on one another, accusing one another of dancing with the devil.
That's where the nude scene comes in.
The nude scene answers the central question of the film and asserts that the witchcraft was, in fact, real. Yes, people turned on each other in this family. Yes, they went nuts trying to figure out who the witch is. None of that mattered because, in the end, the devil was real and he was granting these women the freedom to be powerful in a bleak world.
The nudity symbolizes that very fact. These witches are naked, displaying their power and freedom, as they all cheer around a bonfire and float up into the air (again showing us that their powers are real).
Anya has since gone nude in another film by the same director, The Northman. Now we can compare the two asses and see for sure that that first bubble butt with muscular thighs was not Anya. Still, her real ass is a joy to see! In fact, that booty is bewitching!
