@thenomain -- If we're talking about the height of the genre and not modern American Gothic literature....
It's important to remember that one of the defining characteristics is the intense use of the setting to define the narrative, to the point that it almost becomes a character unto itself.If you want a modern visual example, think of those long establishing shots in True Detective, through the swampy, dilapidated, isolated areas of Louisiana and how that comes into play. (Seriously, Cary Fukunaga is fucking brilliant at using setting to create atmosphere and his version of Jane Eyre is one of my favorites as a result, even though others more accurately follow the storyline from the novels.)
In British Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th century, this usually results in the story of a young woman facing the mysterious and quite possibly supernatural in a castle, an abbey, or a mansion (think The Mysteries of Udolpho or, if you'd like to use a modern film equivalent, Crimson Peak, which I also recommend). This generally evokes an overall atmosphere of corruption and of decay, of something sinister and inherently wrong hidden behind a facade of beauty and, often though not always, class and wealth.
American Gothic literature, by contrast, was often set against a backdrop of the wild and the unknown, which makes sense given how -- from the colonial mindset -- unsettled and deadly anything outside the very narrow centers of 'civilization' were. A lot of early American Gothic deals with themes of survival, the animalistic nature of man, and being driven to madness by extreme situations. You're also more likely to see direct -- and for the time, very shocking --- violence as well, as opposed to the looming threat of it. Edgar Huntly pretty much centralizes all of those themes into a single novel and even though it's not especially well known, had pretty profound effects on the writing of, say, Joyce Carol Oates and even Poe, though of all American authors in the genre, Poe relies most heavily on the British Gothic tropes.
This obviously changed and developed over time, as Southern Gothic literature -- which now makes up the bulk of the American canon -- also has profound themes irony, social issues, and warped communities, too. But.... that's the start, and The Witch does that really, really, REALLY well. I cannot recommend it enough, even if the 17th century dialog takes about ten minutes to get used to.