The Witches Reviews

Hollywood has never had the easiest time transitioning Roald Dahl’s words onto the screen, but a sublime fusion of creative talents makes The Witches one of the most successful tryouts. This isn’t so much a scary children’s film as it is a horror film built for children, this sounds like splitting hairs but it makes all the difference. We are lulled into a sense of placidity and fairy tale hardships in the beginning, no different than any of Disney’s canonized films or beloved stories like A Little Princess, before things just start getting increasingly weird, wild, and dark.

 

Dahl’s fiction is a blessed mixture of the seemingly mundane surrounded by the grotesque and horrific. Children are frequently blighted by monstrous evil and the adults in their life are often of little to no help, if they’re not already dead or abusive surrogate parents. The Witches may push this worldview to its darkest reaches yet as it argues that the titular creatures are not old crones riding brooms with pointed hats but everyday women you find in day-to-day life. Dahl argues that terror and violence is lurking around every corner waiting to strike, and you must arm yourself to combat it.

 

This film adaptation doesn’t shy away from that argument. In fact, it leans into it with an aggression that makes you wonder how and why they ever thought this was appropriate family viewing. I know I was, and continue to be, an eclectic person with an appetite for the macabre, so this was nirvana-like viewing for me as a child. I am not surprised to learn that it bombed at the box office. Parents frequently expect an invisible contract with these films stating that they may give the kids a minor shock, but the good guys will win, the bad guys will perish, and order will be restored. The Witches, by and large, does not offer such comforts to its audience.

 

That is until the audience tested ending which betrays Dahl’s material in a way. We get order restored and a happily ever after, but it feels somehow antithetic to the preceding story and tone. In fact, this ending is my lone complaint about the film, and the only thing keeping it from getting a perfect rating. Everything else is a masterpiece of imagination, dark energy, and fairy tale truth.

 

Tragedy makes its first mark early in the film when Luke (Jasen Fisher) loses his parents in a car accident. His loving and kindly grandmother (Mai Zetterling, giving the woman a core of steel) teaches him about the reality of witches, takes him in, and eventually the two of them find themselves vacationing on a beach resort hotel. Naturally, a convention of England’s witches is also staying in this hotel, and Luke overhears their master plan for killing all of England’s children.

 

A lot of this is an excuse for director Nicolas Roeg, producer Jim Henson, and star Anjelica Huston to go completely broad and big in playing and visualizing this material, and it works. We begin with a series of normal shots and everyday living, and Roeg’s typical audacious film-making is kept to a bare minimum. A scene of a young girl getting abducted in a story shared by Luke’s grandmother is a miniature horror epic, but Roeg goes full-on crazy during the witches’ convention. He tilts the camera into their faces so that they become distorted ghouls all bug-eyes or rotten teeth with faces ornamented with scabs, boils, and blemishes.

 

Then there’s Henson’s special effects and makeup, some of the most memorable creations in a storied and trailblazing career. Not only is the Grand High Witch a towering achievement of creature makeup, but the transformation scenes of various characters into mice are simply disgusting, terrifying, and mordantly hilarious. Crafting these images required real ambition and daring, and a willingness to scare and challenge his typical audience, and the results are magical. Charlie Potter’s mouse-head acting like a yo-yo to his body as he transforms is an image that thrilled and scared me as a child, and continues to stick with me for its sheer audacity.

 

And then there’s Anjelica Huston completely dominating everything that tries to share a frame with her. Huston is clearly enjoying playing such a sadistic and demented character. She bursts with unhinged sensuality, a severe haircut, and a glamorous tight black dress and heavy eye makeup. Even when the artifice of this look is revealed to contain a desiccated crone underneath, Huston never stops playing her character as a sensual and aggressive dominatrix. The results of this is an energy that strikes a perfect balance between the hilariously kitsch, the absolutely terrifying, and the monstrous. The same year she gave us this perfectly wicked witch, she also gave us the desperate and broken Lilly Dillon in The Grifters. Now that is range.

 

The Witches succeeds because it never shies away from the sinister lurking around every corner. It may not amount to a group of witches chasing you around a hotel property, but that certainty that danger is just waiting to jump out at you is fundamental to the best children’s stories. From Grimm’s fairy tales to Disney’s earliest features to Roald Dahl’s novels and Jim Henson’s 80’s films, we must believe that something may prevent the happily ever after, if one ever does come. The Witches is predominantly unafraid to be perverse, twisted, scary, and uncompromising in its vision. It’s a damn shame about the ending.

Many children have grown up reading the work of Roald Dahl, and I was no exception. To this day, The Witches remains my favorite book by the prolific children's author, being more frightening, creepy, and wickedly twisted than any book I had read at the time. The movie manages to convey these traits of the book (sometimes better, sometimes worse), but in a manner that could potentially traumatize younger children. In other words, The Witches doesn't hold back on being as dark as it needs to be- that is, until the unfortunate twist at the end that Dahl himself spoke publicly against.

As explained in the film, witches appear to be normal, and harmless-looking woman, but that's what makes them so hard to spot. Witches hate children, and will do anything to get rid of them. Few are aware of the existence of witches. One of these few are an elderly lady named Helga, grandmother of a young boy named Luke, whom she now cares for, as Luke's parents have died. But things get interesting when Luke stumbles upon a meeting composed of witches (quite by accident), and is subsequently turned into a mouse.

The Witches, even to someone like me who has read the book, feels like something completely new and original. The set designs are clever, the cinematography is unique (if a little clumsy at times), and while some bits might seem a little dated for some, the dark charm The Witches possesses cannot be ignored.

Does this film have problems? Well, yes, but most of these would involve comparisons between the book and the film, which leads to tiresome nit-picking, so I'll try to avoid detailing this.

However, I must briefly address the ending (though I will not spoil anything), which differs dramatically from the book, and all but destroys the tone the film was going for. The Witches strives for darkness and frights. So much so that The Witches really does push the PG envelope. In fact, I think the ending is all that saved it from getting the PG-13 it probably deserved. And it's because the ending is so absurdly happy, as something occurs that perfectly wraps up the film, and makes everything all right, and this is not how it should be at all.

The ending for the book was perfect, and the only reason this change could be considered necessary, is to insure that children won't find themselves further disturbed by the book's non-typical ending. But the content before this ending is so un-friendly to children, this change didn't need to be made. This is the equivalent of running a marathon, only to give up a few steps away from the finish line.

Ending aside, The Witches boasts some truly terrifying visuals (at least, terrifying for a family film), and some surprisingly grim moments. But that's the beauty of it; it's a dark, horrifying film, disguised as a movie for families. This is exactly the kind of adaption that a Roald Dahl book deserves, and I'm sure Dahl would've loved this movie had it not been for the ending.

Child actors usually get a bad rap, and while Jasen Fisher as Luke is completely inoffensive, his performance also doesn't require much depth. For most of the film, Luke is a mouse, and even before Luke is turned into a mouse, his screen presence is limited- at least for a main character.

Anjelica Huston's performance as the Grand High Witch is solid, though her spotlight is stolen by her purposefully grotesque appearance. Whether this is the result of a mask, prosthetics, or special effects, the make-up job is fantastic. Also notable is Mai Zetterling as Luke's grandmother, and Rowan Atikson as a hotel manager- both actors are solid in their roles.

The score, composed by Stanley Myers, enhances the film (especially during its more suspenseful moments), but it's completely forgettable. There's not a single musical moment I can recall, which is unfortunate.

The Witches a fresh, and wickedly entertaining production, but it certainly won't appeal to everyone. Some of the campier aspects of the film will certainly bother some audiences (for example, I'm certain that at least a half-dozen of the witches were actually male), while children will likely be scared spit-less by some of the more frightening images. But fans of the book should enjoy themselves (while nit picking throughout), and those in the mood for an offbeat, darker-themed fantasy should find themselves immensely satisfied.

If only it weren't for that ending...

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it has a pretty good reputation, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, I have never been a huge fan of Roald Dahl's work and I never really enjoyed the movies adapted from his books. I mean, some of them were pretty good but none of them really blew me away (except 'The Fantastic Mr Fox) and this feature was not an exception. I mean, sure, it's not bad at all and there was indeed an interesting creepy mood, something you wouldn’t expect in a family feature like this one. However, to be honest, I didn't think the story was really entertaining whatsoever and like most of Roald Dahl's stories, I was rather bored during the whole thing. I don’t know, I always had a hard time to connect with his tales but, at least, Nicolas Roeg had an interesting directing style and Angelica Huston was perfectly cast (in fact, Roald Dahl himself was really pleased because she had always been a personal favorite for the role). To conclude, even though I didn’t like it much, it was still an interesting watch and it is worth a look especially if you enjoy Roald Dhal's books more than I do.

Luke, um menino de 10 anos, é levado à Inglaterra por sua avó Helga após a morte dos pais. Ao chegarem ao hotel, descobre que uma estranha convenção acontece por ali. Ele percebe que se trata de um encontro de bruxas, no qual está se traçando planos para transformar todas as crianças do mundo em ratos. O pequeno Luke acaba sendo descoberto em uma das reuníões, se torna vítima e acaba sendo transformado em rato junto mais um menino chamado Bruno Jenkins. Mesmo nessa condição, o garoto resolve impedir que este plano diabólico seja colocado em prática.

Extraído da Wikipédia