My look into Roald Dahl films continues. Based on his 14th novel of the same name, The Witches is an interesting movie adaptation. There’s tints of child-like horror and innocence in the movie that is vastly different from his last adaptation that we talked about last time. And well, this wasn’t my first exposure to the story. Three years ago, director Robert Zemeckis did his adaptation and well, I’ll talk about it. With that, here’s what I think about the original from 1990.
1. Luke and Helga
This is the second adaptation where the young kid and their grandparent are central elements in the story. Anyways, we follow Luke and his grandmother Helga in Norway. She tells him a story about witches and how they’re everywhere in the world. It would be one thing where she tells him the tale and just leave it at that. What I like too in those opening moments is how Luke basically wants to know more. And Helga practically knows how the witches operate.
We see Luke’s parents for a few, but they don’t come back. Dealing with the grief, both Luke and Helga spend some time in England at a seaside resort. Unbeknownst to them that the same hotel is hosting the Witches. The whole movie has this child-like thing going for it, much like Willy Wonka before. It especially helps when we hear Helga delivering the expositive details about the witches and how she saw them.
Just the first victim we see shows just how cruel and malicious they are. More so how what one witch does to a young girl, by trapping her inside a painting. Compounding the cruelty is that the young girl slowly ages and dies inside the painting. In the context of the movie, it’s a good story for Luke since there’s a hint that his grandmother saw it first-hand. Or in this case, she’s missing a finger since she had an encounter.
2. The Witches
Anjelica Huston has confirmed that the role as the Grand High Witch is her personal favorite. Before we even get the reveal, the witches look like any other woman. Right down to where we see one almost snatch Luke in his treehouse. Subtle clues like whenever we see a witch up close, the pupils in their eyes light up. I think it’s a drastic departure of what people think of a witch.
No broomsticks or the obligatory black cauldrons show up in the movie. They don’t look haggish initially, just seemingly normal women that tries to either lure or stalk a child. Luke comes across one in the beginning and tries to offer him a chocolate bar and a snake for some reason. I like that he doesn’t fall for it and remembers what his grandmother told him from the stories.
The main highlight in the film is that we see what they really look like. The level of prosthetic that is used for Huston’s character is crazy. That’s when you know she is the Grand High Witch. All the other witches are mostly bald with rash marks on their scalp. Huston is basically one above all among her brood. Right down to killing one witch who questions her plan. The prosthetic took eight hours to set up and remove, her height as well enhances her domineering role.
This is pretty much on par with having a villain be a child threat, and the main hero being a kid that’s tasked to stop her. There are even camera shots of the witches being too close to the camera, emphasizing the level of uncomfortableness. Even though he’s a mouse, he manages to conquer his fear and attempts to put an end to the villain’s scheme. With Jim Henson’s company working on the puppetry, I’m glad that it gives us an almost realistic looking mouse.
Now, it would be one thing where they would have an actual mouse just run around. I will at least give credit to Henson’s company to make the puppet mouse be lively. The attention to detail where we see Luke and his new friend Bruno is also good. Having the sets be larger versions of the actual set so that we can have that illusion when we see the mice puppets.
3. Legacy
Just like Willy Wonka before, Dahl hated the movie. And reading the synopsis for the book justifies his reaction. The book ends on a triumphant but gloomy way. Dahl was considering taking his name off the movie, just before Jim Henson persuaded him not to. It’s tough to have the original ending since it contrasted with what the character went through. I can at least say that he saw the film with his ending and the more audience favored ending. Matter of fact, this was the last time both Henson and Dahl had a hand in a movie. They died just after the movie came out.
As I mentioned before, the book was adapted once again back in 2020 by Robert Zemeckis. Seeing snippets of that one and the Huston version led me to believe that the new one was inferior. Albeit the new one leaned more heavily towards the source material. I think the problem with the new one was that the witches didn’t look grotesque. Anne Hathaway’s witch appearance resembled more like Pennywise without the makeup. While that’s the least of the film’s problem, it wasn’t received well.
4. Overall
The Witches is one of the darkest of Roald Dahl’s adaptations. Darker in a way that only a kid can enjoy.
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