90s Movie Review - The Witches

Director: Nicolas Roeg
Genre: Horror/ Family/ Fantasy
Runtime: 91 minutes
Year: 1990
Starring: Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher, Jane Horrocks, Anne Lambton, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Paterson, Brenda Blethyn, Charlie Potter, Sukie Smith, Rose English, Jenny Runacre, Annabel Brooks, Emma Relph, Nora Connolly

Description: A young boy stumbles onto a witch convention and must stop them, even after he has been turned into a mouse.

Review: There are certain children’s movies, that aren’t actually children’s movies. “The Witches” is one of those, based on a book by Roald Dahl. There is more to it, things that kids would probably not understand or will overlook. Director Nicolas Roeg had to adapt his style. We know him from movies like “Don’t Look Now”, they are full of symbolic, double meanings and aren’t chronologic. In “The Witches” it’s all very clear and the story is told chronologic. The mystery isn’t in the theme, but the dark characters, beautiful camera work and special effects. The grand high witch, wonderfully played by Angelica Huston, is truly scary. As a kid, it freaked me out. And the two talking mice look realistic, especially for that time.
Character Luke is the typical Roald Dahl hero, a brave kid with a big heart. And grandma is likeable. Rowan Atkinson catches your eye as the clumsy hotel manager, but it’s Angelica Huston that shines. She portrays pure evil, someone that will haunt many children’s nightmares.
The camera work is very well done. The scenes with Luke and Bruno as mice are shot wonderfully, it’s seen from a very low perspective.
The negative is the ending. Director Roeg changed the ending. As a big fan of Roald Dahl’s work, that’s not appreciated.
All in all, “The Witches” is an excellent adaptation of the classic children’s book. A bit too scary for the little ones, but the story was very well executed.

Rating: 3,5/ 5

Top 5 Thursday: Movies That Scared Me as a Kid

It’s almost Halloween and October is always the month to watch lots of scary movies. There are plenty of movies that terrify me and give me sleepless nights. But I took the time to create a list of movies that really scared me when I was a kid. Here are my five picks.

5. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The book never scared me, but the movie that. And then specifically that psychedelic boat ride. Kids were treated to images of decapitated birds, dead people with worms crawling across their faces and giant flying monsters. And I’m not even mentioning Gene Wilder’s rhyme about hell and the Grim Reaper.

4. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
It’s a fun film, I laughed a lot and enjoyed it. I still do. But that moment where Judge Doom dies freaked me out as a kid. He doesn’t just die, no, he dies slowly run over by a steamroller. Then he comes back to life, has a helium voice and a hacksaw for an arm. He eventually melts away in a pool of acid. Toon Town is supposed to be a happy place.

3. Watership Down
It’s one of the most depressing and sad animated films I’ve ever seen, but still an amazing film. But when I saw this film as a kid (and then already a bunny owner) I was super shocked.

2. The NeverEnding Story
What a scary world, I would never want to live in that universe. All those creepy creatures and off course Gmork, the scariest wolf ever. I can’t believe that my parents let me see this film as a kid, because it was super scary.

1. The Witches
Another film based on a Roald Dahl book. This is a kids movie, about a young boy and his grandmother trying to find out the truth about witches. And those witches aren’t just ugly women with pointy hats. No, they are bald, gruesome creatures with very long nails that don’t even look human. Scarred for life.

They Almost Made the Top 5: Bambi, Labyrinth

50 Books Challenge 2012 - # 38: The Witches by Roald Dahl

Title: The Witches
Author: Roald Dahl
Story: A seven-year-old boy has a run-in with some real-life witches! In fairy tales witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks and they ride on broomsticks. But this is not a fairy tale. This is about REAL WITCHES. REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ordinary jobs. That is why they are so hard to catch. Witches, as our hero learns, hate children. With the help of a friend and his somewhat-magical grandmother, our hero tries to expose the witches before they dispose of him.
Start: august 26th 2012
End: august 27th 2012
Comment: This is the last book I read in my Roald Dahl month. It was such a pleasure reading them all and it's great to end this month with "The Witches". This is without a doubt the scariest book Dahl wrote. I remember that it freaked me out as a kid, both the book and the movie. The little boy in the book hears all those gruesome stories from his grandmother, that he didn't only get scared. He gets curious and wants to see them for real. When he does, he wished he didn't. My favorite parts in the book were the chapter where grandma tells her grandson how you can recognize a witch. And second is where the boy turns into a mouse and tries to think of a plan to get the witches. I really liked the boy narrator. Like in "Danny the Champion of the World" we see the story through his eyes. Grandma is also loveable, although she has the nasty habit of smoking cigars. She dedicades her life to her grandson. The witches in this book aren't stereotypical witches with pointy hats, brooms and a black cat. Dahl managed to create a new kind of witch, maybe even scarier than the one we already knew. This month was fantastic, Roald Dahl will always be te best children's book writer.
Rating: 5/ 5