The Witches (1990)

Mar 29

Written By Young, Wild & Freaked Media

Saving the world from witches is a tall order for a boy they've turned into a mouse!

Starring: Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher, Charlie Potter and Rowan Atkinson.

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Written by: Allan Scott

Released: February 16, 1990

Budget: $11 million

Box office: $15.3 million

Distributed: Warner Bros. Pictures

As a child, there were a few movies I remember watching over and over again. One of them was The Witches. Every time I went over to my cousin who had the VHS of it, I’d ask to see it for the umpteenth time. At that point in my childhood, I was obsessed with the idea of having powers, chanting spells, and concocting potions✨.

The TV show Charmed probably had a lot to do with it. I so badly wanted to be a Halliwell sister lol. I pictured the wind blowing leaves in a swirl🍃, lightning cracking in the distance🌩️, and throwing ingredients into a bubbling cauldron 🧙🏽 that would make me the most powerful child EVER!!! (dramatic evil laugh). Ah, I miss being a child sometimes.

Anyhoo…Roald Dahl was another author who was very influential in my childhood. I’m sure he still is to so many of us. Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The BFG were among my favourite books to read. However, I only started reading them after I had seen most of the movie adaptations of them.

The Witches was one of my gateway horror films as a child. And yes, I’m claiming it as kids’ horror. Besides the film’s fantastical and mystical story elements, there are quite a few scenes that are scary within the realm of kids’ cinema. The most obvious is the transformation scene of Anjelica Huston. Who was expecting that underneath such a classic beauty?

So let’s remove our shoes and our wigs and attend this bewitching conference.

There’s something special about the loving bond between a grandma and her grandchild. I grew up with two wonderful grandmas in my life and those quiet little chat sessions, while they were doing some task at the table, always was a pleasant time. I like that we open up the movie seeing the bond between Luke and Helga as she tells him all the information on how to spot a witch. She is of course being protective over Luke, but I suspect she is also trying to warn the young audience that they need to beware, because a witch may come and get them too if they’re not careful. Witches have a purple tinge to their eyes, bald heads, and square-ended feet. When they claim their victims they never get caught and the kids go missing without a trace. As a kid, this scared me because I’m sure we’ve all had the stranger-danger warning from our parents, but very rarely do we consider ordinary-looking ladies as a threat.

As Grandma Helga continues to tell Luke about the witches, the movie cuts to a little girl named Erica who is deemed missing after being snatched up by a witch in an alleyway. When a young Helga goes to visit Erica’s distraught parents, that’s when we see something creepy. Erica has appeared in the family’s oil painting. She sadly stares at her parents and young Helga while in the farmhouse. As time went on, she physically grew up and changed her position in the painting. Until one day, as an old woman, Erica simply disappeared. That’s quite dark for a children’s movie I must say and portrays the witches as more menacing than we may realise.

Just like in Jumanji, we have a child who has to deal with grief due to the death of his parents. Luke unfortunately loses his parents due to a car accident. If you want to tap into the horror a kid faces, it’s probably some feeling of abandonment or lack of safety. Luke is upset by the devastating news, but after they go to England and check into the hotel, he doesn’t touch on it again or bring it up. Perhaps he has come to a place of acceptance and is more focused on looking after his grandma after it’s revealed she has diabetes.

At the hotel, we meet the Grand High Witch and her fellow witches who are there to discuss a new plan to get rid of all the kids in the world. The witches are tasked to open up candy stores in various locations and put droplets of a special potion 🧪into the treats, which after a while, will turn the child into a mouse🐁 so they can eventually be exterminated. I’m not exactly sure how well this plan will work, but I dare not argue with The Grand High Witch because she will zap ⚡ me into smithereens 💥with a point and a stare if I contest too loudly. This conference scene is probably one that sticks out when people think of this film because we get confirmation of the details that Grandma Helga had spoken about earlier. As the witches remove their shoes, wigs, and gloves, we see these ghastly-looking women (and I believe men), but none compare to the reveal of the Grand High Witch. Damn. She is scary-looking. The prosthetic design is amazing and takes the idea of what an evil witch looks like to a whole new level. From the boil-y and bony frame to the hairs all over her head and body, and that exaggerated nose and facial features. It’s a child’s worst nightmare. However, not only is the design great but the performance and delivery of Anjelica Huston is SUPREME! For a scene that long, she carried it on her hunched back and appeared maniacal and menacing.

Speaking of children, the test subject of the potion and demonstration at the conference hall is Bruno Jenkins. He is a British human vacuum that is always hungry and concerned with something to eat. Because of his greed, the Grand High Witch promised him six bars of chocolate (laced with the potion of course) and he meets her at the conference hall to come and collect. We see his green and gassy transformation into a mouse (which also had awesome special effects) and not long after that, poor Luke gets caught and is turned too. They get help from Helga and devise a plan to stop the witches. Luckily, a banquet is being held for the witches with soup being served, so Luke drops the potion into the soup turning all the witches into mice.

Another person worthy of a shoutout is Rowan Atkinson. Mr. Bean was the first film I ever saw in the cinema and it remains one of my favourite movies and childhood moments. So seeing him in this as an uptight hotel manager who is quite snarky and has a stick up his arse, was a pleasant delight.

Anjelica is getting all the prosthetic praise today because her mouse transformation is another hideous, vile-looking creature. That mouse looked like it fell into toxic waste and mutated into something else.

Seeing this film after so long brought me a familiar sense of joy. It reminded me of what was so nice about being a child. The ability to look at the world with magical and fantastical sensibility. Of course, as an adult, I know what the real world is, but there are times I miss an innocent time. Kids media will always have a special place in my heart because, with a click of a button, I can escape to a world where a boy and his grandmother are tasked to save the world from purple-eyed witches.

I have seen the remake with Anne Hathaway and Octavia Spencer and it was OK. Not adding anything original to the story we know. Perhaps more faithful to the book at certain points, however, I don’t think it’s superior to the 1990 version.

I give this film 4.5 out of 5 chocolates

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