My Review of The Witches (1990)

 

Written by Allan Scott

Directed by Nicolas Roeg

Grand High Witch: "I'm not finished with you yet, old woman... Next time..."

Helga: "No. Not next time. This time, it's *your* turn!"

I recently joined Letterboxd and as I was adding reviews to there, it came to my attention that I never reviewed this movie for here. Considering that I reviewed the 2020 remake, that was an oversight on my part.

There's not many movies that freaked me out as a child but this was definitely one of them. Angelica Huston's performance as the Grand High Witch and the prosthetics used to bring her hideous form to live was the stuff of nightmares. Even now, it's a rather unsettling look.

Witches are real and they absolutely despise children. The recently orphaned Luke Eveshim (Jasen Fisher) was given quite the crash course in how to spot witches by his grandmother, Helga (Mai Zetterling). She lost a friend to a witch as a child among other things.

Moving to England after his parents death, Luke managed to avoid falling victim to one witch (Anne Lambton) but a stay at a nice hotel with his grandmother put him into a world of danger with the worst witches on the planet.

A council of witches led by the Grand High Witch had the perfectly evil plan to get rid of children. It involved a formula in chocolate that would turn them into mice. There was a clear demonstration with Bruno Jenkins (Charlie Potter) being turned into a mouse and then it happened to Luke.

The Grand High Witch worked brilliantly as a children's villain. There's a certain campiness to her but at the same time, she's genuinely terrifying. Her comeuppance at the hands of Helga along with Luke and Bruno was well deserved but the change of heart her assistant, Susan (Jane Horrocks) somewhat jarred the ending for me.

- Rowan Atkinson popped up as the hotel manager R.J. Stringer III. Bill Paterson and Brenda Blethyn played Bruno's parents.

- Helga's childhood friend got trapped in a painting where she eventually died. The Grand High Witch's cat was called Liebchen. 

- The movie did hint at Helga and the Grand High Witch being old enemies but never really did anything with it.

- Chronology: 1990s. Set in both Norway and England though Luke himself was American.

The Witches (1990) made for a terrifying movie as a child and it's still a little bit terrifying as an adult. The ending did seem like an attempt to make things a bit brighter but I liked the book ending more.

Rating: 8 out of 10