Tuesday, November 1, 2016

The Witches 1990 Movie Review - Discussion




From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.

Today I'll be reviewing the movie The Witches released in 1990.

Starring:
Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher

Directed by:
Nicolas Roeg

Genre:
Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

Rating:
PG

Budget:
N/A

IMDb Rating is currently:
6.8

My Rating:
8.6


The Synopsis is:
An orphaned boy, Luke who lives with his grandmother encounter a group of witches who plan to turn all the little children of the world into mice.


Enjoyment:
I really like this charming little story.  I loved that it had so many creature designs, but kept a dark funny edge to it.


Pacing:
1h 31min

 *THE REST OF THE REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. *

Story:
The story is an adaptation of a book of the same name written by famous author Roald Dahl, responsible for many classic books adapted to film.

Unfortunately, Dahl wasn’t always happy with these adaptations and this film was no exception.

In the book there were many darker story treads such as, Luke witnessing the deaths of his parents, Luke meets a friend in the story Bruno Jenkins, but in the book they dislike each other.  And after bruno is turned into a mouse, his dad has him drowned in a bucket of water and the ending is not a happy one.

The film excluded these elements as it was made for young audiences and it was pretty terrifying without them.

Dahl did not like these changes and have since left specific requirements in his will for future adaptations of his work.

There’s no telling how the film would have been different if the film followed the book exactly, but the story still works for me.
It’s not a perfect story.  There are a few plot holes, but, many of them are from the book and not the film.

Challenge:
The witches were the challenge and their plan to get rid of children.  The film plays upon the typical misconceptions about witches in classic fairytales.. That evil woman mischievously working in secret to destroy all children.

As we know today that real practicing witches are not like that at all, it works for this kinds of story which I enjoyed watching.


The film builds up a great reason for the witches to hate children.  Their very presence.  Children smell like dog’s droppings to them and it repulses them to be around them.

As of now, the witches have been able to get one child a week, but the leader of all of the witches, the Grand high witch is not happy with that.  She has come up with a plan to eradicate them by turning them into mice with her magic formula 86… playing on the term 86ed, meaning to get rid of.

In the book it is revealed part of the plan involves parents and other adults eventually killing the mice who were once children.

This plan is a bit round about, but the witches are smart.  They do not want the children to die and leave evidence to expose themselves.  We all know what happens to witches when they are caught.

The details about the witches are wonderfully told in the classic fairytale format as well, with a grandmother telling a story to her grandchild.

The witches are ordinary, but wear wigs because they are bald.  They wear square toed shoes, because they have boxy feet. And they wear gloves because they have ugly claws for hands.

But once disguised as a normal woman, the best way to notice them is by the purple hue to their eyes.

As we see in the film that there is a witch that turns good and much of the physical disfigurement is reversed, with normal hair, feet, and hands.

It seems the degree of evil doings coincides with the  hideousness of the witch.  And the most hideous and evil witch is the Grand High Witch.

The Grand High Witch is a fantastic character with charisma and an over the top sense of drama.  She is your stereotypical witch to the 15th power.  From her, is where we get the most scares and believe it or not comedy.

Seeing her speak to the convention of witches from all over the world really is a sight to behold as she goes through a range of emotions from whimsey to intimidation, frustration to glee, anger to confidence.

The most comedic moments seem to come from the transformation of her character as she conceals her hideousness in a perfect female body… that does not escape male admirers.

Her human guise is Miss Eva Ernst posing as the chairwoman of the royal society for the prevention of cruelty to children.  The perfect name for an organization that means to do the exact opposite.


Empathy:
I really liked Luke and his grandmother.
Luke is an orphan living with his grandmother who has been very upfront about the existence of witches and in fact has had an encounter with some that results in the loss of her pinky.

Grandmother says she has been searching for the grand high witch but never found her.   And the Grand High witch reciprocates as she reveals that the grandmother was an old adversary of hers.

Both the grandma is from norway and the grand high witch has a rather thick german accent.  Which makes sense that they might have crossed each other since the two countries are close to each other.

Luke is such a cute little boy.  When they move to England he encounters the head witch there and she unsuccessfully tries to nab him.

Luke gets two mice for his birthday as a bit of foreshadowing of Luke being turned into a mouse later on.

While training his mice for the circus, Luke is trapped in the conference room with all of the witches while the Grand High Witch reveals her plans and that is how he gets into so much trouble with the witches.

After he is turned into a mouse he gets more likeable, becoming the hero with a responsibility to stop the witches from succeeding in their plan.

The relationship between luke and his grandmother is so sweet and endearing.  They make such a great team and you can really sense how much they trust each other.  Even though Luke is a kid, his grandmother allows him to be himself and has faith in him completely.


Technical:
Most of the witches in the meeting are men in women's clothing which is an interesting choice, when the movie clearly states in the beginning that witches look like ordinary women.

That may have been a misstep, but I rather like some of the film’s other effects, such as the practical effects.

When the boys are transformed into mice, the mice are played by a combination of real rats (not mice) and the most adorable puppets I’ve ever seen.

Jim Henson's Creature Shop created three different sizes of puppet mice and built scaled down sets.

The actually cinematography is off and on.  There were a lot of weird close ups that worked and some didn’t.  Sometimes the close ups give a sense that something was wrong and a trippy hallucinogenic scene.  Very disorienting and Very surreal.

Then there were also many moments that were shot off kilter, with strange tracking.

The toy train Luke is riding on, which brings him to The Real Ghostbusters firehouse, is a Lego Space monorail train.
And The "Bad To The Bone" action figure also appears in Luke's room.


Performances:
Anjelica Huston as Miss Eva Ernst and the Grand High Witch gives a fantastic, hammy, over the top, and deliciously obnoxious performance.  I loved every moment of seeing her on screen.

She was Dahl's personal favorite choice for the role. She throws herself into the performance as you can see she is under the makeup of the hideous version of the Grand High Witch and you can even see that her body language changes to match the character.  It took Anjelica Huston eight hours of make up time to transform into "The Grand High Witch".

Mai Zetterling played the slightly eccentric Grandma Helga played the role gentle, kind, and sweet, but also a little spicy.

Jasen Fisher plays Luke.  In the beginning he wasn’t that effective in the role, but as the film continued his acting improved and by the end I really believe in his character.  His voice work was very well place once he becomes a mouse, my heart just melted for his character.

Rowan Atkinson has a small yet hilariously uptight role as the hotel concierge.


Best:
The best part of the film for me was when the witches were eating the soup.  That scene was relieving in a way, which says alot about the story.  There was so much tension, there was a sense of relief that there would be some kind of justice.

Wish List:
I wish there was more money for the film to smooth out some of the problems such as hiring the proper witch extras in the conference room scene, and more fluid cinematography elements.



The Ending:
The studio actually shot an ending that was more faithful to the book and test-screened the film with a happy ending. The test audiences chose the happy ending.


And I have to say that I cried at the end when Luke and his grandmother were going to sleep… seeing her eyes well up knowing that, he didn’t have long to live and she would lose her grandson forever.

And I was relieved to know that everything was going to be okay.


Summary:
This film reminds me of the Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) makeup effects.  This film could have been the reference for the design of their witches.

The Witches was made for younger audiences but I would say it would be perfect for those 11 and up because it could be a little too scary for children younger than that.

This isn't a perfect movie, but it’s pretty good to me. It’s a dark silly surreal and campy tale, reminiscent of films like a company of wolves and gremlins.


That sums up my review.  I hope you liked it.  This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off.

Take care movie lovers!  I'm off to the next review!



Join the Retro Nerd Girl movie lovers community over at:









No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)