The Witches Review

The Witches is one of those films that I saw as a kid and loved it, but at the same time it terrified me to the point of sleepless nights. To regain the nostalgia of my childhood I sent forth on an epic quest that took merely one hour to hunt down this title of horrors and slap my twenty dollar bill on the table, signifying the purchase! And thus, I took out all my lights last night, sat down in my cozy chair that screams at my weight, and relive my childhood through a movie that I thought.....surprisingly held up better than I thought.

The Witches is based off a Roald Dahl book by the same name, and while I've never read it, it definitely feels like one of his works. While I rewatched this film, it sort of felt like I was watching two or three stories melded into one. You have the beginning where you have the boy and his grandma dealing with the deaths of the boys parents, and then you have the backstory of the grandmother who's best friend was attacked by a witch. Then, to finish off the movie we have the actual story of the boy and his grandmother staying at a hotel when a witch convention was in town.

What really gave me nightmares as a kid were the transformation scenes. The Witches sets up a really great mythology for modern witches; they hate children, have square toes, where wigs and constantly itch their heads, and finally they pinch their noses because kids smell like dog droppings to them. This simple set up at the beginning of the film really sends shivers down your spine, whether your a kid or not, when the witches at the convention start to undress and take off their fake masks to show off their hideous features. Seriously, the Grand High Witch's transformation is so well done and appalling to look at that I'm in awe.

Speaking of the special effects, they were done by the Jim Henson company and are astounding. The gorgeous women, and I think some men dressed as women, transform into grotesque shadows of themselves. And to make things even more trippy, or in this case terrifying, the scenes when the children are being turned into mice is haunting. The mice make up they blend with human features sends a shiver down my spine. But, once they are turned into mice the special effects are great with how much emotions they could show through the mice puppets.

I had a wonderful time rewatching my childhood, but now that I actually understand more about film and acting, I was surprised at how sucked in I was at certain scenes, while wincing at the really poorly dramatic acting that was going on. All in all, this film really picks up halfway through, and if you've never seen this, then I'd say the only reason to see it is the special effects. I was blown away with what they could do and I could watch a three hour movie with those mice and the clever ways they used those puppets, or whatever they are. Kids will love and fear this movie, although I'm not sure how fearful they will be in this day and age of computer graphics.