Well, 2020 has been a year of scares so what’s one more.
Witches are real!
A terrifying thought, made oh so tangible by the words of Roald Dahl in his 1983 novel The Witches. If like me you were a child of the nineties, you likely saw the 1990 film adaptation, released the same year as Dahl’s passing. Starring Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch, she cast a formidable and deathly frightening shadow across my childhood years, haunting my dreams for many nights to come.
So, when I discovered that 2020 would herald a new iteration of The Witches, this time starring Anne Hathaway in the title role, I was sceptical. Could she be as terrifying as her predecessor?
This latest reimagining of Dahl’s novel spirits the original tale away from its Norwegian heritage basing it instead in 1960s Alabama where the flavour of Creole and mysticism lend a new lens to the adventure of a boy who discovers there’s more to the world than he originally knew. Though despite relocating the narrative, one may argue that director, Robert Zemeckis could have done more with that historical context and made the story more his own. Keeping uncomfortably close to the original prose, there are attempts to pepper it with some seasoning of the South and a nod to the racial inequality of the time.
Chris Rock does an excellent job as narrator of our young African-American protagonist who has tragically lost both parents and is now in the care of his grandmother, played with aplomb by the magnificent Octavia Spencer. Following his first interaction with a witch at their local convenience store, Spencer whisks her grandson away to a posh hotel frequented mainly by ‘rich white folk’ as she claims witches only prey on children of the poor as their disappearances are less likely to cause a stir.
Remember, witches don’t use traditional methods to disappear children… they are far too clever for that. Animal transformations are far more likely to occur, particularly the type that call for an exterminator and that posh hotel which finds itself at the centre of our tale becomes the site of a most interesting infestation.
Unlike the 1990 film which unnerved me from the very beginning and played the action out to maximum sinister effect, Robert Zemeckis’ version verges more on the comedic. Stanley Tucci’s hotel manager is most delightful especially in his interactions with Hathaway’s Grand High Witch, which brings us back to Hathaway herself. Unmoved as I was by her witch cohort, merely props to demonstrate the iconic traits all children should know in order to spot a witch, Hathaway herself is really the star of the show.
Enhanced by some unsettling special effects which make Hathaway’s mouth stretch wider and toothier than is natural, and endowed with superhuman strength and powers defying reason, her Grand High Witch is far more terrifying than I had thought possible. Certainly the stuff of nightmares and enough to warrant the M rating; parents prepare for a whole new generation of children kept awake by the cloven clawed, toeless, spotty bald demons appearing on a big screen near you from 10 December.
The Witches
Rated M (for Mature audiences)
In cinemas from 10 December 2020