|
The Witches
| |
|
| |
|
Release Date
|
October 19, 2020
|
|
Running Time
|
21:26
|
|
Previous Review
|
|
|
Next Review
|
|
|
Tagline
|
With the remake coming this weekend, The Cinema Snob checks out the original 1990 classic The Witches!
|
|
Link
|
|
The Cinema Snob: Now let's continue on with our theme this Halloween of crazy witches turning children into things! On the one hand, we have Conal Cochran turning children into corpses filled with bugs and snakes, and on the other, we have Anjelica Huston turning children into mice! Mmmm, I'll take the mice, thank you very much. I'm not that much taller than a mouse anyway.
Based on the 1983 book by Roald Dahl, The Witches is the lost fifth part of the hotel dark comedy Four Rooms. This time, witches led by Anjelica Huston gather for a witch convention to unveil their plan of killing all the world's children! The film comes to us from Jim Henson Productions, and was the final film Henson personally worked on, plus was the last theatrical film from Lorimar Productions, which dissolved afterwards, and the film was released due to a deal struck with Warner Bros., though Warner kept it on the shelf for a year before releasing it.
Given the source material, the film's writer and director sure know how to get dark. Sure, Allan Scott wrote D.A.R.Y.L. and The Preacher's Wife, but I prefer to point out this is from the writer of Don't Look Now! Hell, the film's director, Nicolas Roeg, also directed Don't Look Now, plus The Man Who Fell to Earth! Author Roald Dahl had some issues with the movie version of his book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so did he like this adaptation any better? Well, he did want his name off the credits at one point, but more on that later!
The film itself garnered a huge fanbase over time, and was beloved by critics- which OF COURSE means we're getting a remake released on October 22nd of this year. But never mind that, it's Halloween, so let's gather the family and scare the hell out of the kids! Because The Witches is excellent fall-time viewing.
(Opening credits, with whimsical music)
Snob: Plus the music says it will contain a heavy amount of whimsy!
(Opening credits music becomes more foreboding)
Snob: But will also get very dark!
Ooh, I know what's going on here: it's a hotel movie, and the opening of The Shining just snorted a heavy amount of cocaine.
(The Shining theme briefly plays)
Snob: We're given a bit of a backstory on the witches, as Grandma Helga tells a story to her grandson, Macaulay Potter. Helga is played by Mai Zetterling in one of her final film roles before her death in 1994, and Luke is played by Jasen Fisher. Okay, now I know what happened to Kevin from Parenthood, after Justin put a gun to my face! Luke is not only given a name in the movie version, but in the movie, he's American, while he's British in the book- for reasons?
Grandma knows a thing or two about witches, plus as a child, she incorrectly made a bet with Peter Lorre and lost her finger! See? Four Rooms! Told ya! Evil witches may be terrible, but not according to cats, who get the most heavenly backscratching of their life. She tells the story of a girl she knew named Erika, who was sent off by her father to grab some milk- in an era where it was easy to kidnap children. They were always getting sent off by themselves. I for one am hooked on this story, largely helped by Grandma smoking a cigar like a badass! And oh right, the kidnapped child.
(A witch grabs Erika and drags her off, causing her to drop the milk)
Snob: Oh no! Her magic beans! This new Netflix documentary is intense. They've combined all sorts of genres, a missing person's crime story, and a reboot of the Roddy McDowell episode of Night Gallery, where Erika gets magically teleported inside of a painting.
Helga: Looked in the painting. Gazing at us.
Erika: (quietly) Help!
Snob: Well that settles it. I'm never hanging a painting in my house again! The last thing I need is to spend eternity amongst the creepy smiles of the Windy City poster!
Erika remains motionless to the eye, but she just positions and even ages. Then when she dies, she simply disappears! Good lord! "Welp, good night, Luke! I left a bucket near your bed so you don't have to shit your pants!" Meanwhile in the States, Grandpa is telling his own horrific bedtime stories to Luke's cousin.
I'm sensing something terrible is gonna happen to Luke's parents, since them leaving is shot in drunk driving-vision. Surprisingly, Luke does get a good night's sleep, but we'll put a stop to that.
Luke: Mom? Dad?
Snob: Your parents are dead, kid. We're gonna give you nightmares by ANY MEANS NECESARRY!
The bad news is Mom and Dad are dead. Good news? He's going off to stay in a big house with the magic wardrobe and- oh right, I'm confusing my children's stories again. This death, by the way, is brought to you by the wondrous technology of Sony!
(Luke fiddles with a Sony-branded noise device)
Snob: Must buy Sony car battery!
Here, let's screw with this kid some more. Witches sense when children are nearby by the smell of their Buttercreaming. Okay witch, you can get this kid. Just play it cool!
Witch: There's nothing to be frightened of. I just wanted to give you this!
Snob: That's not playing it cool. It'd only be more obvious if that snake was also your hair! Then she offers to give him chocolate. I'm of the opinion that offering chocolate should've been Plan A, and not the snake! Luckily, she's scared off by Grandma. As for the snake-
(The snake rapidly fades out of existence)
Snob: He's been banished into the Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man painting.
Let's give Luke a win, though. It's his birthday, so here's some supporting actors from the movie: a couple mice! Unfortunately, this present was far too sweet, and Grandma passes out and now has diabetes.
Nurse: Those cigars won't do you any good.
Luke: See?
Snob: "Yeah, sorry. You're not taking away my badass powers."
Eh, this is nothing a weekend at the Grand Budapest Hotel can't fix! Everyone love staying at this place! And the crabcakes at the buffet are magical!
(The Grand High Witch steps out of a limo)
Snob: Plus, HOLY SHIT, Cher is one of the guests!
This is Ms. Ernst, the Grand High Witch, played by Anjelica Huston. Hm, a witch gathering, you say? I'm telling ya, Four Rooms universe! By the way, you damn witches are gonna pay for messing up this painting!
(The Grand High Witch makes a child figure disappear from a painting)
Snob: Heh, so long, Barry Lyndon!
Woah, woah! Again, misbehaving children! See? I'm always right! Now we just need David Proval tying up Jennifer Beals and we're set! This is Bruno Jenkins, who is part boy, part pastry, and just another headache for hotel manager Mr. Stringer, played by the great Rowan Atkinson- who based his part on Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers! I hope in the remake, it's based on Payne! Mr. Bean premiered the same year, and side note: I saw this in the theater when I was a kid, and this was the first thing I saw Atkinson in. So later, when I first saw Mr. Bean on television, my first thought was "oh! The hotel manager from The Witches!" Boy, does this movie take me back, just like when we could all light up a big cigar in a hotel room.
I sure hope they stick to the original ending, where Luke invents the classic board game Mouse Trap. But it's best we mingle with the other guests first.
Mr. Jenkins: There's the trouble with this country! A queue for everything!
Snob: *stereotypically British gibberish*
Breakfast is made very awkward by Ms. Ernst looking suspiciously sexy.
Mrs. Jenkins: You'll have some fresh air if I have to take you out by ear! We didn't come here for you to sit eating-
Snob: Ma'am, stop making bedroom eyes with the children, please.
Unfortunately the hotel still has some cleaning to do, so best we take a break while the hotel gets all the chairs in the convention room set up.
Lloyd: And now it's time for What If It Exploded?, hosted by Lloyd.
(Clip from Back to the Future)
Doc: When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit.
(The DeLorean time machine has an explosion effect edited over it)
Lloyd: And this has been What If It Exploded?, hosted by me, Lloyd.
Snob: Good, the chairs are all set up, and we can scope out the room before the big Q&A with the Supernatural cast. But wait, he's made a horrible mistake. This is filmed with the cast of a Real Housewives reunion show! That group eats children like bags of chips!
Anjelica Huston goes full Ilsa with the German accent. The last thing we need is for the She Wolf of the SS to be given magical powers!
Kudos to the makeup department, as it took 6-8 hours to make Anjelica Huston unsexy.
(The Grand High Witch's true form is revealed)
Snob: Hmm... would still bang.
These poor witches. The wigs give them horrible rashes. Maybe that's why they're so cranky. Just wear hats! They also have no toes, and everyone loves having their toes popped!
Ms. Ernst wants children like Aldo Raine wants scalps! She wants all the world's children wiped out, no questions asked!
(Audio from another movie edited in)
Witch: Think this guy saw his daughter out there?
Grand High Witch: You got a problem, boy?
Witch: No problem, sergeant.
Grand High Witch: On your feet, boy.
Snob: Uh oh, looks like the other witches were waiting for someone to slip up. They are giddy about this talky witch's punishment.
(Audio from Hook edited in) Grand High Witch: (Captain Hook's voice) The Boo Box.
Snob: Interestingly, while the movie is still dark, some of the darker stuff was edited out when it scared the crap out of the director's son, which is why I demand the release of the Son of Roeg cut.
Their plan is to turn England's children into mice with this special formula. Maybe that's why the mice are the first to pull a Rog and get the hell out of there.
Grand High Witch: Witches work only with magic!
Snob: Hehe, nope! Nope nope nope nope!
Naturally they need an example, so they put the formula into some chocolate which was then given to the hotel's Augustus Gloop. You may think that he smells bad just from being a child, but it's really because he walks in farts.
Anjelica Huston is perfect in this. She looks at everyone like they deserve the world's fiercest paddling, poison or no poison.
Bruno: *groans, then belches*
Snob: That's not from the poison, he just did the One Chip Challenge right before walking in!
You may think this is excellent makeup and transition effects, but if Charlie Potter's IMDb photo is to be believed, they actually did hire a real life mouseboy to play Bruno!
Phew! That was a close call. Then Luke finally gets the nightmares the whole world has been trying to give to him.
(Luke runs through the convention hall)
Snob: Nevermind, he's so dead. He's gonna have to flee off to Neverland, where he will forever remain a boy with the heart of a mouse. Good thing they're not doing this all in broad daylight. When you get the penthouse suite, you can pretty much get away with anything as long as you tip well.
(The Grand High Witch tips a stroller with a baby in it while laughing, causing it to roll down the hill)
Snob: See? Sometimes you just gotta make yourself laugh.
Sure, Luke may save the baby from the underground river of slime, but eh. I still wanna see him get turned into a mouse. Oo-hoo, I hope the original cut of this movie was just as dark as the Jacob Tremblay scene from Doctor Sleep! Unfortunately, he has to say goodbye to his clothes that he bought from a little store called 1989. But he says hello to these rather great mouse effects, which nicely blends together the use of real rats, and also puppetry. It's consistently edited very well and never takes you out of the movie. And that's not the only bright side-
Bruno: This icing is terrific!
Luke: Are you okay?
Bruno: They didn't give me the six bars of chocolate they promised.
Snob: He gets to eat all the cheese he wants! Plus they have Grandma there as well, even though she slept through the kidnapping.
Luke: I mean, maybe it was the witch. Or maybe it was her diabeetus.
Snob: Oh, right. I almost forgot he's also a quarter Wilford Brimley.
The movie even answers the question of what happens when they run into real mice.
Luke: Catch you two later.
Mouse: (edited subtitles) The book's ending was better.
Snob: It's like the opening of Puppet Master, only if they had a rodent invasion instead of murderous dolls.
Free cheese does come with a price, that being a broken neck. Don't let that stop you from spying on hotel drama.
Mr. Stringer: Your afternoon off tomorrow.
(A housekeeping maid kisses Mr. Springer on the cheek)
Snob: Haha, he's banging half the staff.
It took them a while to find the right room. One had Sylvester the Cat, and the other had Jerry in a box of dynamite. Grandma is taking this rather well considering.
Luke: Don't cry, Grandma. It's okay. Things could've been worse!
Snob: See? That's the spirit. It could've been worse! You could've been turned into Benji the Dog.
Without Bruno around to annoy him, his dad is off trying hard to get laid!
Mr. Jenkins: Just flew in, did ya?
Grand High Witch: What?
Mr. Jenkins: Jetlag's the cuffs of the business classes, I see. You don't mind me joining you?
Snob: "Mmmmhmhmmmhmhmhm, yes..."
Their big plan is to spike the witch's food with the formula, but first they have to get the formula, which you guess it- is in the room of Sylvester the Cat, and his cousin Liebchen!
Liebchen: On today's episode of Out of Context 9-1-1 Lone Star Clips by Liebchen, I'm going to eat zis mouse and no one is going to call 911 because you're a mouse! Haha! And the context is I'm hungry! Wait, yarn! Damn my natural feline ADHD!
Snob: I must say, I am impressed by the acting capabilities of this rat. This little guy knows how to take direction!
He's gotta make sure he picks the right formula, though. The other will turn you into a llama, and Disney already bought the rights to that formula! You better hurry up and get the hell out of there!
(Scene where the Grand High Witch is getting her face mask done)
Snob: Because Leatherface has just returned to his room!
Thankfully, he's got the formula with the help of- um, where's Bruno?
Bruno: There's some jolly good grapes here. ...What's happening?
Snob: Oh, Bruno, you're not more useless now that you're a mouse. You're simply just as useless as you were as a human.
Let's take another commercial break so we can see what other witch movie is getting remade this month.
(The Craft trailer plays)
Snob: Now that Bruno is done eating a Chips Ahoy for two hours, best tell his parents the bad news: no one will be there to eat their leftovers anymore!
Helga: Are you Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins?
Snob: (as Mr. Jenkins) "...Charmed."
Okay, enough introductions. Your son's a mouse, bro.
(Mrs. Jenkins screams at the sight of the mice)
Snob: Oh, that's nothing. Try avoiding the death stare from Anjelica Huston. That's way more traumatizing.
(The Grand High Witch stares at Helga)
Snob: "Yes, I could zap you with my eyes, but the staff worked very hard on those floral arrangements, so I don't wanna ruin them." Eh, she's already ruined the passionate affair of the hotel staff.
(The housekeeping maid puts some magic formula on her neck)
Snob: And now she has the coronavirus.
This poisoning plan may just work, but this is why Ratatouille does not work in real life. Sure, that mouse can cook, but the food tastes suspiciously like rat droppings. This is why Ratatoing is more realistic, like a documentary. He makes sure to spike the soup before Mr. Bean comes in to hilariously put 20 ghost peppers into the food by mistake- after someone kills his erection.
(Mr. Stringer notices fur on the housekeeping maid's neck)
Snob: Somehow this is not more horrific then when Luke gets part of his tail chopped off by a knife, or when members of the kitchen staff try, um, saving the man with a blowjob?
This is a very easy plan that is made complicated by Mr. Jenkins asking for the same soup that the witches are having.
Mr. Jenkins: Just take that back to the kitchen, and tell the chef to cuisine us one more order for cress soup. Now there's a laddie.
Snob: Yes, one spit soup coming your way.
The witches are already turning into mice, and don't worry about this transformation. It gets more disturbing.
Transformed Witch: Don't touch it! It's in the soup! Don't touch the soup!
(The Grand High Witch stomps the transformed mouse into a green splatter)
Snob: Thanks, Roald Dahl's Cannibal Holocaust. I don't even have a tail, and I'm wincing from the blood on the tip of his tail.
Also, I am never eating melted Pepper Jack cheese soup again, because some crazy old woman will slap my hand and scare my wife!
Bruno: Hello, Dad!
(Mrs. Jenkins faints)
Snob: Personally, I feel bad for this hotel. They just got done cleaning up the mess from the unfortunate mint incident. It took them years to clean that up! This is all going along with my conspiracy that this has all been warning us of Disney's plan to turn us all into Mickey Mouse by consuming far too many live-action remakes.
I love how every children's movie from back then is not only awesomely scary, but also always has this camera angle in them. It's great watching this to marvel at the puppeteering, the effects, the makeup, and also my question of is- is one of them in Mrs. Jenkins' ass?
Well, this settles it. I'm only leaving this hotel 1 out of 5 stars on TripAdvisor.com. Sure, there's friendly service and free HBO, but I asked for my cress soup to be made with possum, not mice. I don't know what this man will do to make up for this.
(Mr. Stringer kills the transformed Grand High Witch)
Snob: Okay. 5 out of 5. He did chop the Grand High Witch in half. Disturbing!
It's all good, though. Dad is okay with Bruno being a mouse because this is gonna save him a fortune on groceries. But once one of the witches is left alive and Grandma and Luke journey back home where they plan to go to America to hunt more witches with stolen cash from the High Witch, we can get into the original ending of the movie.
In the book, Luke remains a mouse, and with his now very short lifespan, he and his grandma will now die together roughly around nine years later. They did actually shoot both endings, one where Luke remains a mouse, and the happy one where the good witch turns him back into a boy, where he even gets his mice friends back, and even Bruno will be changed back much to the disappointment of his father. But guess which ending the test audience like better? When you have two endings, one happy and the other not, do you even have to test it? "Gee, I wonder which one the test audience will like!"
The happy ending was also the one preferred by the film's director, but by Dahl? Oh, not so much. He was so livid at the happy ending, he wanted his name removed from the credits, and even wanted to start a huge negative campaign about the movie- until he was talked out of that by Jim Henson himself. Dahl was so pissed at this that in his will, he left very high standards for if any of his works were to be adapted in the future.
But like with Willy Wonka, the author's ill feelings towards the movie didn't stop it from having a very loyal fanbase and extremely positive reviews. I always think of this as such a big part of people's childhoods that I honestly forget that the movie did not perform well at the box office at all. But just looking at it, you can tell that despite low box office, this is destined to become a cult hit later thanks to TV and video. It's funny, the effects are great, it's got a fantastic villain, plus even with it going the happy ending route, it's not afraid to get grotesque and a bit dark throughout, and there are some truly haunting moments in this film that have stuck with me since I was a kid. It's great Halloween family entertainment that teaches kids a hard lesson about 'never talk to strangers'. Listen to the movie The Witches and Winnie the Pooh, kids. Stranger danger is real! But don't worry, if you still want a bummer ending, pop in Halloween III afterwards. Those kids are not coming back from being bugs.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to race home and again stop Lloyd from killing a mouse. Because at this point, I'm fairly sure he has killed hundreds of children.
Helga: Lovely, isn't it? Red?
Mr. Stringer: Yes. Red.