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The Witches (1990 film)

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The Witches
File:Witches poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byNicolas Roeg
Written byScreenplay:
Allan Scott
Novel:
Roald Dahl
Produced byJim Henson
Mark Shivas
Dusty Symonds
StarringJasen Fisher
Anjelica Huston
Mai Zetterling
Rowan Atkinson
CinematographyHarvey Harrison
Edited byTony Lawson
Music byStanley Myers
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release dates
United Kingdom
May 25, 1990 (1990-05-25)
United States
August 24, 1990
Australia
September 20, 1990
Running time
92 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom
United States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$10,360,553 (North America)[1]

The Witches is a 1990 film adaptation of the book of the same name by British author Roald Dahl.[2] It was directed by Nicolas Roeg and produced by Jim Henson Productions for Lorimar Film Entertainment and Warner Bros, starring Angelica Huston, Mai Zetterling and in an early appearance, Rowan Atkinson. As well as being the final film Henson personally worked on, this was also the final theatrical film produced by Lorimar.

Plot

An old Norwegian woman, Helga, warns her grandson, Luke, about witches- wicked females whose primary aim is to destroy children. Helga explains that witches reside in every country in the world, and look very much like ordinary women. She goes on to describe how witches use devious methods to do away with children, and evade police, including how a Norwegian witch once locked one of Helga's childhood friends inside a painting. Helga lists the subtle features of how to recognise a witch. Witches are indicated by Helga to have a highly developed sense of smell, and that they find the smell of children repulsive, akin to fresh dog's droppings. She also tells Luke about the Grand High Witch, their leader, and the most evil, who rules over all the witches on earth.

Shortly after the death of Luke's parents, Luke and Helga move to England. It is here that Luke has his first encounter with a witch, while he is playing in his treehouse. A woman in black approches him from below, whom he recognizes as a witch from his grandmother's specific descriptions. The woman offers Luke a snake she found on her walk. As Luke calls in panic for his grandmother, the woman offers him a chocolate bar instead, while also mysteriously appearing to know his name. Some distance away, Helga interrupts the witch's coaxing and calls Luke to dinner. The witch is forced to abandon her attempts at getting to Luke, and proceeds to walk away- the snake she left behind vanishing and reappearing back in her handbag. Luke tells his grandmother of the ordeal, and attention is drawn to Helga's hand, missing a finger, implied to be from her own near miss encounter with a witch when she was a child.

On Luke's birthday, Helga is diagnosed with diabetes, and the doctor recommends a holiday by the seaside to recover. They visit a hotel in Cornwall where an alleged "children's charity group" falsely disguised as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RSPCC) is having its annual meeting. An imposing aristocratic looking woman named Eva Ernst also books into the hotel. Helga when first spotting Miss Ernst across the dining room, believes she has seen her somewhere before, as her face seemed familiar to her.

Luke wanders around the hotel with his pet mice, William and Mary. He ends up in a wide, deserted conference room and hides behind a screen to train his mice.

Suddenly the "charitable organisation" members arrive and begin to fill the seats in the room. Luke is trapped in the room with them near the stage, although they cannot see him behind the screen. When he notices one woman with purple eyes, and another of them scratching underneath her wig (with a gloved hand), he realises that the "charity members" are the witches of England who have come for their annual conference. One of the witches in the audience is the same woman in black Luke encountered in his treehouse. After the doors are securely locked, the witches unveil their true selves: removing wigs to reveal bald scalps; their gloves to reveal long, sharp claws; and shoes to reveal squared feet, with no toes. The woman aliased Miss Ernst removes her beautiful human face mask to reveal a hideous and hunchbacked body beneath her glamorous exterior. Luke realises that she is the Grand High Witch.

The Grand High Witch reveals she is fed up with her underlings' dithering, and that she has come up with a master plan to rid the country of every single child. One of the witches quietly scoffs at the implausibility of the Grand High Witch's plans, but the Grand High Witch overhears her. As punishment for the witch's insolence, the Grand High Witch incinerates her with magic beams projected from her eyes. After killing one of her own, the Grand High Witch warns the rest of the assembly not to make her cross, and goes on to discuss specifics of her plan. She orders the witches to resign from their jobs when they return to their homes and buy sweet shops and candy stores with money she will give them. She then tells them to lace their confectionery with a magic formula she will give them, called 'Formula 86', which turns whoever ingests it into a mouse. Ordinarily, ingesting one dose of the formula causes delayed transformation two hours after it has been taken, but consuming more than five doses would break the delay barrier and the formula's effects would then be instant.

The Grand High Witch magically transforms a greedy, obese boy, Bruno Jenkins (lured there by the promise of chocolate bars), into an anthropomorphic mouse. She had given him one dose of a contaminated chocolate bar two hours earlier in the day and promised him more chocolate if he came back to her later; his arrival time planned perfectly as a demonstration for the witches to see how the formula works.

The witches then sniff out Luke, and try to capture him when they notice him lurch behind the screen, adament to kill one who has spied on such secret affairs- but Luke initially escapes back to his grandmother's hotel room. Helga remains in a deep sleep, unrousable- unconfirmed later by Luke as either magically induced or possibly diabetes induced. The Grand High Witch appears in Helga's room, and identifies Helga as an "old adversary" when Luke accuses her of causing his grandma's comatose state. The witches transport Luke back to the conference room, and pour an entire bottle of Formula 86 down Luke's throat, (500 doses of the formula) thus instantly transforming him into a second mouse. The Grand High Witch orders her assembly to kill him and while the witches proceed to try to stomp on him, Luke escapes to the edge of the room; scuttling into a hole in the wall. Despite failing to kill Luke, the witches believe him neutralized and not worth bothering about. While looking for Bruno, Luke realizes he can still talk in his mouse form.

Luke and Bruno (as mice) reach Helga, now awake, and explain to her what has happened, and that the witches are in the hotel. Later, with Helga's help, Luke steals a bottle of Formula 86 from the Grand High Witch's room and uses it against the witches by adding it to the soup reserved for the witches' party. One of the cooks in the kitchen preparing the soup (also a witch) taste tests the spiked batch before it is served. After she turns into a mouse, she races into the witches' party, trying to warn them that the formula is in the soup, and that they should not touch it. Mistaking the talking mouse for a transformed child, the woman in black, seated next to the Grand High Witch, squelches the mouse under her boot. With the failed warning, all of the witches at their dining tables eat the soup. Helga notices Bruno's father about to eat the soup, which he demanded from the manager, even though it was not on the standard menu. After Helga tips out his soup, and returns Bruno to his parents, she offers to reveal to them who is responsible for Bruno's alteration. As she is preparing to tell them who did it, chaos breaks out as all the witches start transforming into mice.

Initially, panic ensues when the witches suddenly transform into mice in the dining room, but soon both hotel staff and guests are attacking and killing the mice running around, unknowingly ridding England of its witches. The Grand High Witch is stunned as she watches all of the witches transform around her, as she herself seems to be resistant to the effects of the potion right away. Noticing Helga across the room, and attributing the fault to her "old adversary", the Grand High Witch advances menacingly upon Helga, until Bruno leaps onto her and bites her. The formula finally begins to work, and The Grand High Witch turns into a repulsive, snarling mouse. After Helga traps her under a water jug, the Grand High Witch mouse is finally destroyed when the hotel manager kills her with a meat cleaver.

After Luke and Helga have returned home, Luke surprises Helga when a trunk is delivered to their house, which he arranged to be posted. In it is all of Miss Ernst's money and an address book filled with the names and addresses of every witch in America. They discuss their plans to travel there by ship. Later that night when both have gone to sleep, Miss Irvine (the Grand High Witch's abused assistant and the only witch not to attend the party), comes to Luke and Helga's house and turns Luke back into a human. As she gets out of the car, it is observed that Miss Irvine no longer has gloves, and wears open toed shoes- her evil witch's deformities of claws and footstumps have been cured, assumedly by her change in allegiance. While Miss Irvine leaves to help Bruno, Luke and Helga look out the window and wave her goodbye.

Cast

Reception

During the 1980s, Nicholas Roeg made a string of films that got mixed reviews or were simply disliked. Those that did appear in theaters ran for a short time or went to independent release. Now, with The Witches, he returned to mainstream film with a bang. The film opened to critical praise as it had the best of both worlds: it was a film featuring the puppetry of Jim Henson (of Muppet fame) and the hallmarks of Roeg's offbeat storytelling. It was liked by critics and audiences together. It received Awards, a list of which now follows.

Awards[3]

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films

BAFTA Awards

Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

Fantasporto

Hugo Awards

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

National Society of Film Critics Awards

Locations

The whole section in the start of the film (until they move to the United Kingdom) is shot in Bergen in Norway, and both Erica and Luke's grandmother Helga speak Norwegian in some parts. The street where they live is called Nykirkesmuget. The police officers drive Norwegian police cars with both Norwegian uniforms and license plates. Much of the film was shot on location in the luxurious Headland Hotel[4] situated on the coast in Newquay, Cornwall.

Soundtrack

The film contains an orchestral score composed by Stanley Myers. The film's main theme is noted for its quirky sound and colorful instrumentation. To date, a soundtrack CD has not been released, and the entire score remains obscure. Throughout the score, the Dies Irae appears, highly reminiscent of Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique Mvt. V, "The Witches Sabbath."

References

  1. ^ "The Witches (1990)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 30, 2010.
  2. ^ "Bewitched, Bothered, Buried Under Latex". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-10-18.
  3. ^ IMDB The Witches Awards
  4. ^ The Headland Hotel


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