Nicolas Roeg is my favorite director ever; Jim Henson stands as one of the best creators of children's and family entertainment in history, and his movies never really disappoint in terms of visual quirkiness and lovable characters; Roald Dahl has to be one of the most interesting individual children's author in the history of people assuming children's authors were really writing about very adult things (adult things even adults can't handle adult things). Whatever witch's brew mixed these together, the result has to be magic, and it is, it's just so hard to know what to do with.
The problem with The Witches is that it's too scary for children and it's too childish for adults. I'm never scared by movies, but the mouse-changing effects (to the point of giant seizuring bobble-heads!), Anjelica Huston peeling her face off, and the weird rubber witch/mouse mix at the end are stronger and more shocking variants of the type of stuff you'd find in The Howling series of movies or other schlock horror. For kids, that's pretty intimidating stuff. The film tries to make up for it with comedic relief in the form of the actual adventure story involving the young boy and his fat friend, Bruno, along with repeated instances of people getting freaked out by the mice (everyone in this movie is either afraid of mice or a witch themselves, save the lead characters), but the little kid's voice over is incessant and annoying. The movie has many really silly and fun situations (especially involving the hotel manager and the grandmother), but some strange moments that don't really seem to follow any logic at all (the whole thing with the baby in the cart).
It's certainly an enigmatic little film. I think if anything it shows that Roeg probably is a bit too zealous to make children's entertainment, and that Henson's well-regarded darker side can really go all out when asked. Oh, and that Roald Dahl was a strange man, but we knew that already.
--PolarisDiB
The problem with The Witches is that it's too scary for children and it's too childish for adults. I'm never scared by movies, but the mouse-changing effects (to the point of giant seizuring bobble-heads!), Anjelica Huston peeling her face off, and the weird rubber witch/mouse mix at the end are stronger and more shocking variants of the type of stuff you'd find in The Howling series of movies or other schlock horror. For kids, that's pretty intimidating stuff. The film tries to make up for it with comedic relief in the form of the actual adventure story involving the young boy and his fat friend, Bruno, along with repeated instances of people getting freaked out by the mice (everyone in this movie is either afraid of mice or a witch themselves, save the lead characters), but the little kid's voice over is incessant and annoying. The movie has many really silly and fun situations (especially involving the hotel manager and the grandmother), but some strange moments that don't really seem to follow any logic at all (the whole thing with the baby in the cart).
It's certainly an enigmatic little film. I think if anything it shows that Roeg probably is a bit too zealous to make children's entertainment, and that Henson's well-regarded darker side can really go all out when asked. Oh, and that Roald Dahl was a strange man, but we knew that already.
--PolarisDiB