I noticed the Roald Dahl movie The Witches on YouTube. I decided to check it out because I remembered a man on Thursday’s book meetup was reading a Roald Dahl novel, and it sounded dark and twisted. But I think it was a different novel. Also, South Coast Plaza is currently celebrating the Festival of Children event at the mall.
Roald Dahl’s The Witches movie is a funny and entertaining fantasy film for children. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, and Guillermo del Toro, and produced by Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, and Luke Kelly, this 2020 film starred Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, Kristin Chenoweth, Jahzir Bruno, Chris Rock, Codie-Lei Eastick, and other actors. Chris Rock narrates the film. This movie was based on Roald Dahl’s 1983 novel, The Witches. It is the second adaption of this children’s novel because the first movie adaptation was in 1990. Although it is considered to be a dark fantasy comedy horror movie, I think it felt like a children’s film, similar to Hansel and Gretel as well as other dark children’s fairy tales.
A young boy, Charlie, has been orphaned and he is sent to live with his grandmother in Alabama. The grandmother, played by Octavia Spencer, tries to entertain him because he is always depressed, sad and lonely. She eventually buys him a pet white female mouse, which he names Daisy. As life seems to be improving for Charlie, he suddenly runs into an ugly, hissing woman with a snake, at a grocery store, and she offers him candy. He freaks out, runs off, and tells his grandmother about this woman. She informs him about witches, describing them as having deformed feet and hands as well as a bald head with a weird rash. But they cover up themselves with fancy wigs, expensive clothes and shoes, makeup, long gloves, and hats. The Grand High Witch’s smile tends to be wide, similar to the Joker’s smile. They also have huge nostrils to sniff out children. I thought they dressed like elites. The Grand High Witch, played by Anne Hathaway, looked like the Joker when she smiled, which was kind of creepy. She also had a snake-like hiss, when she spoke, similar to Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
The grandmother decides to move to a very expensive hotel where her cousin Eston works as Executive Chef. She feels it is a safe place because the area is filled with rich, white people, and witches prey on poor needy children. The grandmother explains to Charlie that their room number 766, on the fourth floor, is based on numerology symbolism. She also tells Charlie to go out and explore the hotel with his pet mouse because she feels it is a safe place. Charlie befriends a chubby boy named Bruno Jenkins inside the hotel, until his parents pull him off.
He suddenly notices a Witches Convention at the hotel. He hides under a platform to overhear their discussion. He hears about their plan to feed all children chocolate candy laced with a purple potion, that will turn them into mice. The chocolate appears to be high-quality chocolate, given to kids all over the world.
The Grand High Witch had lured the chubby boy, Bruno, with some candy because he is always hungry as well as gluttonous. Charlie watches Bruno enter, demands the chocolate bars he was promised, and suddenly changes into a mouse. The other witches get up and stomp at this mouse with their high heels. Daisy goes out to save Bruno, and they run into the vent with Charlie. The Grand High Witch goes after them until she turns Charlie into a mouse. The three mice run towards room 766 to tell Charlie’s grandmother about the witches. Daisy adds that she was once an orphaned girl named Mary, but the witch had turned her into a mouse, which is why she is able to talk, similar to Bruno and Charlie. The three mice work together as a team to stop the witches. The Grand High Witch is staying at room 666, the room on the third floor, under their own room, 766. Charlie sneakily goes inside the Grand High Witch’s room to steal a bottle of the potion. He notices she has a black cat inside a carrier.
Since the grandmother wasn’t able to reverse the spell to change the three mice back into human kids, Charlie decides to sneak the bottle into the kitchen to lace the split pea soup with the potion because the witches’ dinner menu includes split pea soup.As all the witches start eating their meal, the grandmother enters the dining hall, sits at a table, and orders her meal. The Grand High Witch notices the grandmother looks familiar and approaches her before she starts eating. Meanwhile, the other witches are changing into mice, one by one, and the dining hall turns into a mice infestation. While the Grand High Witch is hissing at the grandmother until she remembers her when she was a kid, and she had turned her friend into a chicken, Charlie steals the Grand High Witch’s room key. As the Grand High Witch becomes distracted with all the witches turning into mice, the grandmother escapes to room 666 with the three mice kids. The grandmother quickly gathers all the potions, which are in small bottles, so that she can get rid of them somewhere. She even takes some money from a huge chest filled with money. The Grand High Witch enters her room with a key from the front desk to see the grandmother inside. As she tries to attack the grandmother, the three mice use one of the mouse traps as a slingshot and shoot a bottle into the Grand High Witch’s mouth. She turns into an ugly hissing rat. The grandmother traps this ugly rat under a glass ice bucket before letting the black cat loose to terrorize and attack the ugly rat. She takes the large chest filled with money. Since the Grand High Witch often treated the cat badly, I am assuming her cat eventually killed her to get revenge on the Grand High Witch.
Bruno’s parents don’t want their now mouse kid because they are terrified of mice. The grandmother adopts Bruno as a part of her family, with Mary and Charlie. They look like the three Mouseketeers. At the end, it appears that Mary, Bruno, and Charlie travel all over the world with the grandmother, enjoying the Grand High Witch’s money, as they use their time to teach children all over the world on ways to fight and destroy all the witches. But I was hoping the three mice would be changed back into kids at the end of the movie.
Anne Hathaway looks fashionable in this movie, similar to the one-percent elites. Her role is similar to Miranda Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada, who played her boss in that movie. Stanley Tucci, who was also in The Devil Wears Prada with Anne, has a role in this movie as the hotel manager. Octavia Spencer plays a loving grandmother trying to take care of her orphaned grandson and ends up with three orphaned mice. They all played their role well, but it appears to be light movie for children. I watched the movie trailer for the 1990 film, and I noticed it seems much darker with creepier witches. After watching the two movie trailers, I decided to compare the two adaptations based on their trailers. I noticed that the 1990 film was probably made for adults. I also noticed ideas from other films. The Grand High Witch’s Joker smile made Anne appear sinister. The witches’ deformities reminded me of the characters from Pan’s Labyrinth and the aging body of Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance. And talking mice are always featured in children’s books and movies. The movie hinted at numerology, dark symbolism, and satanism. When the witches were stomping on the mice with their high heels, it reminded me of snuff films, which has to do with satanic elites killing small animals and human babies as well as torturing kids and animals. Since I haven’t read the novel, I am wondering which movie adaptation is closer to the novel. I have noticed that movie adaptations are different from the novel because the directors are able to make many changes in order to make the movie their own work. I have noticed that Roald Dahl also wrote the novels Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and other children’s books, besides The Witches.
You can watch this 2020 full movie, The Witches, on YouTube for free.
