A young boy and his grandmother go on vacation only to discover their hotel is hosting an international witch convention, where the Grand High Witch is unveiling her masterplan to turn all children into mice.
EN
“Real witches hate children. Witches don’t murder children with knives or guns. That’s for people who get caught and witches never get caught.”
Roald Dahl1
“Deliriously upsetting and violent, with Anjelica Huston’s frightening performance at its center, the film features children being turned into mice or tortured while howling witches laugh at them. The angles are stark and dramatic, with plenty of Roeg’s signature gigantic zooms from a far distance. This is what a Nicolas Roeg movie ‘made for kids’ looks like.
Many of the directors’s films received baffled or outright irritated reviews. Audiences sometimes recoiled from the challenges of his visuals. Roeg calls us out on our dirty minds, our voyeurism, making us admit things we might not want to acknowledge. The films were often marketed incorrectly, and Roeg had a lot to say about the damage that caused: “Any change in form produces a fear of change, and that has accelerated.” There was nothing “familiar” about Roeg’s work, and it is only with time that we can perceive the enormity of its influence.”
Sheila O’Malley2
“Along with the normal complications inherent in any film production, both Jim and Kenworthy spent some time in correspondence with various groups representing modern witches (like the Witches League for Public Awareness) as well as extensive correspondence with Roald Dahl himself. While he was a fan of Jim’s work and initially optimistic about Jim’s approach, as time passed, he expressed displeasure with various aspects of the film (including certain misuses of what he considered proper grammar), especially the choice to change the ending and his belief that it was too scary. While test audiences preferred a happy ending with the boy changing back to his original form, Dahl felt that his ending, where the boy remained a mouse, was better. In his explanation to Jim, he wrote, ‘It is also a happy ending. The boy is happy as a mouse. He tells us so. And there is a fair bit of elementary philosophy in it, too. What, after all, is so marvelous about being a human? Mice are far happier. They have far less worries.’”
Jim Henson3
- 1Roald Dahl, The Witches, United Kingdom: Jonathan Cape, 1983.
- 2Sheila O’Malley, “In Memoriam: Nicolas Roeg,” Film Comment, January 2019.
- 3Jim Henson’s Red Book, “12/3/1988 – ‘Screen Witches in LA – Granada Hills – needs work’,” Henson.com, 2012.
NL
“Zoals Michael Wilmington in The Los Angeles Times schreef doet The Witches minder aan een kinderboek denken dan aan aanverwante ‘volwassen’ films waarin kinderen in een horrorhotel belanden, zoals Het Zwijgen (1963) van Bergman of The Shining (1980) van Kubrick. Of ruimer gezien zoals in andere films van Roeg waarin onschuldige wezens verloren lopen in gevaarlijke, perverse werelden.Een paar afstotelijke beelden maken The Witches ongeschikt voor de allerkleinsten. Voor alle overige bevolkingscategorieën is dit een zeldzaam intelligente familiefilm die nooit neerbuigend op het publiek neerkijkt. Het is ook het soort film waar distributeurs geen raad mee weten. Formules zijn nu eenmaal makkelijker te slijten dan originele creaties. Het hielp ook niet dat halverwege de opnamen het productiehuis Lorimar overgekocht werd door Warner Bros. The Witches bleef dan ook in de VS lang op de plank liggen en Roeg werd gedwongen een happy end te draaien dat inderdaad heel abrupt en verward overkomt en de toorn opwekte van Roald Dahl in wiens verhaal Luke de rest van zijn leven als een muis spendeert. Afgezien van dit compromis is The Witches een triomf en verrassend genoeg werd het een van Roegs meest financieel succesrijkste film.”
Patrick Duynslaegher1
- 1Patrick Duynslaegher, “The Roeg Files: The Witches (1990),” Film Festival Gent, juni 2025.
