Article contributed by Daniel A
The 1990 film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1983 children’s dark fantasy novel The Witches has become a cult film over the last thirty years. With the release of a new adaptation we look at some things we want to see from the modern update of a classic.
Make ‘The Grandmother’ A Bigger Character
Being a children’s story, the protagonist of The Witches is understandably a child, an unnamed boy in Dahl’s novel, but given the name Luke in the 1990 film. There’s no reason why this wouldn’t be the case in the 2020 version, but both versions of The Witches have also very much been the boys grandmother’s story and could benefit from giving her more of a backstory.
In both versions she shares her extensive knowledge of witches with her grandson – how to identify and avoid them – and in the novel states she is a retired witch hunter who travelled the world searching for the Grand High Witch. She is also missing one of her fingers, ‘an unfortunate accident’, she tells her grandson, implying a run-in with witches in her past, although the incident in question is never discussed. In the 1990 film, the grandmother – known as Helga – also recounts the kidnapping of her best friend Erica by witches.
She certainly has plenty of stories to tell, but there is never a definite explanation as to how she became so knowledgeable about witches, or how she seemingly has a history with the Grand High Witch herself. She has an unexplored past that could make the mythology of The Witches that much more exciting if its delved further into.
This is an older woman, whose health is flailing, and she has just lost her son and daughter-in-law in a car accident (in both the novel and the 1990 film adaptation). She has taken in her young grandson, and is now faced with an old enemy who kidnapped her childhood best friend – who is now threatening not only the lives of her and grandson, but of all children worldwide. There is so much drama to be mined from this character, and hopefully Octavia Spencer, who is playing her in the upcoming film, is given the opportunity to explore it more thoroughly.
Anne Hathaway Hamming It Up
Angelica Houston undoubtedly steals the show (a lot of that to do with her makeup, but more on that later) in the 1990 film adaptation, in the role of the Grand High Witch. It’s going to be a hard job for Anne Hathaway, who is undertaking the role for the 2020 film, to top it, or at the very least, make herself just as memorable as Houston did in the role.
Looking at her filmography, Hathaway has never really played a villain before, but she could choose to take inspiration from a co-star of one of her previous films. Another film adaptation of a beloved dark children’s fantasy novel, Alice In Wonderland (2010), and its sequel, Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016), featured Hathaway as Mirana the White Queen. The antagonist of those films, Mirana’s villainous counterpart, is the well known Ircabeth, The Red Queen of Hearts, played by Helena Bonham Carter.
Shrill, merciless, and in a position of high power The Grand High Witch and The Red Queen share a lot of similarities. If Hathaway is able to bring a similar energy to her role as Bonham Carter did for The Red Queen, there’s potential for her version of the character to be made her own.
The Use of Practical Effects and Makeup
What makes the 1990 adaptation so memorable is its amazing use of visual effects and makeup that still make for satisfying viewing today. The scene in which the witches have their meeting is considered the best – or most terrifying, if you watched as a young child – use of these effects as the witches degarb their human costumes and wigs to reveal their true monstrous selves. Its use of puppetry effects for the anthropomorphic mice also holds up remarkably well.
Trailers for the 2020 version show up that the effects will mostly be digital, but without a close shot of the witches in their natural form it’s hard to say what they will actually look like. Hopefully the same time and effort that went into the original effects has still been taken… Houston’s Grand High Witch makeup/prosthetics took six hours to apply and remove! When the protagonist of the film is turned into a mouse halfway through, it will rely on its effects to continue to engage the audience and not distract from the plot.
That’s not to say the use of digital effects will necessarily deter from the film. The original also used digital effects for the witches’ purple eyes/burning stare. Returning to the previous comparison of Alice in Wonderland, Bonham Carter’s Red Queen’s head was digitally enlarged three times its original size for the film. Similarly to Houston’s Grand High Witch in the 1990 film, this effect helped elevate the character, and hopefully the effects of the 2020 film can do the same.
Keep Roald Dahl’s Original Ending
In Dahl’s original novel, The Witches ends with the boy and his grandmother successfully turning the witches into mice with their own potion, and they are subsequently killed by the hotel staff at which they were staying. The boy and the grandmother return home and plan travelling abroad to rid the world of all witches. The boy is still a mouse, and his grandmother tells him he will only live for a few years due to his short life expectancy. The boy isn’t phased by this, telling her he does not want to outlive her because he wouldn’t want anyone else to look after him.
The 1990 film is practically the same except for one crucial detail – the boy is turned back into a human by a witch in thanks for killing the Grand High Witch. Being a children’s film this makes sense as a suitable ending, but Dahl was angry with the change made by director Nicolas Roeg. So much so he wanted to start a public campaign against the film, but was dissuaded by Jim Henson who was a producer of the film.
Dahl’s feelings aside, the ending does feel out of character with the rest of the dark-themed film. Even as Susan Irvine (the disgruntled ex-assistant of the Grand High Witch) approaches the boy and grandmother’s house at night towards the end of the film, there’s a sense of uneasiness that she – as the last witch – has come to kill them. She even laughs maniacally as her powers shoot through their window into the boy’s mouse cage. It’s easy to assume that she has killed him, only for him to be turned back into a human boy. Yes, it’s a happy ending you expect from a children’s film as the grandmother hugs her grandson, but it’s also oddly jarring in context with the rest of the story. Perhaps 2020 film adaptation can rectify that.
