The Witches (1990 film)
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| The Witches | |
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 The Witches DVD boxart. |
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| Directed by | Nicolas Roeg |
| Produced by | Jim Henson, Mark Shivas, Dusty Symonds |
| Written by | book: Roald Dahl screenplay: Allan Scott |
| Starring | Anjelica Huston Mai Zetterling Jasen Fisher Rowan Atkinson |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros./Village Roadshow |
| Release date(s) | February 16, 1990 (USA) |
| Running time | 92 minutes |
| Country | UK |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Witches is a 1990 film based on the book of the same name by British author, Roald Dahl.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Witches are a well-connected organization with, as a goal, the elimination of as many children as possible, ideally all of them. No motive is given, other than malice. Tired of the witches' habit of concocting elaborate schemes resulting in the removal of one child a week, the Grand High Witch (alias Eva Ernst) comes up with a new plan: to buy up sweet shops across England and give away free chocolate treated with a magic potion called "Formula 86" which will turn the children into mice exactly two hours from ingestion. However, more than five doses can cause instant transformation.
Unfortunately for her, an old Norwegian witch expert named Helga and her grandson Luke are staying at the hotel where the congregation of witches at which she makes the announcement takes place, which is cleverly disguised as a "Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children" (a parody of RSPCA) convention. By chance, Luke also happens to be hiding in the convention hall—where he is training his two white mice—at the time, and having received a thorough education about witches from his grandmother, he quickly realizes the truth. The doors are locked before Luke can escape the room. The witches unveil their true selves: removing wigs to reveal bald scalps; their gloves to reveal long, sharp claws; and shoes to reveal feet having square ends and hideous stumps where the toes should be. The Grand High Witch has a hideous face under her mask—revolting wrinkles, a long pointed nose, and fingers the size of pencils. She is also a hunchback.
The Grand High Witch turns a greedy and obese boy, Bruno Jenkins (lured there by the promise of six chocolate bars), into an anthropomorphic mouse as a demonstration of the method. The witches sniff out Luke, who manages to escape. He manages to get to his hotel room, but is captured by the Grand High Witch herself. She then pours an entire bottle of Formula 86—all 500 doses of it—down Luke's throat, resulting in another mouse with a human mind. Bruno and Luke meet in a vent.
Luke and Bruno manage to reach Helga's room safely, and Luke manages to steal a bottle of the potion from the Grand High Witch's room and use it against the witches by adding it to the soup reserved for the witches themselves (although part of Luke's tail is cut off with a carving knife by a panicked chef after he has been spotted). One of the hotel cooks is actually a witch, as proven by her purple eyes. She tastes the soup after the soup has been mixed with the formula, and turns into a mouse herself. She tries to warn the other witches of this, but is crushed and killed by them when they see her. A short time later they all start turning into mice.
Initially, panic ensues when mice suddenly appear in the dining room, but soon both hotel staff and guests are attacking and killing the rodents—unknowingly ridding England of its witches. The Grand High Witch herself is finally destroyed when Mr. Stringer, the hotel manager, chops her in two with a meat cleaver. After Luke and Helga have returned home, one good witch, Miss Irvine (the Grand High Witch's former put-upon assistant), comes to Luke and Helga's house that night and uses her magic to restore him to human form, as well as returning his previously lost white mice. Seeing Miss Irvine outside, Luke shouts a reminder to her to also turn Bruno back into a human, to which Miss Irvine gives a reassuring smile before driving away. Her good deed also appears to change her fingers from clawed to human. With England's children now safe from the threat of witches, Luke and Helga begin making plans to return to the United States to destroy the witches there.
[edit] Differences from the book
- In the book, the hero is never named and neither is his grandmother. In the movie, the hero's name is Luke and the grandmother is called Helga.
- The boy in the film is American, whereas in the book he is English.
- In the book, the hero's grandmother told him tales of five children becoming victims of witches. In the movie, she only told him one.
- In the book, the hero's grandmother is his maternal grandmother, whereas in the film she is his paternal grandmother.
- In the book, the little girl that was turned into part of a large oil painting disappears from it altogether.
- In the book, the hero was changed into a mouse in the ballroom. In the movie, Luke escaped the ballroom, but he was eventually caught and brought back by the Grand High Witch and some of the other witches.
- In the book, the hero finds three children turned into toads at the room of the Grand High Witch. In the film, Luke encounters her pet cat, which his grandmother distracts with a piece of knitting.
- In the book, the children remained mice. In the end of the movie, Luke and Bruno were made human by Miss Irvine (a character created solely for the movie), formerly the assistant of the Grand High Witch. The happy ending was tacked on in the U.S. version of the movie, but not in international countries.
- In the book, the boy's grandmother had pneumonia. In the movie, she had a "mild case" of diabetes. The doctor in the movie implied that she would get better soon, although there is as yet no cure for diabetes.
- In the book, the Grand High Witch only removes her mask and leaves everything else in place. In the movie, she removed her wig, gloves and shoes as well as her mask.
- At the end of the book, Luke and his grandmother plan to go to Norway (his grandmother's native country) to stop witches there, whereas in the movie they plan to go to the United States to destroy the witches who live in that country using the Grand High Witch's address book.
- In the book, it is speculated that Bruno Jenkins was drowned by his parents due to their inability to accept his new mouse status, while in the film they appear to at least be willing to attempt to cope with his transformation, with Bruno encouragingly reminding his mother that she always wanted him to lose weight
- In the book, the eyes of a witch have a pupil which changes color and blazes with colored light. In the movie, the witches have purple eyes.
- In the book, the Grand High Witch's formula was called "Formula 86 Delayed-Action Mouse-Maker." In the movie, it was simply called "Formula 86."
- In the book, children needed one dose and the Formula 86 Delayed-Action Mouse-Maker worked at 9:00 the following morning. In the film, Formula 86 needed five doses and it works two hours later.
- It is subtly implied that witches can become normal women- or at least take on the appearance of normal women while retaining at least some of their powers- if they become good. Miss Irvine is an example.
- In the book, and in the movie's dialogue, the boys are transformed into mice; however, all the shots of live creatures show them as rats instead.
[edit] Cast
[edit] Miscellany
[edit] External links
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