Nicolas Roeg’s dark family fantasy is funny, frightening and carried by Anjelica Huston’s delighted cruelty. The start drags and the film softens its nastiness, but the witches remain properly alarming.
Nicolas Roeg’s The Witches is nastier than a comforting family fantasy, and it is better for it. This is a funny, frightening adaptation of Roald Dahl, held back by a sluggish start and an occasional urge to make its cruelty easier to take. Roeg understands why children might want to be scared by a story that is meant for them. He lets the witches be horrible without treating a young audience’s fear as something faintly embarrassing.
Anjelica Huston provides the strongest reason to watch. Her performance as Miss Eva Ernst is extravagant, commanding and amused by its own nastiness. She gives the chief witch the confidence of someone who cannot imagine being challenged, which makes the excess feel dangerous rather than merely decorative. We were unsettled by how much pleasure she takes in being cruel; the humour does not offer much protection from her.
Harvey Harrison’s cinematography makes the grotesquery uncomfortable to look at without making it difficult to follow. The images invite us to inspect these creatures, and looking more closely does little to make them reassuring. Andrew Sanders’s production design supports the sense that this fantasy has a solid, unpleasant physical presence. The creature effects matter because their ugliness is so persuasive, and the film gives us time to register it rather than relying entirely on sudden shocks.
Jasen Fisher is an appealing Luke Eveshim, though the film’s pleasures lie more in the threat to the boy than in a detailed portrait of him. Mai Zetterling’s Helga Eveshim gives the film some welcome warmth. Against the chief witch’s extravagance, that quieter presence matters: an unbroken succession of grotesque creatures could become wearing. The contrast allows the film to pause without losing our interest, and we would happily spend more time with her.
The chief weakness is how long the film takes to reach its most forceful presence. Tony Lawson’s editing leaves the early stretch feeling dutiful, and the preparation is not always interesting enough to justify the delay. At 91 minutes, the film ought not to feel as if it is keeping its strongest performer in reserve. Once Anjelica Huston dominates, though, her exaggerated performance gives the film an energy that the preliminary storytelling struggles to find.
Stanley Myers’s music supports the unease effectively, though it is the faces and creatures that remain with us. Allan Scott’s screenplay is less sure about how far to follow the novel’s unpleasantness, and the impulse to offer reassurance weakens the horror. We do not need every family fantasy to be merciless. Here, however, the softening feels unnecessary after so much effort has gone into making the witches a threat worth taking seriously.
Judged as children’s horror, The Witches understands how frightening it can be to feel small in the presence of a cruel adult. Its comedy allows us to enjoy that fear without quite dismissing it. The PG certificate should not be taken as a promise of an entirely cosy evening, especially for children who find grotesque creatures hard to shake off. Choose it for a family willing to be frightened, rather than one looking to settle down.
