“The Witches” Review: A Very Creepy Film That Does the Novel Justice

The Witches is an HBO Max Original film co-written and directed by Robert Zemeckis and is based on Roald Dahl's novel of the same name. It follows a young boy in 1960's Alabama who goes to live with his loving grandma after the death of his parents. As the boy and his grandmother encounter some witches, she wisely whisks him away to a seaside hotel. However, they unfortunately arrive at the same time as The Grand High Witch, who has gathered her fellow cronies from around the globe to carry out her nefarious plans while undercover. The film stars the likes of Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, newcomer Jahzir Bruno, as well as Chris Rock as the narrator.

With a cast like this, you'd expect fantastic performances across the board, and with this film that's exactly what you get. Anne Hathaway does an excellent job as The Grand High Witch, giving what I'd consider to be one of her best performances in years. She really breathes life into this character and is definitely up there with Anjelica Huston's iconic performance in the 1990 film. Octavia Spencer is also phenomenal as always, adding another great performance to her resume. However the real standout performance comes from newcomer Jahzir Bruno, who does an excellent job with his physical and vocal performance. Similar to most stellar child actors these days, he conveys a lot of emotion and really adds a lot to the film.

Something else I really loved about this film is the visual effects, which Robert Zemeckis is notorious for. He really steps his game up with this film, and fills it to the brim with extremely creepy visuals and gorgeous colors. The pacing here is also spot on, which I attribute to the captivating story. The film follows the original novel ending which I won't spoiler here, but I feel that it really works for this film. It dosen’t drag on at all and it has a lot of spunky background music which really kept me entertained.

While the pros definitely outweigh the cons in this film, I'd still like to take a moment to discuss the few problems I had with the film. My main problem here is Anne Hathaway's accent. While the performance is indeed spectacular, the character's accent can make it a bit difficult to understand what she's saying, so I feel like some subtitles could've been utilized in a few scenes. Another problem I had with this film is that it felt too light. While I do understand that it was targeted for children, I feel that the film could’ve used a few more of those creepy visuals.

Even with those flaws, as I previously mentioned the pros definitely outweigh the cons. The performances are spectacular, the visuals are creepy and stunning, and the story is very captivating and the pacing is on point. I highly recommend checking this film out at somepoint. While I don’t feel that it is crucial you watch this on Halloween, it's definitely a film I'd suggest watching with the family.

Final Grade: A-

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