The Witches (1990) on Netflix
PG19901h 31mAdventureComedyFantasy
Luke Eveshim learns from his grandmother Helga that witches pass as ordinary women and despise children. At a seaside hotel, he and another boy, Bruno Jenkins, spy on a convention of witches.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.8/1059,988 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
While visiting his grandmother Helga in Norway, eight-year-old Luke Eveshim hears her account of witches: feminine demons who hate children and hide their claws, bald heads and square, toeless feet under gloves, wigs and sensible shoes. She also tells of a childhood friend, Erica, trapped inside a painting by a witch. After Luke's parents are killed in a car crash, Helga becomes his guardian and they settle in England, where a woman he takes for a witch offers him chocolate and a snake; he holds his ground and she goes. Helga then develops diabetes, and her doctor prescribes a seaside holiday. At the hotel, Luke befriends Bruno Jenkins, and a convention of witches is in residence.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Witches (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Witches is the last film project executive producer Jim Henson worked on before his death, with Jim Henson's Creature Shop designing and building the prosthetics for the witches and the animatronic murids that were used interchangeably with real ones.
- During the shoot, Rowan Atkinson left the bath taps running in his room, telling the frantically knocking porter "go away, I'm asleep", and the resulting flood wrote off much of the production team's electrical equipment on the floor below.
- Anjelica Huston's Grand High Witch makeup took six hours to apply and another six to remove, with prosthetics including a full face mask, hump, mechanized claws and a withered collarbone; of one monologue she said she was "so uncomfortable and tired of being encased in rubber under hot lights" that her lines stopped making sense.
SPOILER
Dahl was incensed that Henson changed his ending, so Henson filmed two versions: the book one where Luke remains a mouse, and the happier one where he is transformed back into a human. Henson and Roeg chose the happier ending, and Dahl said he would launch a publicity campaign unless his name was removed from the credits.- The green vapor used extensively at the end of the film was oil based and would obscure the contacts in Anjelica Huston's eyes, which had to be regularly flushed out with water by an expert on set.
- The Witches was slated to be distributed by Lorimar Television, but when the company dissolved its theatrical distribution operation, Lorimar Film Entertainment, the film sat on the shelf for more than a year after filming, eventually premiering in nine theaters in Orlando and Sacramento to test it on American audiences.
- At the time of filming, Anjelica Huston was dating Jack Nicholson, who frequently phoned the hotel and sent huge bouquets, much to the excitement of the staff.
