For many of us, our childhoods ended in the summer of 1990.
That was the summer, 25 years ago, that The Witches was released. The big screen adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book, directed by Nicolas Roeg, contained the stuff of nightmares. Once you watched it, you were robbed of all innocence.
A genuinely frightening movie experience, it seems unbelievable with hindsight that it was rated PG. Children being stalked by killers who wish to turn them into mice and squash them? Yeah, totally fine subject matter for kids.
The Witches’ success in scaring us senseless lies mainly in Anjelica Huston’s performance as the Grand High Witch, a purple-eyed banshee who would rip a child’s head off as soon as… Read the full story