In lieu of a widespread theatrical release, HBO Max has released The Witches onto its streaming service, three decades after the first adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's novel hit theaters. Despite a change of location from the English seaside to Alabama in the '60s, it still tells the same tale of a boy and his grandmother who encounter a coven of witches at a luxury hotel and must stop them from succeeding in their ultimate plan to rid the world of all its children.
Both films have elements to recommend them, from their visual effects to their storytelling devices, and while the original will always be beloved by nostalgic fans, the remake will delight a new generation. The remake is bigger, shinier, and more zany version of Dahl's spellbinding tale, but is it better when the original is such a classic?
Remake: The Message
Thanks to the location for the film being changed from England in the '90s to Alabama in the '60s, and focusing on protagonists of color, The Witches remake takes on an allegorical message about race. As Octavia Spencer's character intones, witches don't just harm children because they hate them - they harm poor children of color because no one will miss them.
The film is no less timeless with its storytelling because of a timely and topical point. The fact that the heroes stay at a palatial Southern plantation-turned-hotel because "there's a bunch of old white people there" and it will protect them from being found by witches is savvy, not sordid.
Original: No Narrator
As amusing as Chris Rock's asides are in the remake, they often appear to coincide with the same events taking place on the screen. That is to say, his voice-over doesn't add anything to the film that would have been lacking had he not interjected.
The original film had no narrator, only the grandmother character telling her grandson about the ways to identify witches, prompted by a flashback to her childhood when her friend was taken by a witch. It allows the story to progress without interruption.
Remake: The Set Design & Costumes
The original movie, with its muted color palette and drab location shots along the gloomy English coastline, isn't a very inviting experience. By contrast, the remake is positively bursting with color, ubiquitous in both Grandma's modest house and the luxury hotel she whisks Charlie off to.
And it's not just the sets that get the Technicolor treatment. Anne Hathaway's Grand High Witch prowls the halls of the hotel like they're her own personal catwalk, dripping in the latest fashion, from houndstooth blazers to beehive hairdos.
Original: Practical Effects
Jim Henson's creature workshop was contracted to create the special effects for the original film, and while there was a small amount of CGI (when Bruno is turned into a mouse), the bulk of the film is peppered with practical effects, from the mice to the reveal of the Grand High Witch's true appearance.
Viewers that think the effects might date the film will be surprised to see that the effects often don't distract from the storytelling in nearly the same way that the awkward CGI of the remake does.
Remake: Sense Of Humor
The amalgamation of whimsy and horror is often successful, and seeing Anne Hathaway decide to pursue her own wacky take on the Grand High Witch character is spellbinding to watch, even if she often turns her into a mustache-twirling villain.
She plays well off of the other characters, especially Stanley Tucci with whom she co-starred in The Devil Wears Prada.
Original: Witches Are Scarier
Perhaps it's because the witches in the original film look mostly like schoolmarms and little old ladies that they're more frightening; they really could be living right next to someone and they would never know. They aren't the classy, sophisticated women of the remake, who all wear designer outfits.
When the witches remove their human disguises in the original, they look ugly, but none so abhorrent as the Grand High Witch, who oozes and pusses with diabolical aplomb. Her face is the stuff of nightmares, and not because it has an exaggerated CGI smile plastered on it.
Remake: Witches Are More Powerful
From feats of levitation to super speed, and even limb regeneration, the witches in the remake are more powerful. While not every witch can perform the spells of the Grand High Witch, they can often cause animals to materialize out of thin air, and transform unsuspecting children into barnyard animals.
Being the most powerful of them all, the Grand High Witch can shoot lightning from her fingertips and even grow her arms to incredibly unusual sizes, which becomes useful when she needs to fetch fleeing mice down air ducts.
Original: Realism
The first quarter of The Witches remake grounds itself in reality but quickly eschews it for a kaleidoscopic fixation on the power of witches, whereas the original favored a more measured means of storytelling that made viewers wonder if witches were actually real because their powers seemed just beyond the bounds of plausible.
Anjelica Huston's Grand High Witch isn't just terrifying because she's a witch - she's terrifying because she's a ruthless and powerful businesswoman who, it seems probably had tea with Mussolini. Just because CGI effects allow for the power of witches to encompass anything and everything doesn't mean they should, nor have their mouths stretch into the ghastly grins of great white sharks.
Remake: The Acting
When it comes to the acting, the remake may fare slightly better than its predecessor, most emphatically because of the inclusion of Octavia Spencer as Charlie's grandmother. The bond she shares with her grandson is not only explored in more depth, but her character is given much more agency and depth.
She becomes an incredible foil to the Grand High Witch, and her scenes with Hathaway crackle with electricity. Hathaway is an unpredictable, chaotic Grand High Witch who appears to be enjoying herself immensely trying to top Anjelica Huston. Stanley Tucci also provides his typical excellence as the hotel concierge, and Jahzir Kadeem Bruno as Charlie is an energetic presence.
Original: Anjelica Huston
Standing over 6 feet in her heels, stalking around the hotel in slinky black couture, and casting withering glares at all those who would dare disobey her, Anjelica Huston convinces every viewer of The Witches that she truly is the most powerful magic user on Earth.
Not only does she exude sensuality and danger, she commands a room in a way that Hathaway can only hope to when she's shouting in a strange amalgamation of five different accents.