The Witches by Roald Dahl | Book vs Movie

Today I’m talking about a book with not one, but two adaptions, that were made 30 years apart! The Witches is another classic from Roald Dahl, and the 1990 adaptation starring Anjelica Huston is the one I grew up with and love, so how does the 2020 HBO adaptation compare? Watch to find out!

The story is about a boy who is raised by his grandmother, after his parents die in a car accident. His grandmother knows all about witches, and she teaches him how to identify and avoid them. The 1990s adaptation stayed pretty true to the book, but the 2020 version gives us a more modern take and moves the story from Norway and England to the US, so there’s quite a few cultural changes, but the main plot is there.

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[REED]

Awesome video 🙂 back in 2020 when this came out... my gf (at the time) and her kids (2girls 7+10) saw the tailer for this movie and wanted to see it.. so we all watched it.. they enjoyed it.. they enjoyed the talking mice as kids do... so the next day I recommended we watch the 90s original... so we did.... the kids absolutely loved it.. they we're terrified of witches especially the grand high witch.. they were literally on the edge of their seats lol... and afterwards said that they loved the 90s more than the new one and wanted to watch it again!.. so it just goes to show... new, with questionable cgi doesn't automatically mean its going to be better.... what made the original scary is how grounded and real it felt... not to mention practical effects will always beat cgi... I known they're currently remaking the 90s arachnophobia..amazing movie! But I have a feeling the remake is going to have the same outcome as this...

[Sandlot]

the 1990 film version is definitely a favorite of mine and despite being Jim Henson's last movie!

[Vf]

Omg you nailed this review and comparison! I agree with everything you said. My biggest disappointment with the new adaptation is the fact that they omitted the mask removal scene of the Grand High Witch at the meeting. That is one of the most terrifying aspects of both the book and the untouchable original film version. I also like how in the book and the 1990 film, the Grand High Witch is the only witch who has a grotesque face behind the mask. To me, it represents her level of evil and it also distinguishes her from all of the other witches as their powerful leader. In the 2020 version, all the witches have the mouth slit which expands into the grin filled with sharp teeth. To me, that makes them all uniform and makes the GHW feel less scary than she’s intended to be. There’s one scene in the beginning where Anne Hathaway looks into the mirror and with the flash of lightning, you see her reflection of the face that I assume is the face behind the mask. I don’t know if they just omitted the mask removal scene because it was thought to be too scary for kids, but that by far was the biggest disappointment of this new version. I didn’t hate the new movie but overall it’s an inferior movie to the original. The effects were pretty bad too. It was drowned in CGI and not nearly as effective as the practical effects in the Roeg version. Also, no one can play the GHW better than the fabulous ms. Huston.

[Fixundfertig]

Excellent presentation, I enjoyed it from start to finish 😊

[bookingwiththekdb]

I remember watching the original movie when I was younger. Haven’t gotten around to watching the adaptation yet

[vance]

I enjoyed your presentation. Well done. I am a fan of the 1990 film version too. For me, it was just much better.

[fonzie.]

Really like the thorough explanation throughout the whole video- hope to see more in the future

[奶茶漢化]

I love your presentation. You just like an English teacher to me.

[strongrex]

Regarding the three fingers, I don’t support that change because anyone who looks at a witch’s hands can easily tell that there’s nothing in the two middle fingers but air, and it looks very awkward. I wasn’t even thinking about people who have three fingers on their hands, I just thought it was a very stupid change. But I thought it was the least of this movie’s problems.

[huntercoleman]

The Witches is one of my favorites of Dahl’s. I’ve only seen the 1990 film. While not a bad adaptation, I thought the book was so much better. I could tell by the trailer for the 2020 one that it sucks. They took so much liberties with the source material. I could definitely say that Dahl would’ve despised the new one. They didn’t make the witches scary in this one and the CGI was so bad. They had the chance to make a very good adaptation and they blew it.

[trevormillerentertainment]

Yeah I like the book more than both. but the 2020 movie made more changes I didn't like than the 1990 movie did. Great video.

[genuinescorruption]

Hi,

I just wanted to say I loved your comparison (and the Witches in General).
I was wondering what your thoughts were on something.

You see, I was a little older than this story's target audience when I was first exposed to it. Well... a little more than a little older. I was 16 to be exact, and here I am at 33 and this thing is still an obsession of mine.

Even back then, I always wondered if it was somehow possible that maybe not all of the witches actually wanted to be doing what the GHW was commanding them to do.

At the start of the book and movie (s), we have Grandma making the statement that "Real witches hate children" as if it were an absolute fact. But this is a statement from a character, as opposed to being narration; and I think it's fair to say that Grandma, like any other human being, is prone to bias.

Then, fast-forward to the meeting, and we witness the GHW behaving like a typical cult leader. First we see a witch pay the ultimate price for questioning her. And about that witch: I always wondered if she wasn't secretly compassionate towards children to some extent, and only framed her doubts as a matter of feasibility because this was less dangerous than it would have been to say that she was opposed to killing children for something they obviously couldn't control.

Then, we have the GHW giving her followers their annual dose of propaganda. I always thought that if it was just an objective fact that children smell like dog poo to witches in this universe, that the GHW would not need to allocate precious meeting time to repeatedly articulating this fact in numerous different ways. Yet this is exactly what she does. To me, this suggests that the GHW has reason to be concerned that her followers may not hold the required beliefs with sufficient conviction to stay the course on their own without ongoing re-enforcement.

Then, in the book we have every single witch exterminated. In the movie, we have one who survives thanks only to the GHW's cruelty, and comes around to helping the children.

I always had my own fan theory that the GHW herself was the cause of the "stink waves". Perhaps she inflicted a viral curse on either witches (to make them perceive human children as stinky) or on humans (to cause the stink waves) so that she could give the witches false hope of relief as long as they stay under her control.
Perhaps, if the GHW had been mousified but some of the others had lived, they might have split off in different directions and some of them might have investigated the true reason why children smell badly to them and tried to mitigate it in different ways (like breaking a curse).

Last but definitely not least, I think my most important piece of evidence here is that Roald Dahl himself was actually quite a bigoted individual. He wasn't called Roald the rotten for nothing. When the 1990 movie came out, he actively tried to discourage people from watching it simply because it changed the ending to have one witch survive and change her ways.

As much as I absolutely love this story and haven't been able to break my obsession with it for 17 years, I can't help but think some of Dahl's personality rubs off on it. He creates this race (or species) of witches, puts them in an impossible situation (under a tyrannical leader who will burn them alive for any act of disobedience), and then has the heroes of the story perpetuate a belief that each and every member of this group is inherently evil, when in fact none of them except GHW have ever had the freedom to make their own decisions, which they would be clearly capable of if it weren't for GHW's influence.

Your thoughts?

[mythologyfan]

Congratulations! This is your most viewed video! Keep up the good work! ❤❤❤❤ However, you did miss something. In the 2020 movie, the Grand High Witch says that three doses from the potion will make it work instantly.

[huntercoleman]

The book is definitely the superior version. I also prefer it’s ending over the 1990’s movie’s ending.

[alexandersaunders]

You have your opinion but I thought Anna Hathaway was great as the grand high witch because it was like seeing a female version of lord Voldemort

[Dumbships]

What I don’t like about the 2020 movie there was this deleted scene that Bruno did go with his mum at the end of the movie. And she took him in his purse and leave for to something to eat

[gabrielmorales]

naruto ultimate ninja 3 opening and road to bourto opening

[artheaux]

Can you please review Little Fires Everywhere?

[blues]

Hhaha les sorcières c'est trop marrant

[taketemamula]

I liked only the book. The original is not good, but the remake is terrible.