Witches, The (2020)

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Witches, The (2020)
• a review of Witches, The (2020) completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 7 December 2020.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

Based on Roald Dahl's book, this 2020 adaptation of The Witches is set in Alabama, USA. The main character (identified as ‘Hero Boy’) (Jahzir Bruno) is 8 years old when his parents are killed in a car crash. His Grandma (Octavia Spencer) takes him in and looks after him. One day, when they are out shopping, ‘Hero Boy’ is scared by a strange woman. When he tells his Grandma what he saw, she explains the woman was a witch and goes on to describe witches. She tells him that witches wear wigs to cover their bald heads, gloves to cover their clawed hands and shoes to hide their toeless feet. She also tells him that witches hate all children and want to get rid of all of them.

Grandma decides to take ‘Hero Boy’ to a luxury resort to escape from his ordeal. Instead, the boy finds himself at a convention of witches masquerading as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The witches are commanded by the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) who has devised a potion that will transform children into mice, and she proceeds to demonstrate on a hapless boy called Bruno (Codie-Lee Eastick). Bruno changes into a mouse in front of ‘Hero Boy's’ eyes, and, in a shocked state, he is also caught by the Grand High Witch and changed into a mouse. It is now up to ‘Hero Boy’ and Bruno, and his pet mouse Daisy (voice of Kristen Chenoweth), to defeat the witches in their dastardly plan.

Supernatural horror; Fantasy; Witchcraft; Death of parents.

There is some violence in this movie including:

• A witch wearing a stiletto heel crushes a cartoon image of a child.
• Bruno's mother scolds him for being dirty and grabs him by the ear and pulls him away.
• The Grand High Witch bashes her head into the rostrum and then appears terrifying. She throws the rostrum, smashing it into pieces. She rises into the air, cackling while telling the witches her plan to destroy all children.
• One of the witches questions the Grand High Witch about her plan and she is instantly struck by a laser beam and disintegrates into pieces.
• The Grand High Witch starts screaming, thinking she can smell a child. She overturns the platform in a rage but ‘Hero Boy’ (who had been watching) had disappeared.
• Bruno is given a potion, he then starts shaking all over, purple smoke comes out of his ears and mouth, he rises into the air, his head seems to have disappeared and he drops to the ground as a mouse. The witches all try to stomp on him but he manages to escape.
• The Grand High Witch pulls ‘Hero Boy’ out of his hiding place and gives him the potion. The same thing happens to him as Bruno and he is also turned into a mouse.
• The Grand High Witch tries to hit the mouse with a hammer but hits her own hand instead.
• The Grand High Witch's hands get caught in a fan and she screams. Her hands are then shown in bandages.
• A hotel cleaner chases the mice with a broom.
• The mice manage to poison all of the witches at a dinner. They are shown, one by one, exploding into purple, flying up into the ceiling and transforming into mangy looking mice. Chaos ensues and people are running and screaming everywhere.
• Waiters try to hit the mice with brooms and knives.
• One of the mice lands on the Hotel Manager's head, crawls down his front and bites his private parts. The Manager screams.
• The Grand High Witch throws a bedhead at Grandma. She says she wants to reach into Grandma's chest and pull her heart out.
• ‘Hero Boy’, as a mouse, traps the Grand High Witch's foot in a mouse trap.

Material that may scare or disturb children

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

• The Grand High Witch is a very scary character. She has a scar on each side of her mouth which splits her face apart when she is angry.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

• ‘Hero Boy’ cries when he looks at a photo of his parents.
• A witch looks in through Grandma's window.
• A witch approaches ‘Hero Boy’ in a supermarket. A snake comes out of her sleeve and slithers close to ‘Hero Boy's’ face. She then disappears.
• Grandma tells ‘Hero Boy’ all about witches while cracks of thunder and bright lightning flashes appear. ‘Hero Boy’ sees claws on the window, lit up by the lightning. A black cat looks at them through the window.
• At one point, the Grand High Witch looks at herself in a mirror and her face cracks into pieces.
• At the convention the Grand High Witch takes to the stage. A large snake comes out of her dress and wraps itself around her. The women all remove their gloves to reveal deformed hands with only 1 or 2 fingers. They take their shoes off to show feet with no toes (this is a controversial part of the movie as people with disabilities can have hands and feet like this) and remove their wigs to show bald heads. They all look very ugly and scary.
• The Grand High Witch's head is covered in scales. She removes a bug from her head and eats it.
• The Grand High Witch's arms extend to the length of a tunnel that the mice are trying to escape in.
• ‘Hero Boy’, as a mouse, nearly falls off a ledge into a pot of soup.

In addition to the above mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

• The opening scene shows ‘Hero Boy’ hanging upside down in the car which has crashed (in which his parents were killed, but not shown) and he is rescued by the emergency responders.
• Grandma tells ‘Hero Boy’, in a flashback, that when she was a child, she saw a witch who had a very wide mouth with red lipstick on. The witch transformed her friend Alice, who started to grow lumps all over her face and then started pecking at a table, into a chicken. The witch tried to get her too but she managed to run away.
• At the convention the Grand High Witch's mouth grows wide and splits her face apart which looks quite terrifying. Her nose and nostrils also grow really big while she sniffs out ‘Hero Boy’.
• The mice pour potion into the Grand High Witch's mouth and she starts to shake all over. She rises into the air and gets her head stuck in the ceiling. She is transformed into a large, ugly looking rodent.

• The Grand High Witch is quite terrifying. When she transforms her mouth she looks like a character from a horror movie. She is often angry and a very nasty, evil character.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• Pepsi
• Ritz crackers.

Sexual references

• None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

• None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• Potions are used to transform people into mice.
• Grandma has a drink occasionally.
• Drinking wine at dinner.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• Oh my God
• Crap
• What in God's name.

In a nutshell

The Witches (2020) is a black comedy but this version is more like a horror movie. The Grand High Witch is very frightening and much scarier than previous versions. The movie shows characters with deformed hands and feet which is quite insensitive to people who might suffer with these disabilities. The book was written as a children's story but this movie is more targeted at teens and adults. It is therefore not recommended for children under 13 and parental guidance is recommended for children aged 13 – 15.

The main messages from this movie are that good overcomes evil and that we are stronger as a team than individually.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• Cooperation
• Courage and bravery
• Selflessness.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• that people with deformities are not scary and dangerous but are just as normal as everyone else.