Halloween

This year for Halloween the Cartoon Network showed the 1990 version of "The Witches", based on the Roald Dahl novel. Like Willie Wonka and Dahl's other children's tales, there's a fair amount of fairy tale style horror in this one, brought beautifully to life by Jim Henson Company Studios.

Those who have seen The Dark Crystal and Farscape already have seen the creepy side of Henson's muppets, and that type of work is on full display here, as well as the more subtle mouse puppetry after the Witches test out their evil plan to turn all of England's children into mice.

In 1990 I was just graduating high school, meaning that I missed out on this delightful little film. Angelica Huston is perfectly cast, essentially playing the same role that she would later turn to comedic purposes the next year in The Addams Family. There's no gore (it is after all a movie aimed at kids), but for me transformations (a Dahl specialty) have always been extremely scary.

The transformation of human to beast is a thread that runs through multiple fairy tales, and it is easy to see why. It allows the tale-teller to emphasize the character (or lack thereof) of the transformed. Children are typically powerless in an adult controlled world. But if children are powerless, mice are even more so, being practically the smallest mammal around plus the object of revulsion. Yet it is in this form that the hero of the film has the greatest effect on events. Sometimes the ability to move through the world unnoticed can be an advantage. Actions speak louder than squeaks sometimes.

The Witches: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars