Young Luke lives with his eccentric, story-spinning grandmother who shocks him with horror tales of witches kidnapping children and making them disappear. But when they travel to Cornwall for a seaside holiday, he discovers that a coven of witches is holding their annual convention in his hotel and the Grand High Witch (a scene-stealing Anjelica Huston) has decreed that all children in England are to be turned into mice. The first on their list? Luke and his buddy Bruno.

Adapted from the wickedly frightening novel by Roald Dahl, The Witches has perhaps one of the nastiest portrayals of witches on screen. Nicolas Roeg’s dark and witty retelling puts disturbing flesh on Dahl’s fancies like few other adaptations. Children may want to hold an adults’ hand through some of it - grown-ups get notoriously nervous, after all...

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