The digital transformations in the new film take advantage of the eerie uncanny-valley effect that re-creating a human in CGI can have. For a few blissfully terrifying scenes, Zemeckis’ version achieves a similar level of ghoulishness. Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation of Dahl’s work made the story terrifying through incredible practical effects, with Anjelica Huston’s version of the Grand High Witch peeling her skin off her own head.

Even the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) is in attendance, with a brand new plot to wipe all children out of existence by turning them into mice. When Charlie encounters a witch (Josette Simon), Agatha panics and whisks them away to a fancy hotel - only to discover that the hotel is hosting an entire conference of witches. Young Charlie (Jazhir Bruno) goes to live with his grandmother Agatha (Octavia Spencer) after his parents die in a car accident. In a change from the original book, which takes place in England, Zemeckis’ adaptation, which he co-wrote with Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and Guillermo del Toro, is set in 1960s Alabama. That makes it all the more disappointing that his latest movie, a new adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s novel The Witches, is almost boring. These films are full of strange, not necessarily successful, but certainly memorable choices. Between more staid films like Allied and The Walk, Zemeckis’ obsession with pushing technology to its limit, as in his 1988 masterpiece Who Framed Roger Rabbit, has resulted in oddities like Beowulf, The Polar Express, and Welcome to Marwen. Urn:oclc:827710038 Republisher_date 20120811052226 Republisher_operator Scandate 20120810202432 Scanner Robert Zemeckis has always had a reputation as a bit of a gonzo tech wonk. OL67114M Openlibrary_subject openlibrary_staff_picks Openlibrary_work Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 18:12:25 Boxid IA136001 Boxid_2 CH104501 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City Moline, IL Donor

Roald dahl the witches novel