The Witches at 30

Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches terrified a generation of children. As the film turns 30, and a big-budget remake approaches, Total Film reflects with star Anjelica Huston on the making of a kid-friendly creepfest.

- SIMON BLAND

I was an aficionado of Roald Dahl for a long time before Nic Roeg proposed we do The Witches,” reveals the Grand High Witch herself, Anjelica Huston, talking to Total Film in 2020. In the late ’80s, Hollywood royalty Huston had already taken the industry by storm with a range of head-turning performances culminating in an Academy Award win for 1985’s Prizzi’s Honor, a twisted crime comedy directed by her father, John Huston. With a new decade looming, she was about to embark on a completely different kind of role – one that would cast a spell on a generation of young viewers, and wouldn’t be easily forgotten. “I loved Dahl’s short stories,” continues Huston with a smile. “I loved ‘Pig’ and ‘Royal Jelly’. They’re subversive, mean and weird – and on the surface, you certainly wouldn’t say, ‘This is the ideal thing to read to my child!’”

Published in 1983, Dahl’s book The Witches continued in this audience-splitting sandbox, telling the story of a young boy (played in the film by Jasen Fisher) and his witch-hunting Grandma (Mai Zetterling) who accidentally find themselves at a witch convention whilst on holiday at a seaside hotel. When the coven’s leader Miss Ernst – aka the Grand High Witch (Huston) – uses a potion to transform our young hero into a mouse, the race is on to stop the witches from using it on kids all over the world. “Children have very dark and large imaginations,” says Huston, reflecting on the story’s sinister allure. “Dahl’s work satisfies an urge in them to be frightened from a safe place. That’s what The Witches