HBOMax’s The Witches, a PG movie about a boy and his grandmother confronting evil witches, and Netflix’s Rebecca, a PG-13 romance between a lady’s maid and a mysterious widower, are two films that could not be more different, and yet, at their core — the same.
I pressed play on both these movies fairly certain that their trailers had already revealed the whole plot. I thought they were going to be interesting, though not particularly frightening or surprising. I was thoroughly mistaken. Both movies begin in the present, only to dive into a flashback full of plot twists, random events, and resolutions that are totally unpredictable. For Rebecca, this is a strength. The plot strings you along for the whole hour and 20 minutes, ultimately revealing itself to be a twisted mystery rather than a full-fledged horror film. In fact, if you are someone who does not like traditional scary movies, Rebecca is definitely for you.
For The Witches, the plot’s capriciousness is a total letdown. Watching a children’s movie, you expect a certain kind of ending, but “the Witches” ends, as my friend who watched with me described it, “in a genocide”. Perhaps not knowing this would happen was my fault, since I had not read the book that the film is based on. This would have clued me into the sinister ending, since the book is classified as a “children’s dark fantasy novel”.
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Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks this story is slightly problematic. Roald Dahl’s 1983 book has been well-liked by some — it was listed on the BBC’s top 100 most influential novels — and very much disliked by others. The novel has been banned from some libraries, “due to perceived misogyny” as well as its very controversial ending, which encourages suicide as an acceptable strategem for children to never grow up. So, even if you are someone who has children or likes children’s books but doesn’t like traditional scary movies, don’t watch this one. It’s truly awful
The book had previously been adapted to film, a film the author called “utterly appalling” due to the modified ending, though it was widely acclaimed, received phenomenal reviews, and several awards to Anjelica Huston for her performance as the Grand High Witch. Why Anne Hathaway (who is the only reason I originally wanted to watch the movie, and the only reason I would recommend watching this movie) accepted to do a revival of the role in a version that does follow the original plot is beyond me. The book has also previously been adapted into a BBC radio drama, as well as into a Children’s Opera.
Anne Hathway as “The Grand High Witch” in The Witches
Rebecca is also based on a slightly problematic novel of the same name, and had also previously been adapted into film, radio shows, opera, plays, and TV shows. In fact, of its five film adaptations, the most well known is the 1940 one by Alfred Hitchcock, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture and another for Best Black and White Cinematography. Why Lily James would accept to do a sixth version of this film is also beyond me; though, as expected, her performance was outstanding.
The original 1935 Gothic novel by Daphne de Maurier, which she describes as “a sinister tale about a woman who marries a widower….psychological and rather macabre,” won many awards itself and was wildly successful. Nonetheless, just like The Witches, it was also received with some criticism due to plagiarism allegations from various sources. The consequence, however, was not banning the book from libraries — it actually sold nearly 3 million copies between 1938 and 1965 — but du Maurier was sued over the allegations.
The movies are problematic, too. Both have ironically sweet surface-level themes, such as the power and importance of friendship in Rebecca, or the importance of seeing past physicality to appreciate people’s humanity in The Witches. Even the classic “don’t trust strangers” theme is expressed in both films.
Nevertheless, they also have extremely dark subliminal messages – First, as previously mentioned, The Witches implies suicide is an acceptable way to avoid growing up, and that some parents don’t care about their children enough to abandon them without a second thought. Second, each film offers its own sexist, patriarchal view of what a woman’s life should look like. Rebecca implies that marriage is the only way to obtain freedom from the other acceptable alternative for a woman’s life, being a lady’s maid. Furthermore, it suggests that it’s alright to marry and run away with a man you have only known for a week, even when others warn you that he is abusive and psychologically unstable. In The Witches, witches are portrayed as “demons in human shape” with mouths that are “elongated, stretching almost up to [their] ears, […] hidden with pancake makeup”, “claws” instead of hands, “ugly feet [that] look like toes got chopped off with an axe”, heads “as bald as a boiled egg”, “nasty sores [from] “Wig rash’” and “larger nose-holes than normal people [that] can grow about as big as eight inches in diameter” to sniff out children, since “children smell horrible to witches.” So basically, women who don’t want to be mothers, who deviate from societal expectations for gender and who dislike children, are witches with deformed bodily features.
The films also completely disregard the context of the time periods in which they are set. The original version of The Witches is set in Norway and England, while the 2020 movie is set in 1960s Alabama. There are a few brief allusions to race in America at the time, like when the grandmother first explains why escaping to the “Grand Orleans Imperial Island Hotel”, the “swankiest resort in all of Alabama”, will be safer than staying in their small town, because “ain’t nothing but rich white folks at the Grand Orleans Imperial Island Hotel. And witches only prey on the poor, the overlooked. The kids they think nobody’s gonna make a fuss about if they go missing.” There is also the apparent shock of the black valet when grandma and the boy check into the hotel, and the white Maitre D’ tells the boy “aren’t you a lucky fella? It’s not every day that a young gentleman such as yourself is fortunate to come and stay at such a fine hotel as this now? Is it?”
Rebecca is set in 1930-40s Europe, yet makes no allusions to the impending World War. This may be because the book was written in the late 1930s, so de Maurier may not have had a complete understanding of the significance of world events at the time. However, her husband was a Lieutenant Colonel and they were posted in Alexandria, Egypt, so she must have had some sense of the difficulty of travel through Europe in the late 1930s (though there is no mention of it in the movie). It appears as though travel is a casual, free-flowing experience, which may have been true for rich Englishmen like Maxim de Winter with castle-mansions like Manderley.
Manderly in Rebecca
The Grand Orleans Imperial Island Hotel
Both movies have received pretty terrible ratings. The Witches received an average score of 5.3/10, and 50% Rotten Tomatoes. Rebecca received an average score of 6/10, and 45% Rotten Tomatoes.
Still, despite “the Witches” being a “horrible, sexist, racist, movie that ends with a genocide” according to my friend, and Rebecca not offering nearly as much magic as its trailer implies, overall, both movies were interesting escapes from 2020 to (more or less twisted versions of) the 20th century, back when there may have been even more sexism and elitism, but at least we could do something about them, or, in the case of Rebecca, throw big, spontaneous, non-socially distanced balls to make ourselves feel better. So, if you have a few hours to kill this Halloween, give these movies a watch. Or, at least watch Rebecca, and maybe you too, will dream of going to Manderley again.