THE WORST WITCH
THE WORST WITCH
October 24 2008, VHS, home living room, from library
OK, let me just say that I HAVE TO OWN THIS MOVIE. I really feel like I should watch this every H'ween from now on, preferably sharing the intense Gorgonzola cheese awesomeness of it with some unsuspecting friend, preferably tripping balls on LSD. Then again, that could easily scar someone for life. Oh, who am I kidding - I treasure knowing that I have horrified, appalled, and traumatized people with movies. It makes me feel good inside.
Let it also be said that this movie is BAD. It has production values only a few steps up from MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE, absolutely and completely rotten acting, and an epic fail on deliberate laughs. The unintentional laughs are priceless, though, as are the frankly astonishing moments of "What the fuck were they thinking?" Charlotte Rae with pink and purple-streaked hair, looking as fierce as Dame Edna, singing a song that will make your bowels clench in aesthetic horror. (And yet, it's AWESOME.) The extremely poor decision to make all the noises for the cats using human actors who barely make any attempt to sound anything like a member of the feline species. Costumes that look like they were made entirely out of fabric remnants and the polyester leftovers at Value Village. (And yet, it's inspirational - I think I'm going to make a witch costume for Halloween next year, using these as a design template, because I CAN DEFINITELY AFFORD TO MAKE IT. Remnants, glitter, drag queen earrings, and a glue gun, and I'm in business.) Diana Rigg and the worst liquid eyeliner I've ever seen. And Tim Curry in possibly the stupidest performance of a career filled with delightfully stupid performances.
I mean, wow. Even Fairuza Balk, who I revere as a god, is not on her A-game here. She's much less dewy than she was in RETURN TO OZ, and paradoxically looks younger - and definitely more bedraggled. I mean, sure, she's supposed to be our Harry Potter (sidenote: the entire Harry Potter mythos is lifted from this about 80%. Seriously. I think Rowling admits this, too. I love Hogwarts, but the particular weirdness that comes from the Witch Academy being all-female adds new, interesting dimensions to the idea of a wizarding school. Was Rowling so cognizant of market forces that she gave it all a masculine slant, and pretty much eliminated female characters from having any particular agency? ... or does she just like guys better? *sigh* Anyway.) and she's the titular worst witch in the whole school, and has a bullying black-clad perfectionist teacher who is making her life a living hell and a nicer, older, schlumpier school administrator who is secretly on her side, and a spunky best friend, and a stuck-up snobby super-good student nemesis, and she's secretly extremely powerful, and... does this sound familiar? It should. And yet it's no excuse for Fairuza Balk to not be the most freaky-beautiful girl ever all the time. It's just more evidence that this movie was made for about eighteen dollars by people who understand that their audience totally can't tell, because they've almost never seen a movie before.
Tim Curry is fucking fabulous, though. He knows what's up; he seems like he's quite high on drugs, and is reveling in the very Eighties-ness of everything - the purple eyeshadow (on him, of course), the high collars, the bad flying scenes, the fake English accents, Charlotte Rae. He is dreamy, and the fact that the Grand Wizard has an entire school of hyper-horny 12-year-old girls and over-100-age witches completely jonesing for his presence makes perfect sense to him. He has a level of sexually charismatic smugness that no one else can even come close to, and I, for one, love it.
I really need a copy of this. Definitely on the purchase list; it's not too expensive on Amazon, but it's not particularly cheap, either. Folks who are selling this film understand its power. Plus, I'd love to be able to skip directly to the scene where a massively-cape-clad Tim Curry swoops in to a fusillade of fireworks and then leads directly into a shitty song with mindblowingly bad 80's video effects. Just for those bad days, y'know.
Supplemental link: A brutally funny review that essentially mirrors what I've seen here, but with a delightfully hungover perspective.
October 24 2008, VHS, home living room, from library
OK, let me just say that I HAVE TO OWN THIS MOVIE. I really feel like I should watch this every H'ween from now on, preferably sharing the intense Gorgonzola cheese awesomeness of it with some unsuspecting friend, preferably tripping balls on LSD. Then again, that could easily scar someone for life. Oh, who am I kidding - I treasure knowing that I have horrified, appalled, and traumatized people with movies. It makes me feel good inside.
Let it also be said that this movie is BAD. It has production values only a few steps up from MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE, absolutely and completely rotten acting, and an epic fail on deliberate laughs. The unintentional laughs are priceless, though, as are the frankly astonishing moments of "What the fuck were they thinking?" Charlotte Rae with pink and purple-streaked hair, looking as fierce as Dame Edna, singing a song that will make your bowels clench in aesthetic horror. (And yet, it's AWESOME.) The extremely poor decision to make all the noises for the cats using human actors who barely make any attempt to sound anything like a member of the feline species. Costumes that look like they were made entirely out of fabric remnants and the polyester leftovers at Value Village. (And yet, it's inspirational - I think I'm going to make a witch costume for Halloween next year, using these as a design template, because I CAN DEFINITELY AFFORD TO MAKE IT. Remnants, glitter, drag queen earrings, and a glue gun, and I'm in business.) Diana Rigg and the worst liquid eyeliner I've ever seen. And Tim Curry in possibly the stupidest performance of a career filled with delightfully stupid performances.
I mean, wow. Even Fairuza Balk, who I revere as a god, is not on her A-game here. She's much less dewy than she was in RETURN TO OZ, and paradoxically looks younger - and definitely more bedraggled. I mean, sure, she's supposed to be our Harry Potter (sidenote: the entire Harry Potter mythos is lifted from this about 80%. Seriously. I think Rowling admits this, too. I love Hogwarts, but the particular weirdness that comes from the Witch Academy being all-female adds new, interesting dimensions to the idea of a wizarding school. Was Rowling so cognizant of market forces that she gave it all a masculine slant, and pretty much eliminated female characters from having any particular agency? ... or does she just like guys better? *sigh* Anyway.) and she's the titular worst witch in the whole school, and has a bullying black-clad perfectionist teacher who is making her life a living hell and a nicer, older, schlumpier school administrator who is secretly on her side, and a spunky best friend, and a stuck-up snobby super-good student nemesis, and she's secretly extremely powerful, and... does this sound familiar? It should. And yet it's no excuse for Fairuza Balk to not be the most freaky-beautiful girl ever all the time. It's just more evidence that this movie was made for about eighteen dollars by people who understand that their audience totally can't tell, because they've almost never seen a movie before.
Tim Curry is fucking fabulous, though. He knows what's up; he seems like he's quite high on drugs, and is reveling in the very Eighties-ness of everything - the purple eyeshadow (on him, of course), the high collars, the bad flying scenes, the fake English accents, Charlotte Rae. He is dreamy, and the fact that the Grand Wizard has an entire school of hyper-horny 12-year-old girls and over-100-age witches completely jonesing for his presence makes perfect sense to him. He has a level of sexually charismatic smugness that no one else can even come close to, and I, for one, love it.
I really need a copy of this. Definitely on the purchase list; it's not too expensive on Amazon, but it's not particularly cheap, either. Folks who are selling this film understand its power. Plus, I'd love to be able to skip directly to the scene where a massively-cape-clad Tim Curry swoops in to a fusillade of fireworks and then leads directly into a shitty song with mindblowingly bad 80's video effects. Just for those bad days, y'know.
Supplemental link: A brutally funny review that essentially mirrors what I've seen here, but with a delightfully hungover perspective.