THE WITCHES (2020)

I watched the 2020 Robert Zemeckis version of THE WITCHES last night, and there were two or three moments in the film where I actually found it scary.  There were also, if I counted right, six or seven moments where I actually exclaimed, "What the ph**k?!" . . . which is rarely a good thing.  Granted, at least two of those were due to terrible storytelling, and three others were due to the Satanic choice of casting Kristen Chenowith (as a child, no less).  But the film was bizarre and often tipped right over the edge into terrifying.  It felt as though someone had hired David Cronenberg to make a children's film, but when the credits rolled, the flick had been co-written and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro, and maybe that was the reason for some of it.  

Zemeckis was once a powerhouse filmmaker (and lest I forget, he did make one excellent horror film, WHAT LIES BENEATH, which caused me to leave the lights on all night after I saw it), but is now reduced to making mediocre to nigh-unwatchable CG motion capture garbage.*  And this certainly qualifies as Exhibit C.

I guess it was made for streaming (like his truly awful live-action PINOCCHIO remake), but man, there was so much that didn't work in the film that I wish I could sit down with Marshal Latham and talk it through, to see if he found the main character as visually repellant as I did, or if he too was forced to look away from Anne Hathaway for the first time in her career (sucks to get old . . . or turn into a monster, you take your pick).  Also, there's a older version from the Eighties with Angelica Houston in the Hathaway part, and I mean to stop writing, blogging, audio editing, and peeing and rush out and watch it immediately, so I can see where they zigged, as opposed to Zemeckis's zags.

Perhaps, like Dean Koontz and Avril Lavigne, the real Zemeckis died years ago, and this imposter is making movies in his stead, using his once-holy name.