Starring Fairuza Balk, Charlotte Rae, Diana Rigg, and Tim Curry
Directed by Robert Young
Music and Lyrics by various
Happy Halloween, everyone! Let's return to England for this year's holiday tale. After all those bizarre campfests last week, I thought we'd do some musicals for the whole family. The book The Worst Witch came out in 1974 and was an instant hit, spawning a long series of pre-teen novels and four live-action TV series from 1998 to 2020. Does this first adaptation live up to the ones that came later, or should it be expelled from witch school? Let's begin at the school, with Mildred Hubble (Balk) as she wonders why growing up is so hard, and find out...
The Story: Mildred is the worst witch at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. She can't figure out basic spells, can't get her cat to sit on her broom, and accidentally turns stuck-up Ethel Hallow (Anna Kipling) into a pig. Miss Cackle (Rae) thinks she has potential and encourages her, but deputy school mistress Miss Hardbroom (Rigg) constantly scolds and reprimands her. After Ethel's sabotage messes up her Halloween flight for the Grand Wizard (Curry), she runs away...only to discover Miss Cackle's evil twin sister Agatha (Rae) and her coven plotting to take over the school. Mildred is the only one who can stop them from turning the other students into toads and pushing the teachers aside.
The Song and Dance: The location filming at a real British prep school (though ironically one for boys) gives this a real Harry Potter flair. Balk is a charming and very funny Mildred, especially when she and Ethel confront each other after a game to scare each other goes wrong. Rae is equally funny as kindly Miss Cackle and her total opposite, fright-wigged Agatha. Tim Curry absolutely steals the show as the adored head Wizard whose wildly sensual number may be his best since "Sweet Transvestite." No wonder all the girls (and a few teachers) swoon over him.
Favorite Number: We open with Mildred thinking "Growing Up Isn't Easy" over the credits, as we see how she's treated at the school and her chronic lateness. Bonnie Langford sings this sweet and wistful ballad. The students and teachers perform the school song...but Agatha's not impressed with their gentle choral number, thinking it would be much better if she wrote it to be more wicked. She describes how delightfully horrible "My Little School" will be as she and her coven chant around their smoking cauldron in the woods.
The big one here is "Anything Can Happen at Halloween." Curry's solo has been kicking around the Internet for years, well before the full movie appeared, and for good reason. The song is an intense, if oddly worded, hard rock number that Curry puts over with an absolute relish that's nearly sexual. He's hard to look away from, even with a psychedelic background of swirling colors and Halloween images in the backdrop behind him.
What I Don't Like: Other than the school backdrops, this looks like a low-budget British TV production from 1986. The green screen whenever anyone is flying and during Curry's "Halloween" number is painfully obvious, as are any attempts at special effects. The witch's cauldron looks like a cheap plastic Halloween prop that couldn't hold a bag of trick-or-treat candy. Mildred's story is more self-discovery than fighting truly nasty villains. Anyone expecting a darker or more action-oriented story ala Harry Potter may be a bit disappointed.
The Big Finale: For all the cheapness, this still retains enough charm to be recommended for elementary school and pre-teens Mildred's age after trick-or-treating, if for no other reason than seeing Curry's number.
Home Media: There is a DVD, but it's expensive. You may be better off looking for this used or checking around for it at YouTube.
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