The Witches

Not to be confused with Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story. This surreal supernatural anthology tells five different stories, from five very different Italian directors, each with contrasting styles and visions. Each short film stars a varied cast of famous character actors, blended with a small handful of familiar foreign faces; by far the most well known being Clint Eastwood, who stars in the final instalment. This was Eastwood’s first project after Sergio Leon’s famous trilogy and marks his final European foray before solely dedicating his career to Hollywood Productions.

Of the instalments, (none of which are very good, say for the first one). ‘The Witch Burns Alive’ is about a film star who goes away for the weekend and is tricked into showing what she really looks like without makeup, leading to her total humiliation. The script is mediocre, indeed it would have been a lot more enthralling if it had indeed been written by Roald Dahl, as they all contain many of the morals, messages, humorous twists and even the plots which can be found in his adult short stories and even some of his more renowned children’s work.

It also would’ve worked much better as a thoroughly consistent piece, if the master of macabre had scripted each short film, as opposed to eight different writers, each with completely contrasting styles and visions. This is such an incredibly wacky and gentle alternative to traditional movies that it feels as if it is actually pushed the boundaries of the 1960’s film industry, it is completely uncanny. Which actually leads me onto this whole film’s main merit. The concept of having an anthology of five stories, (that have nothing to do with each other in any shape or form), is actually incredibly creative, in a surrealist sort of way, yet also unpredictable, as you don’t know where any of the films are going from one moments end to the next.

5/10 – Calum Roberts