Welcome to MonsterMondays 31 and today I am going all fairy tale for my monster of the week, with witches. Not the real kind, I have several friends who are very nice witches, I'm talking about the evil ones of bedtime stories.
Witches
The Fictional Kind
Now I do realise the idea of witches have been used to persecute (mostly) women for many centuries, but today I am interested in the fiction kind. The ones I loved to hate as a child in the fairy stories that were some of my favourite bedtime reading.
My husband and I saw "
The Last Witch Hunter" recently and I'm not really sure why it didn't do better on it's general release. I found it highly entertaining and with interesting baddies. Just in case you are wondering, witches in this movie are not all bad, they are simply another species living among humans. Their queen once tried to wipe out humanity with the black plague because she saw us as invaders. Now witches and humans live in peace with
Kaulder (
Vin Diesel), the immortal witch hunter, keeping order.
I think it needed to be a longer film with more background, but the evil witches were superb monsters. Just as the non-evil ones were great as well.
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| Julie Engelbrecht as the Witch Queen |
Other evil witches that I love from film are those in "
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters".
Famke Janssen plays the very, very bad
Muriel, the head witch and she is deliciously evil. This is not a film that pulls any punches and it earns its 15 rating. There are no grey areas about good and evil here, Hansel and Gretel are good, the witches are bad and eat children. In this film Hansel and Gretel are all grown up and have used their childhood trauma to create careers, where they destroy witches that are attacking communities. I really hope they make number 2 soon.
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| Famke Janssen as Muriel |
Hansel and Gretel was always one of my favourite fairy tales. I loved the story of the lost children and the gingerbread house and them outwitting the witch who is trying to eat them. It is, of course, the ultimate good, the innocence of children, against the ultimate evil, a person who wishes to kill them and consume them. An epic battle played out in a house of sweets. I may also have liked the idea of an edible house quite a lot too :).
"
The Witches" is another classic with irredemably evil women who like to do nasty things to children.
Anjelica Huston is simply brilliant as the Grand High Witch. This is another children againt witches tale, as many great fairy tales are, and in this one two boys who are turned into mice must stop a convention of witches from doing the same to all the children around the world.
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| Angelica Huston as the Grand High Witch |
In childrens versions of fairy tales the good and evil is usually very clear and sometimes I find this very enjoyable. Human beings are very complex creatures and there are many grey areas and, just occasionally, it's fun not to have to worry about that. Goodies are good, baddies are bad and that is that :).
Who is you favourite evil, fictional witch?
I think the evil Queen in Snow White deserves a mention here, since she uses spells and potions to kill a girl simply for being more beautiful than her - vanity and murderous intent, hell of a combination!
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Wicked Witch of West from Oz - she used to scare the pants off me when I was a child watching The Wizard of Oz.
Oh yes, the green woman with the cackle, she definitely deserves a mention! :) As for the evil Queen, yes, she probably does count too. Good choices :D
DeleteI saw Hansel and Gretel for the first time recently. I really enjoyed it, although, wasn't expecting the amount of blood and gore.
ReplyDeleteIt does really go for it's rating doesn't it :) I actually really enjoyed that after all these clearly adult movies going for 12As - it was refreshing ;)
DeleteI love the use of witches in fairy tales - they're the perfect villains!
ReplyDeleteAnd they always have such entertaining ways of dealing with their adversaries too. None of this simple stabbing in the back. I think maybe witches gave rise to supervillains, because they always go for elaborate ways to deal with the heroes too :)
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