While I have some significantly critical things to say about THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW, I should make it clear that, as a ghost movie, it is WAY better than the vast majority of other such movies out there. Even considering what I see as its significant flaws, this is a must-see picture for ghost movie fans during the Halloween season.
On the more critical side, I'm very ambivalent about THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW and, as usual for me, my ambivalence stems from the cavernous holes in the story big enough to drive a Carnival cruise ship through.
If you leave your IQ on the lowest setting and passively enjoy the movie strictly for its emotional and entertainment value, it's superb. The acting is excellent and the majority of the rest of the production values are more than adequate to purpose. The two main characters, a father and son (Simon and Finn respectively), are extremely charming and impossible not to like. Finn is especially engaging; what first appears to be the usual mundane and tiresome twelve-year-old rebelliousness turns out to be all-consuming curiosity. How can you not like a courageous kid driven by burning curiosity?
Additionally, still on the positive side, the story is possessed of a (new to my experience) unique combination of genuine troubled-family dynamics combined with ghostly elements in a novel way. This culminates in a bitter-sweet ending where the ghost element is incorporated by Simon (the father) to achieve the constance the lack of which typified his perpetual failures as a husband and father.
Unfortunately, many of the plot points involved in the story don't stand up to even a cursory glance. What emerges is that the writer/director/producer (all Andy Mitton) apparently only ever intended for the story to be the barest scaffolding for the family-drama emotional beats that were the focus of what he wanted to say in his movie.
As a few examples:
Lydia, the witch character (or ghost character; "witch" only really seems to be a derogatory name arbitrarily attached to Lydia by the local populace) is vague to the point of transparency. We don't really know anything about her by the end of the movie even though she is the titular character. She's arbitrarily described as a deliberate and calculatingly mean person who maybe/possibly/could have killed her own son and husband, but no motive other than general meanness is ever given for why she might want to do this. Ostensibly, Lydia's son and husband were killed in a farm equipment accident but "they say she did it". Lydia is said to have enjoyed making people feel creepy when they passed the farm as she sat and stared out the window. And that's all we know about Lydia. None of this is fleshed out. At all.
Later in the picture, Simon takes her place in the haunted house because Lydia wants to be "free". Is she being held captive? Does he have to stay in order for her to go free? Where does she intend to go and why does she intend to go there? What's going on?
There's a scene that gets ample credit for being intensely creepy, but it makes absolutely no sense. Once the father takes Lydia's place, we see Lydia strolling down a New York street, where she suddenly stops in the middle of the sidewalk and stares up at us. And while she has always been depicted wearing witch-appropriate anachronistic clothing, suddenly she's dressed in stylish modern clothes. Huh? Her big ghost thing was that she wanted to move to New York? What?
Clearly the story in THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW is only intended to fit the same role as the story in an opera. It's a vague scaffolding you're not supposed to think about while the characters stroll around the stage shrieking on key. In this movie, you're supposed to focus on the family problems and Simon's emotional growth and willingness to make the big sacrifice to be there, finally, for this wife and son, albeit in a ghostly and nontraditional way.
So think of THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW as more of a family drama with a supernatural spin. There are some very unusual scenes for a ghost story, some satisfying scares, and some very likable characters (other than Beverly, the mom, in my opinion). Just don't expect a particularly tight story and you'll have a good time.
On the more critical side, I'm very ambivalent about THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW and, as usual for me, my ambivalence stems from the cavernous holes in the story big enough to drive a Carnival cruise ship through.
If you leave your IQ on the lowest setting and passively enjoy the movie strictly for its emotional and entertainment value, it's superb. The acting is excellent and the majority of the rest of the production values are more than adequate to purpose. The two main characters, a father and son (Simon and Finn respectively), are extremely charming and impossible not to like. Finn is especially engaging; what first appears to be the usual mundane and tiresome twelve-year-old rebelliousness turns out to be all-consuming curiosity. How can you not like a courageous kid driven by burning curiosity?
Additionally, still on the positive side, the story is possessed of a (new to my experience) unique combination of genuine troubled-family dynamics combined with ghostly elements in a novel way. This culminates in a bitter-sweet ending where the ghost element is incorporated by Simon (the father) to achieve the constance the lack of which typified his perpetual failures as a husband and father.
Unfortunately, many of the plot points involved in the story don't stand up to even a cursory glance. What emerges is that the writer/director/producer (all Andy Mitton) apparently only ever intended for the story to be the barest scaffolding for the family-drama emotional beats that were the focus of what he wanted to say in his movie.
As a few examples:
Lydia, the witch character (or ghost character; "witch" only really seems to be a derogatory name arbitrarily attached to Lydia by the local populace) is vague to the point of transparency. We don't really know anything about her by the end of the movie even though she is the titular character. She's arbitrarily described as a deliberate and calculatingly mean person who maybe/possibly/could have killed her own son and husband, but no motive other than general meanness is ever given for why she might want to do this. Ostensibly, Lydia's son and husband were killed in a farm equipment accident but "they say she did it". Lydia is said to have enjoyed making people feel creepy when they passed the farm as she sat and stared out the window. And that's all we know about Lydia. None of this is fleshed out. At all.
Later in the picture, Simon takes her place in the haunted house because Lydia wants to be "free". Is she being held captive? Does he have to stay in order for her to go free? Where does she intend to go and why does she intend to go there? What's going on?
There's a scene that gets ample credit for being intensely creepy, but it makes absolutely no sense. Once the father takes Lydia's place, we see Lydia strolling down a New York street, where she suddenly stops in the middle of the sidewalk and stares up at us. And while she has always been depicted wearing witch-appropriate anachronistic clothing, suddenly she's dressed in stylish modern clothes. Huh? Her big ghost thing was that she wanted to move to New York? What?
Clearly the story in THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW is only intended to fit the same role as the story in an opera. It's a vague scaffolding you're not supposed to think about while the characters stroll around the stage shrieking on key. In this movie, you're supposed to focus on the family problems and Simon's emotional growth and willingness to make the big sacrifice to be there, finally, for this wife and son, albeit in a ghostly and nontraditional way.
So think of THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW as more of a family drama with a supernatural spin. There are some very unusual scenes for a ghost story, some satisfying scares, and some very likable characters (other than Beverly, the mom, in my opinion). Just don't expect a particularly tight story and you'll have a good time.