REVIEW: The Worst Witch

I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to spend this Halloween. It's easily my favorite holiday, so there's really no telling what manner of merriment I could find myself wrapped up in like so many toilet paper mummies. I can, however, tell you the one way I didn't expect to be spending my Halloween, and that's sitting at home watching the 1986 made-for-TV movie, The Worst Witch. I really don't know what to classify this as, exactly. Don't get me wrong, it's awful, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to break this out every Halloween from now on. It's so terrible it may have just become a tradition.

The plot follows Mildred Hubble (Fairuza Balk, in what I like to pretend is a prequel to The Craft), a student at the prestigious Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. A thoroughly mediocre student to begin with (some might even call her the WORST witch), her life is anything but charmed (no pun intended). To make matters worse, she's constantly antagonized by a particularly nasty teacher, as well as a snobbish blonde rival. Students at this school for witchcraft and wizardry partake in potions class, as well as flying lessons taught by an instructor who wears goggles while riding her enchanted broom. The only people who seem to give Mildred a break are her dim, goofy best friend and the eccentric old headmistress of the school, and it was right around this point that I started to wonder if J.K. Rowling is actually a humongous thief who pilfered all of her ideas from a comically bad children's special that aired on HBO in the mid-80's.

While there's bound to be some overlap when it comes to the concept of "magic boarding school", it's honestly uncanny how many similarities there are between The Worst Witch and the Harry Potter series. The scenes that take place during the flying lessons are especially flagrant, since they look like they take place in practically the same castle courtyard we saw in Sorcerer's Stone. Now I'm not saying that one series stole ideas from the other (if anything, I'm vaguely implying it at best), but it's amazing when one considers the similarities, not just in terms of aesthetic, but in terms of story structure.

Both series feature a scene where a character goes surfing on a broomstick. Both series have scenes where the mean blonde kid is turned into an animal as a form of comeuppance. Both series have a magical villain (with a crazy, over-the-top underling) who is defeated by a seemingly innocuous spell. Both Mildred Hubble and Harry Potter are given honors by the headmaster in the Great Hall. I can't get enough of it. One would think that it would be easiest to draw parallels between Harry Potter and all of the Potter contemporaries; your Spiderwick Cronicles or Twilight or Series of Unfortunate Events. But no, the thing that it all bears an uncanny resemblance to is an 80's kids' movie where Tim Curry plays a tambourine in a technicolor wingsuit.

Yes, Tim "Frank-N-Furter" Curry is in this, playing the unfortunately named "Grand Wizard". He claims he has a lot of gigs to get to on Halloween and we can only hope none of them involve cross burnings in the deep south. We also have Dianna Rigg (The Avengers' Emma Peel/Game of Thrones' Olenna Tyrell, depending on your generation) as the slightly-less-unfortunately-named Miss Hardbroom; as one might surmise from her name, she's the Dean Wormer to Fairuza Balk's Delta House. She's normally so darn endearing everywhere she goes, it's genuinely fascinating to watch her play the part of a frigid old ice queen. You end up hating her, naturally, even though a part of you just doesn't want to. We also have Charlotte Rae of Diff'rent Strokes/Facts of Life fame, pulling double duty as Miss Cackle and her evil twin sister, Agatha. One is a perpetually flustered old woman with little to do, the other is a neon nightmare that sounds halfway between Wynonna Judd and Bruce Springsteen. I can't say everyone was good, nor can I say everyone was bad. I honestly don't know what kind of performances these actors gave. All I know is I was transfixed from start to finish.

The Worst Witch is an amazing piece of innocent schlock. The production value is laughable, the story is practically nonexistent, and the songs are the equivalent of a clown getting launched into a vat of acid; you don't really want to laugh, but you just can't think of any other way to process what you're feeling. I feel confident in saying that this is to Halloween as The Star Wars Holiday Special is to Christmas. The only core difference is The Worst Witch is about a half hour shorter, making it intrinsically better by default. Remember, anything can happen on Halloween. Even a couple of particularly stiff cocktails and a viewing of The Worst Witch. It's by no means ideal, but there's definitely worse ways to celebrate.