Sunday, October 22, 2017

Something on Sunday, 10/22

Did anyone besides me and my sister grow up on live action Disney movies like Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Escape to Witch Mountain? Do any of you remember the sublime spookiness that was Bette Davis's last role in Watcher in the Woods?  Wait, don't answer that.  I'm horribly afraid you're going to say no.

Watcher in the Woods was a creepfest for 12-year-old me about a family that moves to a remote village and the two sisters start having odd things happen in their old house.  It turns out the the daughter of the house's owner (creepy old Bette Davis who lives in the cottage out back) disappeared years ago and no one knows what happened to her.  Younger sister Ellie keeps spacing out and saying things she doesn't mean; older sister Jan keeps seeing and hearing things.



The end is a little messy, and there's an extended release version with an ending that is explained a bit more thoroughly and is thus a true HOT mess.  Like, alien crystals on a maybe-spaceship?  I literally have no idea.  The original ends great; watch that.

OR! You could watch the Lifetime Original Movie remake! With a girl who looks like Jennifer Lawrence and Amanda Bynes had a love child, who hooks up with a guy who appears to be made of plastic, so smooth and pale is he. And a Welsh village where no one has a Welsh accent.  And with ANGELICA HOUSTON in the Bette Davis role!



You read that right; Angelica Houston is chewing the scenery, tipping her hat to Morticia Addams, info-dumping with her hand literally pressed to her forehead for the drama of it all, and giving us the best Welsh accent in this movie.

The plot is similar; the explanation is completely unrelated, the story is both boring and nonsense, and I have come to think that someone (possibly my sister) should do a podcast reviewing Lifetime Original Movies.

That's what I did with my Sunday.

2 comments:

Jean said...

Oh yeah, I grew up on Escape to Witch Mountain and all that too. Sadly, I never saw Watcher in the Woods...sounds like something I should do!

Brenda Pike said...

I loved Watcher in the Woods when I was a kid. So creepy.