The Worst Witch (The Movie)

Long before Harry Potter there was the Worst Witch. Diana Rigg, Charlotte Rae, Tim Curry. Besides a great cast the story flows well, is funny and very family friendly think 1980's all female (except Curry) HP .

Cheesy 80s Disney movie, but it's great campy humor and actors make this movie a gem from my childhood. Fairuza Balk at such a young, awkward age, and TIM CURRY!!! as the Grand Wizard with a solo song done in 80s green screen glory. Being Disney, you know there has to be songs in it, and they are totally cheesy, but glorious if you love that kind of stuff like I do.Mildred Hubble (Fairuza Balk) is the screw up at her witch boarding school. Everything she does winds up backfiring on her and there's a know-it-all show-off bully girl that is always trying to get her in even more trouble. During potions class and flying lessons, she makes even more mistakes, but shows promise, too. There is a special event planned for Halloween since the Grand Wizard is coming to visit their school. Mildred makes it onto the flying team to do a choreographed flight demonstration, but as her broom was broken during flying lessons, the bully lends her a nice one, but she has it cursed to make an even larger fool out of Mildred. With a catastrophically disastrous ending to the demonstration, Mildred decides to run away from her humiliation.It is outside the academy grounds that she runs across a group of witches in the woods who are plotting to take over the school so they can teach their own dark magic lessons. The leader of the group happens to be the twin of the headmistress of the academy and feels she has a birthright to be headmistress instead of her sister. Mildred is discovered and they threaten to change her into something nasty and she instead turns them into snails and takes them back to the school to let her Headmistress deal with them.

This has always been one of my absolute favorite childhood movies and I’m glad to finally have it on DVD

Exactly as advertised!

Finally I can get my Halloween ritual back on track. I love this cute film I fell in love with it as a 6 year old and then a late starter who never thought she would learn to read along came books at age 11 (my rather battered constant companions and no matter how old I am when a new one comes out I will buy it) and not to mention the playground games as we pretended to learn to fly. I adore the The Worst Witch and not even Harry Petter can move me. Although I love that they have made it into several series for TV, all of which I have, I don't think anything will ever beat this movie in my mind. Diana Rigg as HB was terrifying! The songs were fab and crazily catchy and I just loved Mildread and Maud. For fans who were kids when the series came out just give this a try! This is the US version that sadly does not play on all DVD players but there is now a U.K. release but sadly the quality is not as good and the layout not so much fun.

Sure, you are buying a dvd for an hour made for tv special, but it is well worth it if you are of a certain age, or of a certain mindset.Sure it's cheezy, but it's clearly a pre-Harry Potter but very harry potter type of story, which is no supprise to those aware of the books about the Worst Witch.But it's alot of fun. I absolutely adore Faruzia Balk, and this is a great movie for fans of hers as a child beyond "Return to Oz" or "Valmont"Plus, Tim Curry in one of the best cheezy but amazing and played straight music numbers with "Anything Can Happen On Halloween". It's worth it just for that.Plus Plus, Mrs. Garret, so there's that.Alot of fun, and I am so glad after all these years I have it again. Perrenial Halloween must. So long rented VHS copy from the public library I only got to see once, hello having it all to myself anytime I want.Seriously, get it for halloween schtick lovers everywhere.

It happened once before when I bought a Short Circuit DVD from outside the US. I I learned my lesson to make sure to check for the highlighted warning about how it may not work in your region. This DVD did not have a warning or anything like that. I even looked under the specific product details and nothing that I could decipher that it was for something outside region code 1. I also looked at the reviews, which many were from the United States and they were good. So why I got a DVD with a wrong region code is beyond me. I even checked the DVD case before I opened the plastic and it says, "U" for Universal. Not happy.

This arrived in perfect condition! I have searched for this DVD for about 4 years with no success. It arrived and is perfect. Thank you for making hard to find movies available to customers!

I can't for the life of me remember how it came up in conversation with my 5- and 7-year-old niece and nephew that I loved this film as a child. So I ordered a copy - for them, honestly - and, as a middle-aged man, sat and watched it with them and was even more engrossed than they were.The casting of Diana Rigg as the terrifying Miss Hardbroom, Fairuza Balk as the hapless Mildred, Anna Kipling as the priggish Ethel Hallow and Tim Curry as the self-conceited Grand Wizard is - there's no other word - perfect. Charlotte Rae does a wonderful job of playing both the dignified headmistress and her wicked twin sister. And we could not get the wicked witches dance ("so if you're filthy, sme-e-lly, evil, wicked and crooool"), the Halloween song sung, or rather cackled by Tim Curry or the theme song ('Growing up isn't easy' by a then 21-year-old Bonnie Langford) out of our heads.It's fair to say that the special effects were probably done on a budget when the film was made back in 1986. By today's standards, they're atrocious and show just how far this aspect of production has come in 30 years. But it's also fair to say that, if you're old enough to remember the 80s or young enough not to remember the London Olympics, you absolutely won't care.Because the combination of the casting, the music and the fact that the script stays faithful to the original children's book gives this a beautiful simplicity and yes, an innocence that most more modern productions, including the Harry Potter films, just don't have. And it's just impossible not to love it for that.

Oh my goodness. Where to begin? I have just had the most fun Halloween watching this after so many years. I am about the same age as the actresses in this and so when it first aired in the 1980s I was absolutely obsessed, having been an avid reader of the original books by Jill Murphy. One of my parents had the foresight to record it on VHS and that tape was worn out as it would be played on repeat. I even balanced a broom over the back of a winged armchair and sat on it sideways to copy the flying scenes, pretending I was learning to fly around the courtyard or part of the spectacular broomstick display.A friend and I were discussing Tim Curry and she mentioned that this DVD was available on Amazon, having brought it herself to share with her daughter (who is equally obsessed by all accounts) and I knew I had to have it! I did find the original VHS at a car boot sale about 20 years ago and thought I’d won the lottery, but with no VHS player what a joy to own it on DVD and for only a couple of quid!If at all possible I would say that I enjoyed this even MORE than I did the first time around. I had forgotten the sheer delight of the terribly sung witches woodland song and the wonderful tongue-in-cheek performances of the brilliant older actors (which went over my head at the time) have now taken on new comedic value. Everyone in this production performs with conviction and gusto and it’s obvious that they all had a really good time making it which, in turn, makes it a feel good affair to watch.The hysteria over the imminent arrival of the Grand Wizard is infectious and when he does fly in for his short but sweet musical number it is both legendary and highly memorable! Tim Curry is at his peak here oozing charm and sheer magnetism and gives an iconic performance with such conviction that you simply cannot look away! It is quite possibly as the finest moment in children’s television ever to be seen (and yes that includes Tom Hardy reading the bedtime story).Ok, so the special effects haven’t aged well, but neither have I. In their day I thought they were marvellous and what is lacking here is more than made up with by the perfect casting. Diana Rigg is suitably terrifying as HB and Ethel really is deeply unlikeable. You can keep your latter day series version thank you very much, this original film was a perfect storm and I loved every single minute.The DVD quality is what you’d expect, it’s not been remastered so it looks how you remember it looking - but in a way that has a charm of its own. It’s obviously not going to be HD but neither was it foggy or unwatchable or migraine inducing and I have a large TV.Thoroughly recommend this little gem to all and will dig it out every Halloween from now on and relive my 80s childhood dreams - only without sitting on a broom this time, the handle would probably snap now anyway.

Arrived the day after ordering 4 days Easley! This dvd is just the best ever - memories in a box I’m going to enjoy walking down memory lane a lot I love this far better than the more modern version of Jill Murphy books- I adore her books more than anything too. If you were born in the 80s or want to show your kids what TV was like then get this save for around Halloween and enjoy! Tim curry at his best- but let’s be fair he does everything well- in this he is not do much the stage stealer his presence is bold and felt and brilliant - Watch this dvd honestly for nostalgia if nothing else 10/10

My hubby bought this for our daughters Halloween as he remembered it from our childhood, unfortunately a great piece of nostalgia is ruined by poor quality transfer, even when watched on an expensive dvd up-scaling bluray player.I can accept standard definition but this was grainy and felt like I was watching a poorly pirated fragmenting copy as it was literally like watching through fizzing fog on the screen, the sound jumped and there were fizzy bits in the corner of the screen occasionally. Obviously the production company had a worn out master version to transfer from as it seems a straight copy and print from fuzzy VHS.It was a shame as my eyes couldn't handle it and set off a migraine, for risk of upsetting my daughter we had to switch it off.

The Worst Witch was an huge part of my life when I was growing up. I will admit the 90's series is my favourite adaption of The Worst Witch but this film is very good too especially for the time it was filmed. I really like the acting and think it was done very well and Mildred is likeable and so is Maud. The special effects are not the best but it was 1986 so we couldn't expect to much. The negatives are that the film is very cheesy and doesn't have a lot of humour to it, I find it a lot more serious then other adapations. Anyone who likes the ITV series or even the 2017 series which is now airing will like this it is a great little film and I still enjoy watching it despite being in my 20's and for the price you can't go wrong.