Matilda (1996)

These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone.

Charlie and the chocolate Factory fan theory: Candy is made from Children

(source)

<<Willy Wonka is a pretty creepy character, no doubt. The book is known for a rather dark nature in how it handles naughty kids. In the story, other candy makers are jealous of Wonka’s success and send spies to uncover the secrets of his factory. In fear of being ruined, he fires all of his employees and closes the factory. Five years later, it reopens with a new staff comprised of discolored and identical African pygmies called “Oompa Loompas”. I understand hiding a secret recipe to making candy, but it isn’t that difficult. Thousands of people work for Coca-Cola but only two people know what the recipe to coke really is. What kind of terrible secrets could Wonka be hiding in the factory? This theorist believes that Wonka’s various candies are made from children.

Wonka is not necessarily evil; he just has a very messed up scale of morality where he designs his tour to try and tempt each children with a karmic fate to evaluate if they are worthy of living or not by setting up traps or gambits which kills them. Augustus Gloop can’t control his gluttony when he gets to the Chocolate Room and falls into the chocolate river, and is sucked up a large pipe. That’s a fairly large pipe.Large enough for a Human being. Why would you make it that big for the chocolate river? Wonka set it up so that children are easily transported throughout the factory through these pipes to the various rooms.

huWe see a similar mechanic again with the Nut Room, where there is a large tube that connects to an incinerator. The Nut Room has a bunch of squirrels testing walnut out to see if they are a “bad nut”. Veruca Salt wants to have one of the squirrels, but Wonka denies her the request, so she tries to take one for herself. Wonka hardly tries to hide his murderous intents with this one and Veruca is thrown into the chute by the entire squirrel squad. The squirrels are trained to work together in dragging people into the chute, apparently. Also, in the 2005 movie adaptation, when Wonka is asked to quickly find the key to the chute from a huge bunch of keys, it takes him ages to try and see which is the correct one, but as soon as Veruca has disappeared down, it turns out that he knew the right one all along, since he immediately opens the gate.

Before this, the group travels to the Inventing Room where Wonka shows off the “Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum”, a dangerous, experimental candy which has the side-effect of turning people into blueberries. Violet, boasting she can consume it and being prideful, grabs the gum and turns into a giant blueberry (she remains a Human but she has become large, blue, and juicy). Wonka has some Oompa Loompas take her to the Juicing Room to get back to normal. Turning into a fruit is a pretty big effect and doesn’t seem like some kind of mistake and showing it off to a bunch of careless, candy-loving kids is not a smart idea. When Wonka captured children, originally, in order to make a child even more useful, he fed them these dinner gums so they can become different fruits and taken to the juicing room to get an endless supply of “natural” flavors. The Television Room’s original use may be obvious: turning kids bite-sized in order to harness all of their flavors for a candy. The shrunken kids could of also been used for manufacturing tiny aspects of small candies, like molding them.

Going back to Augustus – neverbinkles on Reddit noticed an odd thing about the boat: “Willy Wonka knew those children would die in his factory. After Augustus gets sucked up the shoot, they all hop on board the boat through the tunnel of doom. The boat doesn’t have two extra vacant seats though. It was designed with prior knowledge that they would lose two participants before that point. Later they drive a cream spewing car with only four seats. Did they have another car waiting in the garage in case the others made it? Of course not. Willy Wonka uses children to make candy.”

Still think this idea is crazy? Well, in the original version of the novel, there was an omitted chapter and sixth child named Miranda Piker, who seemingly falls down the “Spotty Powder Mixer” to be chopped to death, screaming. The screams turn into laughter as Miranda survives. Why would a mixer, which seems to be easily traversed and below a large area, be necessary? Mrs. Piker calls Wonka a murderer, “I know your tricks! You’re grinding them into powder! In two minutes my darling Miranda will come pouring out of one of those dreadful pipes.” Guess what Wonka replies. “Of course, that’s part of the recipe!” Wonka notices that Miranda is still alive and is joking around with Mrs. Piker. Sure, its like Wonka to joke around, but this is a bit messed up.

And what about the Oompa Loompas? Not only are they fine with helping Wonka out with these murders, but they take joy in it, singing and dancing. Well, I’m trying really hard to sound racist here, but cannibalism in Africa is the rarest of things.

The 2005 film adaptation cranks Wonka’s creep factor up to eleven. In this version, Wonka has a personal reason to hate people, as they bullied him for wearing a large mouth brace, his father prevented his creative freedom, and, like the other versions, the other candy companies were greedy and attacked Wonka’s factory.>>

100witches:

23- Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston). Roald Dahl’s “The Witches”.

“The Witches” is a 1983 novel by Roald Dahl, which was was adapted into a dark fantasy film in 1990 of the same name. The movie stars Anjelica Huston as Miss Ernst, the Grand High Witch. The film was produced by Jim Henson Productions and as such includes puppetry and creatures one would expect from his production company. “The Witches” was the last movie Henson worked on directly before his death, and was similarly the last film made based on Dahl’s work prior to Dahl’s death. While it’s portrayal of witchcraft is unequivocally negative, Anjelica Huston’s characterization of the Grand High Witch is truly one to be reckoned with.

This film incorporates many themes about witchcraft one finds in this sort of production. The plot (of the movie at least) revolves around a young boy, Luke, and his grandmother, Helga. When Helga was a child, a friend of hers had been captured by a witch and forced to live out her days inside of a painting. Helga has since sought to destroy witches, and I believe is considered a witch hunter in the novel. Years later, after the death of Luke’s parents, Helga becomes his legal guardian and the two take a vacation to a seaside hotel.

While on vacation, they discover that a group of English witches are meeting under the guise of a charity conference. Luke had been told by his grandmother that witches are evil female demons with a deep seated hatred of children. With limitless powers, witches are able to transform children into all kinds of creatures. The witches, in a move to conceal their abhorrence for children, gather as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

While snooping around, Luke discovers their meeting and uncovers their worldwide plan. Lead and funded by the Grand High Witch, witches across the world will open candy shops and confectionery stores, selling candy and sweets laced with a tincture that will turn children into mice. The Grand High Witch wants to rid the entire world of children, starting of course with those in merry old England.

Luke is discovered by the Grand High Witch who turns him into a mouse, which is how he spends the majority of the movie. Shit goes down, and of course, goodness prevails and Luke destroys the witches. One witch, however, Miss Irvine, is spared as she changes sides and decides to help Luke bring down the Grand High Witch. Miss Irvine further assists Luke by restoring him to his human form and giving him information on the location and secret identities of all of the witches in America (with the assumption being that he will continue his witch hunting).

This movie in many ways reminds me of Hocus Pocus (#25). In each, the witches have an all encompassing hatred for children, and their ultimate demise is perpetrated by a child whom they’ve turned into a familiar (Binx as a cat in Hocus Pocus, Luke as a mouse here). This malevolent portrayal of witchcraft is further illustrated by the fact that the Grand High Witch and her league of witches conceal their true form. Disguised as average mortal women (with the Grand High Witch as an exotic femme fatale), their true identities are hideous and grotesque creatures. Yet again, the Hag/Vixen dichotomy is perpetuated, with their unmasked and ugly nature being inhuman and otherworldly (cue Jim Henson).

Dahl highlights several key tropes from traditional fairy tales through this novel which certainly found their way into the film adaptation. Again, we see children being taught to fear the witch. Feminine power and autonomy is synonymous with maleficence and corruption. The age old association of witches despising children (to the point of killing/consuming them) is further reinforced, and the women’s true self as inhuman, demonic hags is again visualized. The movie does take a positive spin, however, when the one witch changes sides and helps overturn the evil regime. Nevertheless, this does remain a relative side plot to the overarching theme that witches are evil.

Regardless, I still freaking love this movie, mostly because Anjelica Huston really does steal the screen. She portrays the Grand High Witch in such an elegant and enigmatic way that, aside from the ulterior motives of child transmutation, part of you really wants to see her come out on top. Her interpretation of this character helps make it go down as one of the top witches in cinema, and one of the best child fantasy/horror films of that era. I believe Anjelica Huston perfectly summarizes the dichotomy of this character when she discussed a dress she had purchased with her costume designer for the role. The dress was rejected by the director as “not sexy” enough, about which she recalled: “That was the first time I’d imagined that this horrible creature in a children’s movie should have sex appeal. It simply had not occurred to me. But of course Nic (the director) was absolutely right. His vision was diabolical and dark and brilliantly funny. If a witch was to be at the center of this plot, she needed to be sexy to hold the eye.”