Robert Zemeckis brings a “reimagined” take on Roald Dahl’s The Witches to HBO Max this month (watch the trailer)

Just in time for Halloween, director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) is bringing his “reimagined” take on Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel The Witches to HBO Max on October 22.

The film features an all-star clast including Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, Kristin Chenoweth, and Chris Rock, alongside newcomer Jahzir Kadeem Bruno (Atlanta) and alongside Codie-Lei Eastick (Holmes & Watson).  Zemeckis co-wrote the film with Kenya Barris (Black-ish) and Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth).

From the press release:

Reimagining Dahl’s beloved story for a modern audience, Robert Zemeckis’s visually innovative film tells the darkly humorous and heartwarming tale of a young orphaned boy who, in late 1967, goes to live with his loving Grandma in the rural Alabama town of Demopolis.  As the boy and his grandmother encounter some deceptively glamorous but thoroughly diabolical witches, she wisely whisks our young hero away to an opulent seaside resort.  Regrettably, they arrive at precisely the same time that the world’s Grand High Witch has gathered her fellow cronies from around the globe—undercover—to carry out her nefarious plans. 

Check out the trailer below, which looks much less disturbing than Nicolas Roeg 1990 adaptation of The Witches, perhaps one of the most terrifying children’s films of all time.

The Witches flies onto HBO Max on October 22.