The Witches is an enjoyable but scary story about, well, Witches, and one boy's adventures in getting rid of them all. It is normal Dahl stuff - slightly dark, with lots of frighteningly real characters, a great plot and more than a little humour.

However, for those familar with the book or Simon Callow's excellent audiobook, you quickly realise something is slightly amiss with the potion used to create the DVD - and this starts when Luke opens his mouth.

On the whole it sticks faithfully to the book but misses out some important and interesting details (an example being the ancient ones - probably too politically unacceptable for Warner Bros). The biggest departure from the book comes at the end, where more than a drop of "happily ever after" potion was added to the brew.

The Grand High Witch is indeed horrible and her consort of English witches a jolly mixture of revolting, incredible and ridiculous. True Dahl characters. Luke and his Grandmother are believable and Rowan Atkinson is enjoyable as the Fawlty-esque hotel owner.

Overall, very enjoyable and certainly frightening enough for our five year old, who still brings up witches every night before bed, three days after watching it. If you enjoy Roald Dahl, you will enjoy this - but sit close to your little ones when the witches remove their human faces.