Disneat: The "Witch Mountain" Cycle

"Disneat" is a new subcolumn wherein we tackle weird stuff of Disney+

Escape To Witch Mountain (1975, d. John Hough)

Return From Witch Mountain (1978, d. John Hough)

Race To Witch Mountain (2009, d. Andy Fickman)

We have been SO inundated with superheroes and science fiction and fantasy and surreal action movies that it's hard to remember that there was a time where television and cinema did not cater to comic book geeks, and so those of us that took that stuff seriously had to glom onto some real mediocre pieces of entertainment.   Production companies would throw us nerds a bone from time to time, but they didn't make their pictures with the fanatical fanboys in mind (and fangirls weren't even a concept yet), they tried to make them as mass-market friendly, and usually very cheaply because, until the wild success of Star Wars and Superman in the late 70's, there was believed to be no broad appeal to these kinds of films.

The initial Witch Mountain movies were a bit before my time, and somehow never came across my radar until the 2009 soft reboot was launching.  Had I known these existed I'm certain I would have glommed onto them...maybe not hard like I did with Star Wars or Planet of the Apes but, maybe somewhere in the range of disappointed-but-will-take-what-I-can-get also-rans like Condorman or My Secret Identity (in other words, productions that put the least amount of effort into appealing to genre fans, knowing that they would still appeal to genre fans desperate for content).

Poster, better than the movie

The first film is about two children, Tia (future Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kim Richards) and Tony, who are living in an orphanage after the death of their foster parent.  They have no memory of their real family, but they do have superpowers, like telepathy and telekinesis.  Of course the stock bully in any pre-Millennium kids movie is there to pick on our protagonists, but the kids flashing displays of their powers out in the open (even though they promised each other not to) help take the bully down.  One day Tia has a premonition and saves a guy about to get in a limo (that guy, none other than Donald Pleasence, desperate for work it seems), which a short while later gets rammed right in the passenger door by a truck. 

Pleasence works for a very rich man who has been searching for signs of the paranormal for years, and in quick order has Pleasence pose as their Uncle and adopt the kids.   He brings the kids to the rich guy's mansion where he promises them the moon and gives them a massive bedroom with its own ice cream bar.  But the kids quickly figure out the man has nefarious intentions (but not before an insufferably long sequence where Tony makes all the toys in their new room dance and Tia dances along).  They run away, finding refuge in the camper van of a grumpy old loner who you can bet will take a shining to these kids.  Along the way Tia has visions about her past and the old loner, in mere hours talking like these kids are his very own, helps them get away from the bad men in pursuit and figure out their past.  They're aliens! But also orphans.  And their Grandpa comes and picks them up in the jankiest looking ufo special effect this side of "Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie" (dig my savvy 1990's Simpsons reference kids).

It's not an unwatchable movie, and thankfully it's not your bog standard Disney live action kiddie fare... there's a bit more adventure to it than that, and it has that same strange undercurrent of loss and darkness that most Disney animated movies have but live action tends to forego.  The effects are stupid, but I could see the nerdy kids of the time being totally into it.  But man the whole "Witch" thing is a real bait-and-switch, when it's all about superpowered aliens and not one iota about witches.  "Witch Mountain" is just a place (and in the mid-1970's people were still ready to take up arms against witches? Oy vey America, oy vey).  Also it should be noted that Kim Richards' Tia is the co-lead of the film, even perhaps with a bigger spotlight than Tony, and she receives FOURTH billing in the "FEATURING" section of the credits.  That's some sexist 70's hollywood bullshit there.

Again, poster better than movie

Three years later, Tia and Tony return to Earth, this time heading to Los Angeles, to take what seems to be a vacation. Within moments Tony has exposed his power to... what the fuck...?  Christopher Lee and Bette Davis?  Oh man, hard times for those two.  They play the bad guys in this.  Lee has developed a mind control technology, with Davis' gambling addict patron footing the bill.  Sensing astonishing potential by mind controlling a kid with telekinetic powers, Lee expects that people will look past the kidnapping and hail him as one of the greatest minds of the modern age.  Davis meanwhile just wants to take the kid to Vegas.

I should mention here, before I keep going, "Witch Mountain" never even enters into play at all in this entry.

Tia, on the search for her missing brother, hooks up with a gang of kids, probably in the 10-12 age range.  When not getting the tar beat out of them by rival kid gangs, these kids are on the run from "Yo-yo", Mr. Yakamoto, the school's truancy officer.  The way these obviously not down-and-out kids so daydream about the gang lifestyle troublesome, especially 15 years before gangsta rap is even a thing for white middle class kids everywhere to fetishize.  Should a kids movie really be promoting this?  Anyway, a "girl" (one at least 2 years older than any of them) becomes their chief ass kicker and they opt to help her find her brother, because even though they're a tough-as-nails street gang, they're just nice kids at heart.

A few misadventures later and Tia and Tony are reunited, the gang kids now promise Mr. Yakamoto they'll stay in school and the alien kids return to their spaceship and grandpa, having accomplished literally nothing in L.A.  It's honestly a bit of an improvement over the previous film, and yet utterly perplexing as to the point.  I can kind of understand why this stopped the franchise dead in its tracks.  Tia and Tony have no motivation... and there's certainly no larger arc about the government tracking aliens, or wanting kids with superpowers to experiment on.  That would take about 30 years for that kind of "mature" storytelling to take hold.

Disney, ever ready to tread on nostalgia, and sensing the superhero craze was just lifting off, decided for an expensive soft reboot of the "Witch Mountain" property.  It would star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson who was almost a decade past his big screen debut in the Mummy Returns but still hadn't quite made his leading man mark yet (The Rundown in hindsight is easily the start of Johnson's superstardom, but it wasn't a big hit at the time).  This tepid action vehicle, trying to be both for kids and for adults but really feeling like neither, wasn't going to do much to further that status.

Dull poster conveys just how dull
film is

The opening credits to Race To Witch Mountain convey its confusion about what audience its for.  Over an intense score, there is a rapid montage of "real" UFO footage, intermixed with news headlines about UFOs, videos of political figures talking about searching for extraterrestrial life, and even a couple quick hits of alien autopsies and funky skulls.  It's kind of terrifying and I'm sure something that would send younger viewers screaming out of the theatre.

After a "meteorite" crashes in the Nevada desert, a military agent leading a secret project played by Ciaran Hinds tracks down its location and then learns there were bipedal beings on whatever crashed.  Their search, surprisingly takes less than a minute thanks to technology and the nanny state, and they see the aliens in the form of two very norse looking teenagers (are they Asgardians?  Thor's hammer crashed in the Nevada desert too).  They were last seen getting into the cab Johnson drives.  Johnson's character, the cinematically named "Jack Bruno", is an ex-con who is dodging the advances of his former mob boss' goons trying to get him to return to the fold as their wheelman, but he's gone straight.  He's a nice guy and though resistant initially, he sees these kids in need and decides to help them.  It should be noted that Johnson looks more like maybe his own brother or cousin here, as he still has hair and he's about half the size he is now.

The kids are not only trying to escape the US government, but also an alien headhunter, who is trying to prevent them from collecting evidence that their own homeworld can be saved, its employers much preferring to just invade and take over the Earth.  A bunch of action set pieces, all with decent visual effects but bland choreography and cinematography, ensue.  They invariably involve Carla Gugino's "legit" alien researcher (who is presenting to the crackpots at a Vegas convention), who is supposed to help them somehow, but I don't ever really understand why she's involved at all except that the film needed an attractive, adult, female lead.  Then Garry Marshall is involved for some reason, more action set pieces, and yay, day saved.

It's only 98 minutes long but feels like it goes on forever, and yet the film moves too fast to establish any meaningful connection between the characters, and the stakes don't feel organic at all.  The film is dripping with cliches throughout and it never conveys any real sense of danger.  I think Disney was expecting a franchise out of this...but for all the flash and bang, it's just pretty dull.