Often times, the most beloved films, generate the most dreadful sequels. As I said in my review of Escape to Witch Mountain, I was a huge fan of that film, having viewed it numerous times on television. However, it’s sequel, Return from Witch Mountain, failed to capture my imagination; I only remember watching it once until recently, when the film was re-released on DVD. While John Hough remained in the director’s chair, the addition of an aging Bette Davis and a somewhat disinterested Christopher Lee took some of the believable charm out of a story that had been such a success just two years before. Instead, Escape from Witch Mountain plays out like a campy B-movie.
The film begins with Tony (Ike Eisenmann) and Tia (Kim Richards) coming to Los Angeles for a little educational excursion, after being dropped off (via flying saucer) in the Rose Bowl by their Uncle Bene (Denver Pyle). As with Escape to Witch Mountain, the plot is set in motion when the siblings have to use their special powers to save someone.
Los Angeles looks rather normal, with the exception of a gothic looking castle, which house two nefarious people, Professor Victor Gannon (Christopher Lee) and his backer, Letha (Bette Davis). Unfortunately for Tony, when he uses his powers in front of Victor and Letha, Gannon quickly seeks to exploit the boy’s ability. Victor manages to subdue Tony by injecting him with a knockout drug. He is then carried back to their castle-like laboratory, where they install a giant mind-control device behind his ear and take over his brain.
Meanwhile, Tia ventures out of the cab to look for her brother and finds herself in the middle of a “gang” fight; Disney style. These kids have street names like Dazzler, Muscles, Crusher, and Rocky. Tia uses her powers to help defeat the gang that was going to make mincemeat out of all of them, and the “gang” of munchkins takes her to their headquarters. People who’ve had anything to do with real gangs will roll their eyes over these sequences, which are so bad that they’re not even campy.
The weird thing about this mess is that the original film hinted at some interesting ideas for a sequel. They had alluded to some other children similar to Tony and Tia but instead we were presented with this completely unrelated story. It feels more like a cheap movie-of-the-week then a sequel to a successful theatrical film that was three years in the making.
The fact that Tony is captured and controlled by Gannon so early on, disrupts the whole brother/sister dynamic that worked so well in the first film. Tony and Tia have few scenes together and Tia’s new “gang’ of friends is too laughable to be taken seriously. The only time Return to Witch Mountain shines is when Tony and Tia have a fight; given their superpowers, it’s sort of like Superboy vs. Supergirl. More scenes like that and Return to Witch Mountain could have been a worthwhile sequel.
I realize I have mentioned anything about Bette Davis’ performance but there’s not much to say. She goes for pure camp in her portrayal of Letha and one gets the feeling she was content to cash the paycheck. In the end, Return from Witch Mountain runs like a movie where everyone was happy to just cash in.
As with the original, the video quality on this re-issue is quite good, with the standard amount of grain you’d expect from a 30-year-old catalog title, but decent color saturation. Return from Witch Mountain is presented in 1.75:1 widescreen, “enhanced” for 16×9 televisions.
The Return from Witch Mountain DVD boasts a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. It’s understandable that it doesn’t offer anything very dynamic, considering the source material. While sounding rather flat, the score and dialogue are all clear and distinct. French and Spanish 2.0 tracks are also available.
French and Spanish subtitles are available.
As with Escape to Witch Mountain, except for an “all-new” pop-up trivia track that duplicates a lot of what we hear on the commentary and making-of feature, the bonus features are all carry-overs from the first Special Edition.
Hough and his two young stars (now grown up) offer the same level of commentary as we got on the original movie–a decent run-through of the movie that has few dead spots. But as with the original movie re-release the pop-up trivia track overlaps quite a bit. Better to stick with the extensive making-of feature that features a good number of the cast and some vintage footage and photos as well as film clips. Worthwhile too is “The Gang’s Back in Town,” which puts Muscles (Brad Savage), Crusher (Poindexter Yothers), and Dazzler (Christian Juttner) on camera at the same time to reminisce about the film while clips intermittently play.
A Christopher Lee interview in Spanish is included (English subtitles), but it’s mostly pre-release hype and Lee plugging his film-in-progress. Then there’s a 1978 Disney Studio Album that’s nothing more than a clip montage, and Disney Kids with Powers that offers more of the same. Rounding out the bonus features is a Donald Duck cartoon, “The Eyes Have It.”
Check out a clip from the film below:
