This year we celebrate Halloween with a delirious clip from the 1986 TV movie The Worst Witch, starring Diana Rigg, Charlotte Rae, and most memorably, the indelible Tim Curry.

Tim Curry is always inescapably Tim Curry, and in this context that’s a positive boon—he may be the only element in this brief clip that’s even halfway up to snuff. Never have I seen so many superfluous and chintzy video effects deployed in such a short span of time—innumerable green-screen effects, several completely crazy swirl transitions, who knows what the hell else. It’s truly a phantasmagoria of 80s cheese.

In the most “meta” moment, the song inadvertently calls attention to director Robert Young’s excessive video trickery with a brief verse about …  of all things, VHS tapes! For no discernable reason, Curry is tasked with warbling, “Gremlins gonna mess up every cassette from London to Idaho….”

It’s all just too, too good. Happy Halloween, everyone!

“Anything Can Happen on Halloween”:

 
If that intrigued you for some reason, here’s The Worst Witch in full:

 
Thank you Wilder Selzer!

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Tim Curry in great/cringe-worthy musical number from ‘The Worst Witch’