In-Depth Review: Escape to Witch Mountain

So I was gearing up to write about The X Files revival (short version: I think it’s a lot of fun, minus the -isms and -phobias that shamefully pop up on– and offscreen), and then the second episode made me realize that’s not what stuck with me at all.

Without spoiling XF 10×2 “Founder’s Mutation,” let me just say that the ending had people snarking about how it was reminiscent of one of my favourite books, Alexander Key’s Escape to Witch Mountain. And they were right.

Escape to Witch Mountain is best known in its cinematic forms: Walt Disney’s original 1975 version and the recent re-imagining Race to Witch Mountain, which starred the Rock. Wikipedia and IMDB tell me there was also a 1995 TV movie, but this is my first encounter with it.

I’ve seen the 1975 movie, and it’s okay. I presume the others are as well. But the book, published in 1968, is my favourite for three main reasons.

First, readers get to experience a great mystery right along with sympathetic protagonists. We start off in the shoes of Tony, who’s alone in the world except for his sister, Tia. On the very first page, Tony and Tia are being taken away from the only home they’ve ever known, a crappy tenement in what seems to be an impoverished neighborhood, by a welfare worker. Tony has a record from getting into fights with other kids, who like to bully his sister, and Tia was accused of breaking and entering.

From the get-go, Tony knows he and Tia are strange, but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know where he and his sister came from, who their biological family is, or how they got to this place and situation. All he remembers is being left with their adoptive guardian when they were both very small, and all he knows is that they both dream of finding the place where everyone is like them. The only clue they have of their origins is a little wooden box with stars on it.

Some of the most interesting parts of Tony and Tia’s story don’t translate well onto the screen. For example, in the book, Tia can’t talk to most people. Tony can hear her voice, but nobody else can–she speaks at a pitch outside normal human hearing, like a dog whistle or infrasound.

The whole business of delving into the star box and their own memories to unravel the truth piece by piece is compelling in the book because we get to learn along with Tony. Tony thirsts to know where he and his sister really belong, but he grew up like any other kid: for him, each new revelation is equal parts shock and relief.

In a movie, having a character who can talk only through someone else quickly gets tiresome, and although intense internal action can captivate readers for pages, it often doesn’t translate on screen. The novel takes the reader through the journey of discovery with Tony, and because it allows us to hear Tia’s voice too, we get to be part of her secret.

Apart from the mystery, Escape to Witch Mountain continues to resonate with me because many of its themes are still timely. Alexander Key liked to use children with supernatural powers to underscore the destructive greed of contemporary Western culture; in his books, the system is evil, wanting to capture, own, dissect anyone who might be a source of power or wealth. There are always good individuals who rebel by treating people as people, but close behind them are those to whom our protagonists are possessions to be studied at arm’s length, not sentient beings.

Escape to Witch Mountain feels like the powerful culmination of this idea. Tony and Tia survive through the kindness and courage of good people rebelling against the system–the grandmother-figure who takes them in when they are small, the nun who may have information about their family, and, of course, Father O’Day, the military-vet priest who becomes their champion.

But apart from these allies, adult authority hassles the two siblings at every turn. Social services places them in a detention home for troubled orphans, where the rigid matron assumes both are thieves. Mysterious men chase Tony and Tia the length of their journey, representing wealthy and powerful government interests that can’t even be discussed in public. Police consider the two to be fugitive criminals, hunting them down.

Seeing through Tony’s eyes, the reader understands that these menacing figures are all too busy with their own interests to think of the children as real people who experience lives as rich as they do. The matron doesn’t care who Tony and Tia really are–thieves or hard workers–so long as they behave and don’t cause trouble for her. The only thing that matters to the mysterious G-men is harnessing Tony and Tia’s powers for their own purposes, nevermind the wellbeing of the children who possess them. And the police are all too ready to believe that a couple kids warrant an armed manhunt.

If that were all there is to Escape to Witch Mountain, it would be a depressing story. But the final reason I love the book so much is because it offers catharsis: as Tony and Tia discover the greed and selfishness of humanity, they also discover the depths of its goodness and, excitingly, their own potential.

The arrogant bad guys, whether a bully in the detention house or a government agent with a gun, assume they know everything there is to know about these children: they’re weak, and so they’re fair game. But Tony and Tia know their own abilities better than any government intelligence ever could.

They turn the tables: the very quality that makes them desirable objects turns them into kick-ass subjects. They wield their powers with mercy and care in order to find and reach what they hope is their family.

Key balances giving the baddies enough power to feel like a legitimate threat with allowing the reader to experience the vicarious thrill of the deserving totally whupping the butts of the selfish.

So, if you like sci-fi mysteries that raise solid ethical concepts but still allows its heroes to save the day, check out Escape to Witch Mountain. It’s as good as, if not way better than, the movie(s)–and definitely much better than “Founder’s Mutation,” despite (or perhaps because of?) considerably less Mulder and Scully.