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'Gretel and Hansel' Review—Dreadfully Pretentious

No spoilers!

By Jonathan SimPublished 4 years ago 5 min read
3

After having to suffer through nightmarishly bad January movies such as The Turning and Dolittle, I thought it was over. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and I believed my days of torture would soon be over; but before my release, I had to endure one more horror movie.

And it had to be this one—the worst of them all.

Gretel & Hansel is a dark reimagining of Hansel & Gretel, and you can tell how different it is because the names have been swapped. Oz Perkins directs this fantasy horror film that had the potential to be a classic take on the famous fairy tale but instead drowns in its pretentiousness.

To be clear, this movie isn't bad in the way that typical January horror films are. While others that came out recently have been overflowing with cheap, unscary jump scares, this movie isn't like the others; it's a movie with a vision and talent behind the camera, but fails to deliver on a storytelling front.

Screenwriter Rob Hayes decided to take a short, simple fairy tale and stretch it into a feature-length film. However, this proved to be an idea that sounded much better on paper, as the stretched out story resulted in dreadfully slow pacing and a narrative that has no momentum.

Very little happens in the film once Gretel and Hansel arrive at the Witch's house in the opening act. A majority of the film occurs in a home with three central characters, but each scene doesn't feel like it is leading to the next or creating a compelling mystery or a cohesive narrative.

As a result of this film's glacial pacing and complete lack of a story, moviegoers can take a bathroom break at any point in the movie, come back, and not miss anything.

This film is very unconventional in its approach to horror. There are very few jump scares, and Perkins's approach leans more towards chilling, atmospheric horror rather than scary imagery and a story. While his efforts are commendable, this is a film that could have done a much more effective job of scaring the audience.

While Perkins avoids using jump scares, he uses dream sequences throughout the film, and the audience is not supposed to know whether they happened or if they were in Gretel's head. These unscary scenes are very cheap, and they would have been scarier had the dangers of the story been more apparent.

But the story contains very little tension; there are very few frightening ideas or scenes in this film. Most of the scares are dreams or hooded figures walking around in the distance, and the audience learns very little about them and how they affect the events happening in the house.

Now, the reason why this movie was entitled Gretel & Hansel is because the film is much more Gretel-centric; she is the protagonist, and Hansel is the deuteragonist. This was a bold choice, but the issue is neither of these characters has anything interesting to them.

Hansel and Gretel have no backstory and no personality; they are boring to watch on screen, and Hayes develops their sibling relationship through the fact that they need food and oink at each other. Because of this, the audience does not become emotionally attached to these characters, nor do they care about them.

As for the Witch, she does very little during this movie. She stands around and is very motherly and pleasant towards Hansel and Gretel. She does not do or say anything scary, but the audience is supposed to be scared of her.

In terms of the performances, Sophia Lillis and Alice Krige are both serviceable in their roles, but the screenplay gives them very little. Lillis plays a dull hero, and while Krige knows how to look frightening, the story gives her little opportunity to be a scary presence.

Sam Leakey's performance is quite subpar. While he has the potential to be a good actor in the future, he is unconvincing in his line delivery or his emotions, and like with the other actors, his character isn't unique enough for Leakey to show any real talent.

Now, I'm not particularly eager to criticize acting because I've done it myself, and it is not an easy task. While I've made my fair share of criticisms, it is also worth noting that these actors needed to work with very bland dialogue that was bad when it wasn't bland.

Typically, I don't do this, but I wrote down quotes verbatim as I watched the film because I was in shock from how badly written some of the lines in this movie are. Enjoy.

"All this practice is making an unnecessary racket!"

"It smells of cake, and I am unable to resist!"

"There's hardly any meat on those action bones."

"Idiot trees."

"Tell me what hides behind that pleasantness."

"Say that again, and I'll turn your tongue into a flower."

It's hard to pinpoint why this dialogue didn't work, but it's worth a shot; nobody talks like this. Maybe the people in this society do, but we don't know where or when this film takes place or if it takes place in a completely alternate universe where people in the same society speak with different accents.

Because of this film's slow pace and lack of scares, this movie ended up being very dull. It's a film that puts style over substance because while the cinematography and musical score are fantastic, and this is a very well-shot film, the screenplay and characters have no substance to them at all.

The exposition in the movie is through narration that feels very tacked on and serves as the only glimpse into what Gretel is thinking. Furthermore, Perkins shot this film in a 1.55:1 aspect ratio, as opposed to the more familiar 1.85:1 and 2.39:1, but the framing of characters in his shots is wholly uninteresting.

A horror film like this feels like the type of movie A24 would produce, but only if they didn't read the script before deciding to do it. This movie isn't mainstream, and it takes a much more pretentious, artsy-fartsy approach to its style while forgetting to have a good script at the same time.

Perkins had to elevate a dull, generic screenplay with nothing fascinating about it, which had to have been no easy task. While the ending has a good idea and the movie looks gorgeous, this movie is a blessedly brief barebones bore that is too pretentious to be scary or meet the qualifications of a good story.

Final Score: Gretel & Hansel—3/10 (D)

Unless you like slow-paced arthouse horror films that feel very derivative of others in its genre, skip it. On the other hand, if you want to watch Hansel and Gretel get high on shrooms (I'm deadly serious), this is the movie for you.

movie review
3

About the Creator

Jonathan Sim

Film critic. Lover of Pixar, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Back to the Future, and Lord of the Rings.

For business inquiries: [email protected]

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