Gretel & Hansel (2020)

Directed by: Oz Perkins | 87 minutes | fantasy, horror | Actors: Sophia Lillis, Samuel Leakey, Alice Krige, Jessica De Gouw, Fiona O’Shaughnessy, Donncha Crowley, Jonathan Gunning, Charles Babalola, Giulia Doherty, Jonathan Delaney Tynan, Darlene Garr, Melody Carrillo, Nessa Last, Harry O’Cualacháin

Long ago, in a mysterious, dangerous fairyland ravaged by plague and famine, young woman Gretel and her brother Hansel are rejected by their mother. The reason is simple: there is not enough food available to support the children. Desperate for food and work, the pair enter a dark forest. When a terrifying figure crosses their path, they are rescued by a helpful and noble hunter. He offers Gretel and Hansel temporary shelter and a warm bath. The hunter advises the duo to go deeper into the forest and find work with the woodcutters who are in the forest.

As befits the right-minded horror characters, brother and sister ignore the hunter’s advice to stay on the beaten track. When they’re at their wits’ end, Gretel and Hansel come across a cottage where an apparently friendly old lady lives. The woman offers the two shelter and serves the children lavish banquets full of meat, fresh fruit and delicious pastries. But isn’t all this too good to be true, especially since there are no livestock, fruit trees or markets in the area? Gretel begins to feel wet as she perceives more and more oddities and is haunted at night by strange dreams and visions.

The well-known fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel has been passed down from generation to generation for centuries. Over time, many filmmakers have also given their own twist to the grim tale of the Brothers Grimm. ‘Gretel & Hansel’ (a reversal of the traditional name order) is somewhere between fantasy and horror. Visually, the film is at times a true gem. The beautiful camera work, the mystical sets and the atmospheric soundscapes, which very effectively make the doom hidden beneath the surface tangible and tangible, make for an intriguing spectacle. The tense relationship between witch and pupil (Gretel) is also nicely elaborated by horror veteran Alice Krige and the young Sophia Lillis (Beverly from ‘It’).

Unfortunately, the carefully constructed tension breaks too quickly. The big reveal comes too early, causing the film to lose momentum and turn the last half hour into a slowly rippling anticlimax. Instead of darker and more exciting, ‘Gretel & Hansel’ gets lighter towards the end and nice ideas to give the film a more morbid touch remain largely unused on the shelf. In addition, ‘Gretel & Hansel’ suffers from an identity crisis. There are actually too few really scary moments to satisfy the horror fans, while the film is too dark, austere and slow for a fantasy film.

What remains is a film that certainly lasts in terms of production work and visual decoration, but unfortunately does not fully utilize its potential with regard to the story-technical elaboration. Compare it to a three-course meal that stimulates the taste buds, but leaves you with a slightly hungry feeling because of a somewhat meager main course and bland dessert.