Imagining a reawakening of the hunger of evil
Folk tales have always been popular fodder for movie making. It’s the familiarity. We know the stories, we know the characters, we know the themes. Audiences love stories they recognize—it’s why sequels and franchises are so popular.
When it comes to films based on folklore, audiences are often looking for a reimagining of their childhood. They don’t necessarily want the same story, told with fidelity from Grimm’s fairy tales. Instead, they want something familiar, but different enough to justify spending their time watching it.
“Hansel and Gretel” has over a dozen different film adaptations over the years, from musical operas to action comedy, each one with their own spin on the classic tale. For a story by the Brothers Grimm, it’s relatively tame. Two abandoned children find a house made of candy, are trapped by a witch, fattened up to be eaten, until they escape by pushing the witch into an oven. No one dies, saving the evil witch, and everyone lives happily ever after.
This isn’t to say there aren’t dark elements—children left alone in the wilderness to starve, child-eating witches, death by burning are all ripe topics for a horror film. Perhaps the story was too sanitized by Bugs Bunny.
Gretel and Hansel is a slow burning, atmospheric horror film directed by Oz Perkins that will not be everyone’s cup of tea.The film does not stray far from the path of the original story. It changes the ages of the children, making Gretel older and Hansel younger, but there is the same blight as the folk tale with the same sense of dread and hunger.
Gone is the father of the original. The children now live with their mother, who is living at the edge of her sanity. There is no food. There is no money. She cannot keep the children alive any longer. They are forced to leave their home and seek their fortunes alone.
After a frightening experience their first night, the pair encounter a friendly huntsman, who directs them through the woods to a logging camp two days away. But the pair is starving and ultimately gets lost along the way. As in the original tale, they find a house that is overflowing with food.
The house isn’t made of food but the inhabitant appears friendly enough. Each day, the table is laden with fresh foods of every kind. Each night, Gretel has terrible nightmares. It seems their host is grooming Gretel for something but Hansel is being prepared as well.
It’s not the story that makes Gretel and Hansel worth seeing. The writing is simplistic at best. But the film is a visual feast. The art direction, set design, the entire look of the film is beautiful and stark and tragic. This is not today’s horror with its jump scares, loud noises and gore. Gretel and Hansel is far more interested in unsettling visuals.
Most modern horror is the equivalent of a roller coaster featuring a short build up followed by heart pounding twists and turns. Gretel and Hansel is the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff alone, hearing that small but insistent voice in your mind that’s urging a final step toward infinity. For those that prefer the safety of the former, Gretel and Hansel will seem trite and boring. For those that understand the call of the latter, the creeping dread is all they need.
The cast of the film is small and dedicated, but it’s the performance of Alice Krige as the witch that really drives the film home. Krige plays the witch as wise, long lived and generous, within reason. She doesn’t hate but doesn’t pity either. She’s terrifying in her matter-of-fact attitude.
Villains in film are so often overdone. They scream and shout and bully the audience into fear. Gretel and Hansel has a villain that simply exists within a world created by themselves. The witch chose her fate, chose the consequences, and has no remorse for them. She sees Gretel as someone to pass on her wisdom.
That’s where the real fear comes from. It’s the person who cannot see their evil. It’s the person who wants to spread their evil as seeds of good for the world. It’s the kind of evil we see every day. Gretel and Hansel shows it to us in all its stark bitterness.