Gretel & Hansel

Gretel & Hansel (2020)

61% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 75 reviews)

Runtime: 87 minutes

Directed by: Oz Perkins

Starring: Mainly, it's just Sophia Lillis, Samuel Leakey, and Alice Krige

From: In the United States, good old Orion Pictures

Like a training wheels version of an A24 movie.

I am paraphrasing something I've heard from more than one person; that is despite this not being made by the highly regarded indie studio. The reasons why I saw this theatrically: I feel bad its performance at the box office is not great, and the Cinemascore is rather lousy, I heard some things which sounded appealing to me, and somehow I haven't seen any Oz Perkins joints before. I know that they are all divisive so eventually I will check out the rest.

Everyone knows the German folk tale as made famous by The Brothers Grimm; this uses the basic idea but makes a variety of changes, which is fine. This shows how arthouse it is right away: after a widescreen ratio, the aspect ratio changes to 1.55:1, of all things. This time, Gretel is like twice the age of her brother and after their mom goes crazy, they walk through the woods before reaching the house of the witch, which unfortunately is not made out of candy. I understand those that think the story is too slow and there isn't that much to the plot... from hearsay, the latter can be said about every Oz movie, and as for the former, apparently this is fast-paced compared to his previous work. Me, I could carp about the plot or how it was told... yet I won't rake this over the coals about it as this wasn't dull to me and even if it's more creepy than scary, it was the sort of thing I am glad was seen by me theatrically.

Chiefly, that is due to how gorgeous the film looks throughout, with the striking moments that color is used, the lovely woods that comprises the setting (it was filmed in Ireland), the framing that has everyone centered-which isn't for everyone-and it was a visual delight. Most of this is either two or three characters; thankfully the performances are all fine-Alice Krige being the highlight as the witch-although everyone having different accents is a little curious. It is on the pretentious side, although not insufferably so like a decent number of actual A24 pictures. I'll blame the narration you sometimes hear on the dreaded “studio notes”; at least aurally, there is a bitchin' synth score. There definitely are weird moments throughout, although this is PG-13 instead of some bizarre R-rated thing you'd get from any random independent production company.


No surprise that even on Letterboxd, I've seen ratings all over the map for Gretel & Hansel, whether it be people I follow or everyone on the site who has provided a rating. For me, while I wish the story would have been as stunning as the visuals, it was not terrible & at least I can say this was fine and I will safely presume this was much more worthwhile than the other January horror movies this year, The Grudge and The Turning. In the United States, this was put out by Orion; I am happy that their logo is the same as from the 80's, as seeing that on the big screen brought back some nice memories of childhood.