GRETEL & HANSEL Review
Going off the only other Oz Perkins film I’ve seen, THE BLACKCOAT’S DAUGHTER, it’s safe to say the filmmaker loves him some dark and moody pieces, especially slow ones. Moving from an isolated and wintry campus and into the depths of a muted fantastical forest, Mr. Perkins brings his personal blend of stark visuals and slow burn storytelling to a two-hundred year old fairy tale in GRETEL & HANSEL, a reimagining of sorts that somehow turns out to be less frightening than the source material.
In this version of a tale that propagates the terror of kindly old women in the woods, Perkins switches things up a bit by focusing more on Gretel (Sophia Lillis) as she and her younger brother, Hansel (Samuel Leakey), find themselves on hard times. The world around them is in a constant state of decay and demented denizens make life more or less terrible for our hapless siblings who as it is struggle to find work and/or food. So, after their mother threatens to chop them up with an axe due to their perpetual unemployment (we’ve all been there), the siblings set out for a village that promises work and shelter; of course, that village lies on the other side of a dark forest that holds even darker forces within.
As one would expect, the siblings, at the edge of starvation, come across the intoxicating smell of food in the air which leads them to the retro-themed home of a kindly old woman (Alice Krige) who suspiciously opens her home to the two little hobos trying to break into her house. Inside her surprisingly spacious abode, the kids are treated to extravagant feasts and warm beds and — look, we all know where things go from here: kids realize something is off, unsettling nightmares and visions are seen, turns out things actually are off, and the old lady may actually be some kind of witch that probably eats kids. Perkins, for the most part, follows the major beats in the years-old story, adding little wrinkles here and there that if anything, feel extraneous — looking at you, weird zombie guy — revealing that sometimes the basic idea of a stranger luring kids into their home for nefarious deeds can work on its own, no frills needed. As a result, any of the tension feels a bit muted due to the fact that we know who the bad guy is and what their plans are, try as Perkins might through the usual spooky dream sequence or genre-requested jump scare. Pieces of backstory are also thrown in to add a touch of humanity to an objectively evil entity but that still doesn’t change the fact that the kindly old lady in the old isolated house deep in the woods is bad news. Truly, it’s a tale as old as time and Perkins is fine to roll along with it.
Indeed, GRETEL & HANSEL operates much better as a moody interpretation than a full blown remix. The atmosphere in this film reeks with oppressiveness (if almost comically so considering how much of a dick everyone is in this movie) and Perkins brings a lot of visual flair to the proceedings with some major help from his production design team who successfully create images that display an old, forgotten world that nevertheless look like a modern art installation where the theme is “old timey evil”. This melding of old and new permeates throughout every aspect of the film (sans the actual story) but it doesn’t always work, particularly in the film’s dialogue courtesy of writer Rob Hayes, which can’t decide if it wants to be era accurate or not from scene to scene, but on a purely visual level, Perkins has a unique vision on his hands. Of course, one must also credit Galo Olivares for helping bring to life Perkins’ vision through the utilization of expansive and trippy cinematography, where rooms and the forest itself can become expansive, foreboding palaces of darkness or cramped and claustrophobic prisons.
Outside of that, this is just a flat film for me. There’s nothing particularly scary here and most of any tension alleviates once you realize the story is gonna play out as it has for the last hundred years it has existed. Even the characters except Gretel can’t elevate past their decades old archetypes. Despite Sophia Lillis’ attempts at bringing some unique sense of steel hard-headedness to her character, Gretel never fully makes for a captivating hero rendering her final change in the final act to feel kind of hollow. Plus, I’m not entirely on board with the way Perkins creates an ending that feels very “Universal Monsterverse-y”. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the attempt to inject a little more independence into Gretel but this idea in execution feels like it only teases the surface of its potential.
In essence, GRETEL & HANSEL won’t scare you but rather tantalize with its impressive array of imposing visuals. Much like the nefarious witch of his film, Oz Perkins lures the viewer in with a feast for the eyes but rather than eating you or turning you into mush, the filmmaker instead just kind of bores you a bit.
2.5/5
