Review of Gretel & Hansel

Once upon a time (1970), I went to the Dutch fairytale park the Efteling for the first time, and I felt so scared, seeing the witch at the Hansel & Gretel's house 😨👦. That's how fairytales used to be, and -to my opinion- should be told. Intensely funny, touching, and sometimes creepy. Oz Perkins' (direction and co-writing) Gretel and Hansel Movie is free from the moral and peaceful Disney layers, and goes as dark as needed. And that's good because, as the outdated leader logo of producer Orion symbolizes, this must be a low(er) budget production. Only a handful of actors and a compact filming location... it comes down to acting and visuals. The colouring and photography is well chosen and visually attractive, supportive. The dialogues are not quite exciting, the narration is sometimes even tacky, but acting is performed well by the talented and bright Samuel Leakey (Hansel), cheeky/evil smiling Sophia Lillis (IT Movie) as Gretel and especially by Alice Krige (Silent Hill and the Borg queen in Star Trek) as witch Holda. This fairytale is a good take on the classic Brothers Grimm story, but Perkins & Hayes wrote it also as pilgrimage, a self development portrait of the adolescent Gretel, dealing with talents and her sweet little brother, in her way.