20140105: Horror Review--Hansel & Gretel

Hansel & Gretel

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 90 minutes.
2. IMDB: 2.5/10.0 from 2,223 audience ratings. Estimated budget: 135,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' 15% liked it from 139 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.9/5.0 from 298,187 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Anthony Ferrante.
6. Starring: Stephanie Greco as Gretel Grimm, Brent Lydic as Hansel Grimm, Steve Hanks as Brandon Grimm, Trish Coren as Ruby Lumiers, Dee Wallace as Lilith, Lydia Woods as Dana.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Set in modern times, say 2013, in a small town in the USA.  Hansel and Gretel are brother and sister.  Their mother has passed away.  Their father is thinking of marrying Ruby, who is three years older than Gretel, selling the house, then moving somewhere else.  Hansel, an irresponsible video gamer, runs off and puts his leg in a bear trap.  Oi.  They see a cabin, which turns out to belong to Lilith, who operates the local general store.  Lilith's specialty is a meat pie.  When the siblings go to Lilith's house, she feeds Hansel a beef stew that he really likes.


2. Hansel and Gretel stay overnight.  Lilith tells Gretel that a neighbor took Hansel to the hospital while Gretel was sleeping.  In the meantime, Hansel wakes up in a prison with Jane, Kevin, and Dana.  There used to be more in the cell, but they are gone now.  They have plenty to eat, all of it cookies, doughnuts, and candies.  Kevin informs them that they are being fattened up to be used as meat.  They take Dana.


3. Lilith tries to convince Gretel to be her heir, or at least one of the 'family,' such as it is.  Gretel resists.  Lilith has her dumped in the prison cell.  They take Jane, but not before Jane steals a pointy object that she passes to Hansel.  He uses it to unlock their shackles and the cell door.  Kevin makes a break for freedom; Hansel and Gretel try to rescue Jane.  Ruby and the local police look for them, though quite ineffectively.


4. Do any of them escape?  Does justice catch up to Lilith?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Bears little resemblance to the fairy tale; poor as a gorefest.
2. One star of five.  Two black holes for screenplay and acting.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Much of the movie looked fine, but some of the dark sections were ridiculously poorly done.


2. Sound: 6/10 The conversation is a close to muted all too often.


3. Acting: 2/10 Dee Wallace was fine, but the rest of the cast was terrible.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 The story made no particular sense.  None of the characters were interesting, and I found no reason to care about any of them.