It’s time for one of those slow boil films. Sometimes those work out really well and other times you feel like they forgot to really have a finisher. Unfortunately this one veers to the latter. I think there were some decent ideas here but ultimately it is heavily limited by the colors, landscapes, and general decorum of the film. There’s not a whole lot of fun things to look at and when you’re stuck in a bleak environment for too long you start to get a little bored. This film needed to lean a bit harder into the horror or have the character be better fighters I’d say.

The movie starts with Gretel being offered a job but unfortunately it is quickly apparent that her boss would be a creep and so she declines. Her mother is so upset that she throws Gretel and her little brother Hansel out of the house. She forbids them from returning or she will murder them. So the duo run and run but the forest is much too vast and they are nearly destroyed before being saved by someone. This guy basically tells them to stay strong and do their best. He recommends a nearby house that might be helpful. They head over and it is run by a witch named Holda who seems reasonable. Perhaps this will all work out….but something just doesn’t feel right.

The movie’s mainly focusing on the “doesn’t feel right” angle which is where the pacing really starts to die out a bit. As a viewer you know immediately that Holda is evil so you’re ready to get on with it but instead the main characters have to just play their roles for a while. Gretel continues to learn witchcraft from Holda without making any big moves for a while. This can be just very dragged out at times. I was even glad to have a dream sequence after a while to break things up. Holda’s younger form is definitely a lot more intense even if the twist about the food is quite a bit gross.

Holda actually looks like a threat here compared to in the present where she looks so old. We also do get a very brief action scene near the end of the film which looked pretty good. Generally speaking I tend to enjoy blue flames quite a bit even if the classic red ones look more impressive. More of the film should have had cool spells and fire attacks like that. This would have really made things more impressive and would have been a credit to the film if you ask me.

I also did like the very ending of the film as Hansel heads off for his destiny while Gretel continues to work on her own abilities. It feels like the ending to an action film with the characters each deciding to get stronger. That’s actually pretty interesting but you can’t just save that for the ending. The movie should have definitely made some waves earlier than that to really make a difference.

Hansel is pretty young so I won’t be too hard on him but for the most part he’s just a bit annoying and not really very helpful. Gretel does a better job of things as she is basically sacrificing herself the whole time to protect Hansel and buy time for a plan. It would have been nice if she could have put up more resistance directly but I know that would be ultra risky.

The film was at its best before the characters made it to the haunted house. I liked the run-in with the random stranger who was giving advice. Part of why the scene worked so well is because we know absolutely nothing about the guy. He just shows up out of nowhere and you don’t even know how much you can trust him. Like everything else in the forest, there are no easy explanations. I would have taken the whole film in the forest over the house. The film knew how to have a good mystery and that’s why going to the house was a mistake because then it changed more into an escape kind of film.

It also goes back to the backgrounds like I mentioned earlier. The house is rather dreary and the witch is just very old and doesn’t feel much like a threat. It’s not the most engaging backdrop for a film like this and there is no real variety. Everything is very old timey including the food so that doesn’t even look very appealing either. There is nothing to visually catch your attention and since the plot is already intentionally moving slow, that won’t change things up either. What that means is that you’re effectively caught up in a cycle with no real way out.

This film needed some explosions or something. It may not have fit in with the film’s tone but it’s just one idea there. If anything, the backstory we learn through flashbacks may have been more interesting. You had the little girl with powers who was quite sadistic and then the witch trying to turn the tables. There were some good twists in there and it was an interesting origin. That whole part, while brief was more interesting than the main plot which means something definitely went wrong.

Overall, Gretel and Hansel set up a very interesting outside world and squandered all of it to go inside the cabin. It may be what people expected since that’s how the old fable goes but the film just didn’t land on the execution. It had a good mystery vibe at times and solid lore but that was not enough to carry the film. At the end of the day it committed one of the big errors a film could make which is that it was boring. For most of the run you just don’t really care what happens. They probably should have aged the kids up a bit or chosen a different setting. Change this to a full action thriller instead and at least we would have some good action scenes. In the meantime I would definitely say to give this one a skip.

Overall 3/10