This Dark Osgood Perkins Movie Puts a Horror Spin on a Classic Fairy Tale (2024)

If anyone has ever watched an Osgood Perkins horror film before seeing Longlegs, they will know they are dread-filled, highly stylized, and very weird. That last part is important. While Longlegs seems to be an occult variation on serial killer movies, there is something else going on. When a haunting bedtime story is told, it puts the movie in a different context that makes it less of a crime procedural, and more of a strange fairy tale about evil. If that grabs viewers, they need to watch Perkins' previous film that unfairly went under the radar.

2020's Gretel & Hansel is a remake of one of the most famous tales by the Brothers Grimm. Everyone knows about the two young siblings who are abandoned and have the bad luck of finding shelter in the gingerbread dwelling of a cannibal witch. You think you know how the story goes, then this remake comes along to crank up the gore and the occult. As it stands, this is the only film that director Osgood Perkins has made that he didn’t write the script for, but his atmospheric visual style seeps into every scene. He creates a world that is just as unsettling as in Longlegs, with a witchy new take on an old fairy tale.

PG-13

Gretel & Hansel is a dark fantasy horror film directed by Oz Perkins. It retells the classic Grimm Brothers' fairytale, focusing on teenage Gretel and her younger brother Hansel, who embark on a perilous journey into a haunted forest. Sophia Lillis stars as Gretel, while Alice Krige plays Holda, a witch who lures the siblings into her sinister home. The film delves into themes of survival and dark magic in a visually eerie setting.

Director

Oz Perkins

Cast

Sophia Lillis , Alice Krige , Jessica De Gouw , Charles Babalola , Samuel Leakey , Ian Kenny

Main Genre

Horror

Writers

Rob Hayes

Release Date

January 30, 2020

Runtime

87

What Is ‘Gretel & Hansel’ About?

After Gretel (Sophia Lillis) and Hansel (Sam Leakey) get kicked out of their poverty-stricken family home, the sister and brother head into the woods with only a flimsy survival plan in mind. They stumble upon the home of the witch Holda (Alice Krige), an older woman who invites them to stay, with all the food they can eat in exchange for help with chores. But Gretel is not like her brother, she has emerging powers as an inexperienced witch. When a relationship forms between Holda and Gretel, it endangers Hansel’s life and pulls his sister into practicing black magic. From the noticeable title change, Gretel is the main character in this mature and violent adaptation.

Gretel is the one who has to save her brother in the original version, and that’s a plot point this retelling latches onto. Aged up to be the older sister, Gretel is in charge of a little brother and has to navigate a world where she has very little agency. To set up this, Perkins builds a menacing world where there may not be any big, bad wolves, but there is a brewing storm of human and supernatural dangers. What is quickly made clear to viewers is that the witch is not the only monster in this retelling. Before Gretel and her brother even stumble upon the witch’s house, their lives are put at risk.

‘Gretel & Hansel’ Takes Place in a Hostile World for Girls

In the horror films by Osgood Perkins, there are characters, predominantly women, who are thrust into a world they may perish in. Whether at a boarding school in The Blackcoat’s Daughter or a haunted house in I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, girls and women encounter the hostilities of the supernatural. Because of this, and with Gretel & Hansel the only true fairy tale Perkins has made, it becomes Angela Carter-esque, akin to The Company of Wolves, with themes of sexual awakening and the dangers women face with it. The storybook Big Bad Wolf represents male predators, but that metaphor is made explicit in Carter’s retelling of classic fairy tales, and this is seen in Perkins’ take as well.

The film establishes that Gretel is growing up in an environment that pits ugly repression against women, and she has little choice but to accept her place within it. Early on, she goes to interview for a housekeeper position with a man who grossly demeans her. As she expresses her distress about her family’s trouble with sickness and poverty, he raises his hand for silence.“You will do well to limit the number of words that come out of your mouth,” he tells her. He doesn’t wait too long to question her virginity, disgusting and angering Gretel. Her own mother responds with rage that Gretel would pass up the work opportunity. In the original fairy tale, it seems almost tame when the parents abandon their kids in the woods.

In this version, Gretel’s mother swings an axe into the dining room table as a warning should Gretel and Hansel stay any longer. Before she kicks her children out, she tells them to dig their “sweet, little graves,” and make a hole for their mother too. Weird vibes are rampant. You are watching a familiar story that you should recognize, but everything isn’t how you remembered it. Once the siblings try to find a new shelter by heading into the forest, this leads to the biggest update in the story. Before Nicolas Cage's creepy serial killer who is into rock ‘n’ roll and Devil worship, Alice Krige is charismatic and frightening as Holda, who takes a special interest in Gretel.

Holda shares a voracious appetite for human flesh like her Brothers Grimm counterpart. She glares at Hansel with her strange, black marble-like eyes as if she already imagines how she will feast on his meat and bones. But she doesn't live under a gingerbread roof in this adaptation. Homes can be nightmare fuel in the films by Osgood Perkins. Lee Harker’s (Maika Monroe) home in Longlegs has large windows that anyone or anything can peer through, with a hall lined with log siding that feels claustrophobic when Lee enters. The witch’s bizarre house doesn't conform to the medieval setting; it’s a sharp triangular shape, standing out among the traditional and drab stone dwellings. But Holda doesn’t just have cannibalism on her mind while she's inside. Upon realizing Gretel has powers, the witch becomes a mentor to the cautious girl. Gretel is a witch in the making, giving a new element to this fairy tale. Instead of treating her like a cackling hag, witchcraft in Gretel & Hansel is a source of power for women in a male-dominated world.

Witchcraft Is a Source of Power in 'Gretel & Hansel'

Besides Holda, the character that is treated more like a witch from gothic horror is a creepier, mysterious figure known as the Enchantress. Her existence is told in a story that Gretel remembers from childhood, about an Enchantress that can grant health to a sick baby but give the little child a dark gift of Second Sight. The figure has clawed hands and a face and body covered in black clothing, like a demented sense of fashion taken from American Horror Story: Coven. Men are powerful and corrupt in Gretel & Hansel, so it stands to reason if witchcraft can offer power to women, it can corrupt them as well. Holda tells Gretel she will be powerful, as long as she accepts her weakness and consumes it.

The only problem is the girl’s weakness holding her back is her brother. Anticipating Gretel's reluctance, Holda promises her the strength she desires, saying, “But the thing about poison is that out of everything in the big, bad world, nothing tastes as sweet." This film puts in the contemporary metaphor that witches have become, where magic allows women to gain power and control over their lives. Witch-centric stories in movies and TV have explored this, from The Craft and Suspiria to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Mayfair Witches.

In the world of Gretel & Hansel, physical strength and financial leverage are not at Gretel's disposal to defend herself. Because of this, it's no wonder why she is tempted to practice witchcraft to better her life. When Hansel is too formal upon meeting Holda, she retorts, “Missus? Think I’m married? See you a ball and chain at my heel?” When the boy mentions Gretel’s possible future in a convent, Holda scoffs, “I very much doubt that a convent is the place for a girl with action in her bones.” Witchcraft might offer the freedom Gretel wants, but it has a sinister cost. With the story from her perspective, you feel how much she wants to escape the demands of staying alive by being married to a man who relishes his control of her. But she doesn't want to become a child-eating witch either.

Before ‘Longlegs,’ Director Osgood Perkins Made This Fairy Tale

Composer ROB creates an otherworldly score that can be described as an “occult ambiance,” a constant reminder that Gretel can't walk away from the powers within her. The score brings a dark tone to the medieval countryside, which is suitable for a film where nighttime feels extra dark. Osgood Perkins does this in Longlegs with nocturnal scenes and shadows that daylight can’t overcome. When night falls for the young siblings in the forest, it’s like they are wandering through an abyss with only the small glow of a fire to light as far as their arms extend. There is a disconcerting feel to the realism depicted in the medieval countryside when the supernatural reveals itself.

The ending finds a new way to use Hansel’s imminent death if he isn't saved from a fiery oven to have Gretel come into her power, but that isn't to say the ending is hopeful. Gretel refuses to join Holda, but it might not be enough to keep her from turning murderous. While Gretel & Hansel isn’t for everyone, the dark fantasy is a "Grimm" horror gem that reinvents an already horrifying fairy tale. After experiencing Longlegs, this Brothers Grimm remake will let viewers dive further into the dark imagination that Osgood Perkins can put onscreen.

Gretel & Hansel is available to rent or buy on Amazon.

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