Twelfth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #14 Gretel & Hansel

 From director Oz Perkins - also director of The Blackcoat's Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House - comes the latest art house horror movie, Gretel & Hansel.  It isn't a strict retelling of the famous and gruesome Grimms fairytale but it is close:  Gretel (teenagerish, played by Sophia Lillis from IT) and her younger brother Hansel (annoying AF) flee their home after their mother descends into madness.  Ostensibly heading for a distant forestry encampment - Hansel dreams of being a woodcutter - they wind up at the house of an old woman (Alice Krige, very difficult to understand).  She takes them in and, in exchange for chores, feeds them from an abundance of delicious foods - despite there not being a garden or livestock anywhere nearby.  

Gretel, who may have second sight and who certainly has nightmares, begins learning herb craft from the witch (of course she's a witch) but becomes suspicious of the witch's intentions.  The old woman only wants to eat Hansel, however, and is trying to bring Gretel into her own witchy, womanly power.

This film is kind of a mess.  At 83ish minutes, it's either too short or too long.  The British-ish accents are all over the place and anachronisms abound (the witch's modern house, modern idioms).  It is gorgeous to look at, however, beautifully and unsettlingly shot, trippy and atmospheric.  It's slow, however, and really nothing much happens.  This is the third of Oz Perkins's horror-adjacent movies I've seen: atmospheric with nothing much happening seems to be his modus operandi.

That's it for this year.  I've been a little frustrated with finding good ( or even "good") horror movies to watch: the standard streaming services just don't offer much and a lot of what they do have is PG-13.  I've still got some DVDs in the queue, though, so maybe I'll come up with a hidden gem or two in the next couple of months.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to finish The 100, get caught up on The Great British Baking Show and start watching Squid Game.  Happy horror to you all!