Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

It is nice to have an occasional horror film that doesn’t try to pretend to be anything other than what it is. No high-minded art, no unforeseeable twists, no goddamn filming a Texan[1] story in Louisiana. In short, a movie that tells you everything you need to know right in the title and doesn’t skimp on a single drop and/or chunk of the gore.

For example, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. I mean, you know the fairy tale, right? And you know the genre of the movie? (Well, you maybe did not, but I have told you it, so now you do.) So, you now know everything about this movie. Let me prove it, by putting questions in your mouth.

1) “Are Hansel and Gretel a pair of siblings who make their living hunting and killing witches to save the people of medieval Europe from…. witches?” Wow, that kind of got away from you. Try being a little more planned and less off-the-cuff next time. However, to answer your question: yes! Yes they are and yes they do.

2) “Do they kill these witches in disgusting and effective ways that make you think they could never have been able to come up with such tools in real-life witch-infested medieval Europe, and do they crack wise with modern sensibilities in every line of dialogue along the way?” …I appreciate your taking my advice to heart, and also I’m growing impressed by your ability to glean fine points of detail from a movie title. Which is to say, again, yep, they sure do!

3) “No thanks, I’m good, that pretty well answers all of my questions.” I expected as much. So, um… huh. Didn’t really think about how awkwardly this would end the review. Maybe you could come up with more questions even so? Help a brother out here?

4) “Nope.” Well. Damn. This is because of that ‘kind of got away from you’ thing earlier, isn’t it?

5) “Yep.” …yeah. Fair enough.

[1] First person to mention Ed Gein gets chainsawed in the face.

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