Movies
[Review] ‘Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters’
Walking into Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, I can honestly say my expectations were lower than the Mariana Trench. After all, it looked like another Van Helsing, which I fell asleep during watching in the theater. Imagine my surprise when I not only managed to stay awake throughout the film but I also had a pretty damn good time during it as well!
The basic plot of the film is that a grown up Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arteron) are a pair of witch hunters who travel the land taking jobs fighting and killing witches and other supernatural baddies. They arrive in a town where several children have been kidnapped and since all signs point to the culprits being witches the dynamic duo are hired.
What follows is a very straightforward story, one that doesn’t require any strenuous thought at all. In fact, you can probably shut off the vast majority of your brain, sit back, and just enjoy the ride because the story is really that simple. The dialogue is incredibly basic with almost no supernatural jargon (does anyone else think it ridiculous when characters speak in “fake” languages?), and yet there are some genuinely laugh-worthy moments.
Aside from a few jarring cuts to new scenes, the only real negative thing I have to say about this movie is that there is a rather glaring plot hole (SPOILER ALERT) in that they don’t realize that this job is in their hometown. They get quite surprised when they stumble across their old home and yet nothing in the beginning of the film (which shows the Hansel and Gretel/Gingerbread house story) indicates that there was any memory loss whatsoever. It’s rather odd and had me scratching my head a bit.
However, the movie offers a lot of positive qualities as well. The use of practical FX is fantastic, including a great deal of gore, some really nice witch makeup, and pretty awesome looking troll named Edward (Derek Mears). The set design is also well done although admittedly just over the top, giving everything a fairytale quality (which is rather appropriate). There is limited but necessary CGI when it comes to the set design, usually reserved for vistas and extreme wide shots.
The action sequences, of which there are many, are crisp, fun, and feel exciting and also allow for a good bit of physical comedy.
With movies like this, it’s interesting trying to decipher if they are horror or not. There isn’t a single scare in this film or even a moment where I felt any sense of suspense or impending fear. However, the visuals and atmosphere practically ooze everything a horror fan could want.
At the start of the movie, I was expecting a waste of my time. By the middle, I found myself with a grin on my face. By the end, I was hoping that there would be a sequel. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters isn’t a movie meant to scare or make you think but it is one of the most entertaining and enjoyable movies of its kind that I’ve seen in years.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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