Today in Hollywood remakes nobody asked for, we’ve got the official trailer for the 2020 retelling of classic German fairytale Hansel & Gretel, weirdly reversed to ‘Gretel & Hansel’.

Featured Image VIA

The tale was already remade back in 2012 with Jeremy Renner but it was pretty awful which is probably why you’ve never heard of it. The good news is that this version looks somewhat more promising if you’re a horror fan:

Here’s what the movie is about (via):

The story is described as being set a long time ago in a distant fairy tale countryside and focuses on a young girl (Sophia Lillis) who leads her little brother (Sam Leakey) into a dark wood in desperate search of food and work, only to stumble upon a nexus of terrifying evil.

And the premise of the original fairytale (via):

Hansel and Gretel are the children of a poor wood cutter. Fearing starvation, the wood cutter’s wife—the children’s step-mother—convinces him to lead the children into the forest, and abandon them there. Hansel and Gretel hear her plan, and gather white pebbles, to leave themselves a trail home. After their return, their stepmother again convinces the wood cutter to abandon them; this time however, they can only leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Unfortunately, the various animals of the woods eat their trail of breadcrumbs causing Hansel and Gretel to become lost.

Lost in the forest, they find a house made of bread (later versions call it gingerbread), with sugar windows, which they begin to eat. The inhabitant of the house, an old woman, invites them in and prepares a feast for them. The woman, however, is a witch who has built the house to entice children to her, so that she may fatten and eat them. She cages Hansel, and makes Gretel her servant. While she prepares to boil Hansel, she tells Gretel to climb into an oven to be sure it is ready to bake; but Gretel guesses that the witch intends to bake her, and tricks the witch into climbing into the oven, closing it behind her.

Taking jewels from the witch’s house, they set off for home to be reunited with their father, whose wife has since died. “Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together in perfect happiness.

So there’s an excellent plot to work with there, but somehow I don’t think it will be nearly as terrifying as the 1988 adaptation. Yikes:

So yeah, people might claim to be sick of Hollywood remakes and “new twists” on old classics but at the end of the day these are the movies people pay to go and enjoy. I remember the story of Hansel & Gretel from when I was a kid and am not particularly nostalgic about it, but I’m intrigued enough to check this out when it drops at the end of January.

More hyped for A Quiet Place part II though – now that’s definitely going to be worth a watch.