Gretel and Hansel

Director: Oz Perkins
Year Released: 2020
Rating: 1.0

"Modern" adaptation of the Brothers Grimm story has Gretel (Sophia Lillis), a teenager, running off with her little brother Hansel (Sam Leakey) to the home of a creepy old woman named Holda, who feasts on kids.  What I'm guessing was supposed to be a 'feminist' approach to the source material (Gretel is propositioned and asked if she's 'pure,' the names in the title are flipped around) has little impact on the finished product since Perkins is solely focused on set design, camera movement and dragging scenes out needlessly instead of effective storytelling and pacing (which is a common problem among some of his peers, like Nicolas Winding Refn and Panos Cosmatos).  It's hard to get emotionally involved with characters when they merely exist to, like the audience, admire the (admittedly unsettling) scenery.